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The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has reportedly partnered with researchers to launch a website that tells Canadians whether their internet service provider is looking at what applications they use – and which applications they “need” to slow down.

Jesse Brown, host of TVO’s internet-focused podcast Search Engine, always teaches me things I’d never learn from mainstream media and his latest episode, Deep Packet Inspection, is no exception.

The episode focusses on the new website www.deeppacketinspection.ca that, among other things, tells Canadians whether their internet service provider (ISP) uses Deep Packet Inspection technology or DPI. ISPs use DPI to look at what applications people are using to decide which ones they might need to “manage” or “throttle”.  The ISPs say they have to do this to, for example, stop people who download things using BitTorrent applications from slowing things down for everyone else.  Sounds noble but the problem is that the ISPs won’t provide proof to back up their “need-to-throttle” claims saying all that info are trade secrets. This tends to supports critics’ assertions, so far unsupported by concrete proof, that the real reason ISPs throttle is to slow down applications that compete with their services (i.e. throttle people downloading movies with BitTorrent so they opt for the easier option of the ISP’s own video on demand service).

In the DPI Search Engine episode one of the researchers behind the DPI website, University of Victoria Political Science PhD candidate Christopher Parsons, reveals that Videotron, the huge Quebec-based ISP, doesn’t use DPI. They manage their network using other methods. So if Videotron can do it why can’t Rogers and Bell? Maybe someone from Rogers and Bell will go on Search Engine and tell us – but somehow I doubt it.

Check out if your ISP is throttling and let us all know by leaving a comment.

Note: Jesse and Parsons talk openly about the the website being a partnership with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada but I couldn’t find anything about it on the commission’s website.

Tags: Net Neutrality, Throttling
Posted in Net Neutrality, Throttling | 1 Comment »

The US Federal Communications Commission took a strong step in favour of net neutrality this week by launching OpenInternet.gov designed as “a place to join the discussion about the free and open Internet.” The post on the WhiteHouse blog, a letter from FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, says the Commission will become “the smart cop on the beat when it comes to preserving a free and open Internet”, and the Commission proposes two new rules to help achieve this:

1) that broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications

2) that broadband providers must be transparent about their network management practices

I hope the commissioners at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) are checking their blog feeds as they ponder their decision on the network throttling hearing the Commission held this past July.

Posted in Net Neutrality | No Comments »

In my last post I encouraged people to get involved in the upcoming CRTC hearings into net throttling by big Internet service providers. So, wouldn’t it be cool to have a tool that told you whether your provider is throttling you? Well, thanks to none other than Google there is now such a tool. Jesse Brown of the great CBC podcast, Search Engine, reported in a recent episode that Google had partnered with a small group of academics to, according to Google’s blog post, "advance network research and provide users with tools to test their broadband connections". The result is Measurement Lab that provides three tools that allow Internet users to do just that. One of them, called Glastnost, tests whether your Internet provider is blocking or throttling BitTorrent. People use BitTorrent to download things like movies and TV programs and is one of the programs that Bell Canada cites as part of its justification for throttling. Bell says that BitTorrent users slow things down for everyone else – a claim that is hotly disputed. (Jesse covered this on recent Search Engine episode).

So, go ahead and put your provider to the test – and tell the CRTC what you think about it.

Posted in CRTC, Net Neutrality | No Comments »

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) will be holding two important public hearings related to the Net in the next few months. The first will examine Canadian broadcasting in new media, the second will look at network throttling by Internet service providers (ISPs). (One of the cool things about living in Ottawa is I am one of the relatively few Canadians who can actually attend public hearings held across the river at the CRTC’s Gatineau, Quebec headquarters).

The first hearing, which starts February 17th, will look at the following questions among others:

I. Defining broadcasting in new media
II. The significance of broadcasting in new media and its impact on the Canadian broadcasting system
III. Are incentives or regulatory measures necessary or desirable for the creation and promotion of Canadian broadcasting content in new media?
IV. Are there issues concerning access to broadcasting content in new media?

The deadline for comments has passed but don’t let that stop you because, until March 27, the Commission is accepting replies to comments they’ve already  received. Check out the hearing posting for details.

The second hearing titled, Review of the Internet traffic management practices of Internet service providers, starts July 6 and will see the commission:

(i) examine the Internet traffic management practices which have been, or may be, adopted by ISPs; and

(ii) pronounce on whether such practices are consistent with the [Telecommunications] Act, and whether any measures are required to ensure that such practices are in accordance with the Act.

The CRTC hearing notice says that, "Members of the public who wish merely to file written comments in this proceeding, without receiving copies of the various submissions, may do so by filing such comments with the Commission by 16 February 2009". People can do this at an address or fax number provided in the notice, or by filling out an online form."

