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CRTC Hearings Examine Canada’s Internet Service Providers

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Starting today, the CRTC is holding meetings in Gatineau, Quebec, to examine how Internet service providers, notably Bell and Rogers, manage and manipulate traffic on the Internet and whether this is in accordance with the Telecommunications Act. Their current “traffic shaping” practices include throttling, deep packet inspection, and putting download limits or extra charges on high bandwidth users.

There are a number of arguments against their current practice:

  • smaller ISPs who buy bandwidth from Bell and resell it should be allowed to decide how to manage their own traffic, that the current practice is anti-competitive
  • ISPs should not act as gatekeepers to what people download
  • current practices discriminate against the downloading of certain types of data
  • current practices dissuade investment, thereby reducing consumer choice
  • hinders freedom of expression
  • deep packet inspection could be an invasion of privacy

CBC’s webpage “Internet speed control faces scrutiny at CRTC hearings” has a great write-up of the issues and summary of the various groups scheduled to speak at the hearings. For the full agenda, see the CRTC page. The hearings are scheduled to conclude on Monday, July 13th.

Related posts on Slaw:

Deep Packet Inspection (April 7, 2009)
CRTC Net Neutrality Comments (Feb. 25, 2009)
CRTC Deadline to Comment re: Net Neutrality is Today (Feb. 23, 2009)
CRTC New Media Hearings Underway (Feb. 18, 2009)
CRTC Rejects Internet “Throttling” Complaint (Nov. 20, 2008)
CRTC Announces Hearings on New Media (Oct. 16, 2008)
Protecting Canada’s Open Internet (June 23, 2008)
Net Neutrality Rally (May 26, 2008)
Shaping Canadian Web Access Revisited (March 31, 2008)
When It All Goes Peer Shaped (March 26, 2008)
For all you do, this law’s for you (Sept. 19, 2007)
Net Neutrality (Sept. 11, 2007)
Net Neutrality Again (Feb. 23, 2007)
Net Neutrality Panel Discussion – Ottawa – Feb. 6th (Jan. 10, 2007)
Net Neutrality – The Debate Continues (June 4, 2006)
Net Neutrality (March 19, 2006)

Comments

  1. Bruce Best
    July 6th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    On the issue of deep packet inspection, I’m curious how many firms actually use (or try to use) encrypted email. Seems like an obvious thing law firms should do, but as far as I know it is uncommon. Does anyone here use encrypted email in their firm?

  2. Simon Chester
    July 6th, 2009 at 7:02 pm

    My experience is that it is always a question on RFPs where in the technology section, firms are asked whether they support it.
    Once the answer is given, it’s remarkable that the clients and law firms both largely behave as if the issue had never been raised, since they both fear it will get in the way of communication.

  3. Bruce Best
    July 7th, 2009 at 8:34 am

    I see the same question was asked by “Andrew” commenting on Jordan Furlong’s law21.ca blog post from last year, The last days of e-mail, and I’m inclined to agree with his thought “The reason the majority of email is still not encrypted is because it requires some effort on the part of both the sender and receiver to implement.” Because encryption is not ‘standard’, particularly for individual clients it would generally involve the lawyer having to become the techie for their clients as well.