So, for anyone who has ever complained about what the CRTC has or has not done with our tax money this is your chance to make your voice heard.

Posted in Broadcasting, Net Neutrality | No Comments »

I was all set to write a post about the CRTC’s decision to let Bell continue slowing down internet traffic for its retail customers and internet service providers but then I found that Michael Geist had written my post for me. Give his post a read because this means Bell can continue to slow down, or throttle, peer-to-peer traffic from applications like BitTorrent and Skype, in the name of “managing congestion”. Critics say they’re really doing it because they want to slow down applications that deliver things that compete with their products. People use BitTorrent to download movies that compete with Bell’s video-on-demand service and Skype calls compete with Bell’s core phone services.

Based on info revealed in reports about the decision, the critics’ arguments have credibility. The CBC reported that “much of the data detailing the level of congestion on Bell’s network was filed with the CRTC in private. The regulator has not released that information at Bell’s request, which cites competitive reasons for the private disclosure.” The report also says that “Net neutrality advocates questioned…the suitability of commissioners at the regulator and the Competition Bureau, some of whom have worked in Bell’s regulatory affairs department.”

The CRTC did commit to address the issue of net neutrality and network management in a formal proceeding in July 2009 – but Bell can sell a lot of movies and phone calls between now and then…

Posted in Net Neutrality | No Comments »

On Tuesday, May 27th about 200 folks, including those below, gathered on Parliament Hill for a rally to demand the Canadian federal government take action to keep the Net free and open.

Speakers included members of parliament, Internet service provider reps, union leaders and Internet advocacy groups. They told the crowd that net neutrality was about keeping the net free and open and not letting the big telephone and cable companies start invading people’s privacy by looking at the content people are sending and slowing down or blocking things that compete with content the companies want to sell them. Charlie Angus, New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament and the party’s digital spokesperson, spoke and held up a private members bill on net neutrality that he said he would introduce in Parliament the next day – which he did. According to the CBC story on the bill,

"The four-page bill seeks to amend the Telecommunications Act and "prohibit network operators from engaging in network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination, subject to certain exceptions."

Now, the net neutrality issue, like so many, isn’t as simple as advocates on both sides would suggest so I find you have to do your homework to understand it. A great place to start is this net neutrality wikipedia entry. But I have to say, the more I learn, the more I find net neutrality advocates most credible on the issue. For example, according to the Radio-Canada tech show/podcast, Carnet Techno (third story on page), Bell just launched a video-on-demand (VOD) service that’s second in size only to Microsoft XBox’s VOD system. This lends credibility to advocates’ claims that Bell is throttling peer-to-peer traffic because it wants to make it easier for folks to subscribe to their VOD service rather than downloading movies using BitTorrent.

Carnet Techno, (which I would highly recommend to those who speak French), also reported that the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), after initially denying the request by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) to force Bell and Rogers to stop throttling peer-to-peer traffic, has now asked Bell to give detailed explanations about its justification for traffic shaping.

Liberal MP, Mauril Belanger also spoke – but not clearly enough for me to really understand his position on net neutrality – the perfect Liberal. However, he did say two clear things I really liked. One was that he wanted to especially make sure the CBC was not throttled by the big ISPs. Second, he made the link between net neutrality and climate change. He said that free or cheap videoconferencing was one of the things that a free Internet had made possible and that this was good the environment because it allowed company employees to travel less.

So what’s next on this issue? Well, as Wayne MacPhail reported in his May 22 rabble.ca column, "In mid-May the CRTC decided not to offer CAIP interim or immediate relief from throttling. Instead, it launched a public inquiry into the throttling issue. CAIP and Bell-Sympatico both have until May 29 to give the CRTC comments for the inquiry. The rest of us have until June 21 to respond."

Join the conversation folks.

For more from the rally see this great CBC story.

Click here to hear the speeches I recorded and loaded on the rabbletv YouTube channel.

Posted in Net Neutrality | No Comments »

I love the CBC and think they generally do amazing work – with the glaring exception of the phone-in segment on Internet traffic shaping on last Tuesday’s Ontario noon radio show Ontario Today. Traffic shaping is Bell’s recently revealed practice of “throttling“, or slowing down, service to people using file sharing applications like BitTorrent to download large files like movies.

The piece was framed as the question: “Internet bandwidth hogs: should they pay more?” Now who would say “no” to that question? The problem is that the debate is about much more than that. But it seemed like CBC said to Bell Canada: tell us how you’d like the debate framed and that’s how we’ll frame it. So we got a show about the “debate” around whether “bandwidth hogs” should pay more. Bandwidth hogs, like those using BitTorrent, explained the representative from Bell Canada who was the first interview on the show, are slowing things down for everyone else. Bell was, therefore, slowing down the service of people using such “high bandwidth applications” during peak hours due to customer complaints. Seems reasonable right?

Wrong. The CBC let Bell spin the debate away from the real issues. First, host Rita Celli, obviously ill prepared for the interview, didn’t challenge the Bell rep’s claim that what they were doing was in response to customer complaints by simply asking: where’s the proof? She also didn’t question the fact that Bell’s way of dealing with “bandwidth hogs” was targeting “high bandwidth applications”. This is like the police dealing with speeders by targeting a certain type of “high speed car”. The problem is not the type of car or application it’s the behaviour of the people using them and that’s what should be targeted. But Bell isn’t targeting individual behaviour because that’s not the real issue. The real issue is more likely that Bell doesn’t want people downloading for free what it can sell them – namely movies and TV shows – which Bell’s parent company, BCE, sells through CTV and the specialty channels it partly owns.

The real issue is net neutrality but that was only mentioned once, if that, during the interview. There was also only passing reference to the increasing demand for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to step in and stop Bell from doing what’s it’s doing through regulation.

I am not disappointed by CBC often but I was this time by them allowing Bell to frame this issue exactly as Bell wanted. I will be encouraging everyone I know who is concerned about net neutrality to monitor the CBC and make sure that future discussion of the issue deals with all angles of the debate – not just those that Bell wants to talk about.

Posted in Mainstream media, Net Neutrality | 1 Comment »

Just read a post on Slashdot that raised a scary angle to Bell’s throttling, (i.e. slowing down), of Internet speed to people using file sharing software like Bittorrent – including CBC’s distribution of its program Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister via the software. It said: “It seems rather convenient that Bell, who own a shit load of TV stations across the country, happen to be messing with CBC, their competition…”

“Goldberg’s Pants”, who wrote the post, could be on to something. Bell’s parent company, BCE, owns 15% of CTVglobemedia which owns CTV. CTV Inc. owns and operates 27 conventional TV stations across the country, with interests in 35 specialty channels, including Canada’s #1 specialty channel, TSN (Perhaps they’ll need to create a new penalty on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada just for Bell: a game misconduct for “Throttling”). CTVglobemedia also owns the CHUM Radio Division, which operates 35 radio stations throughout Canada, including CHUM FM (Mmm…I think it’s time to set up a Google Alert for “Bell + throttle + CBC radio”).

What the post doesn’t mention is that the throttling policy comes just after the recent CRTC approval of the sale of BCE to private interests….Now, it’s not clear if there’s any connection but one thing is clear: net neutrality, as Michael Geist recently wrote, may now finally become a central issue for Canadians. The folks at the Campaign for Democratic Media aren’t leaving this to chance however. They’re spearheading a campaign to get Canada to adopt legislation to stop Bell Canada from throttling – and I’m signing up.

Posted in CRTC, Mainstream media, Net Neutrality | No Comments »

The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) today issued a press release asking the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to investigate “traffic shaping” by Bell Canada. NUPGE found that Bell is planning on “throttling” Internet access for people using file sharing software like Bit Torrent during peak hours. It’s not 100% clear what they mean by “throttling” except it sure as hell doesn’t mean “speed up”.

This is huge. This is exactly what the folks on the left who have been arguing for net neutrality have been saying was going to happen. I laid out my understanding of the net neutrality debate in a previous post. Here’s the meat of it:

The Left says: it’s about the big telco and cable companies wanting to make even more money by giving fast service to those who pay and slow service to those who don’t.

The Right says: it’s about companies like Google using the cloak of internet freedom to get free access to the telco and cable company networks to make loads of cash.

I guess the left wins that debate and I fully support their position which is laid out beautifully in this video from the group Savetheinternet.

The NUPGE release includes a link to their recent report The Internet: accessibility and net neutrality. I encourage everyone to read this and to input to the CRTC public hearings on net regulation which will be happening this year. Subscribe to the CRTC newsfeed to find out when.

Posted in CRTC, Net Neutrality, Regulation | No Comments »

My understanding of the net neutrality debate is this;

The Left says: it’s about the big telco and cable companies wanting to make even more money by giving fast service to those who pay and slow service to those who don’t.

The Right says: it’s about companies like Google using the cloak of internet freedom to get free access to the telco and cable company networks to make loads of cash.

Well, I have to say the left is doing a better job of getting their message out. Check out this excellent video:

Posted in Net Neutrality | No Comments »