Since Rogers doesn’t act on the content of its internet customers, and consistently has said that they don’t want to do that, I have no idea why Michael Geist took it upon himself to implicate them in such a practice.
In his post yesterday, he cited an Ottawa Citizen story about the CRTC’s New Media hearings that are underway.
In his article yesterday, Geist wrote:
Net neutrality is frequently re-characterized as “network management,” with ISPs arguing that they should be able to manage their networks in a manner that distinguishes between certain applications (and potentially content).
He added those three words in parentheses – “and potentially content” – in order to make the ISPs argument fit with the emotions he wanted to whip up. Enough already. Could someone please provide the citation that supports this allegation?
Which ISP argued that they should be able to manage their network in a manner that distinguishes between content? I haven’t seen that argument put forward by any of the ISPs, so please help me find the reference. I have read the major ISPs submissions and I didn’t find that argument anywhere so please, please help me out here.
Although Geist tried to suggest that there is an inconsistency in Rogers’ positions set out in the New Media proceeding versus those stated in the Network Management proceeding, it is only manifested by the addition of words in parentheses that never came from Rogers.
The quote in the Citizen article was clear:
“We’re a dumb pipe,” says Ken Engelhart, senior vice-president of regulatory for Rogers Corp. “We don’t know what you’re downloading . . . so how can we be responsible for the content?”
That position has been consistent in everything I have seen from Rogers. For that matter, no Canadian ISP that I know of manages traffic based on the content, no matter how many times people suggest that they could. Canadian law already prohibits this.
If anything, inconsistencies show up in the net neutrality position set out by Geist. Recall that he proposed that ISPs should discriminate on the basis of the national origin of internet content and treat Canadian content differently. His perspective was a surprise to those who believe that our existing net neutrality laws are correct in saying ISPs have no business looking at and acting on the content being carried on their networks.
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Michael Geist, CRTC, new media
Which ISP argued that they should be able to manage their network in a manner that distinguishes between content? I haven’t seen that argument put forward by any of the ISPs, so please help me find the reference. I have read the major ISPs submissions and I didn’t find that argument anywhere so please, please help me out here.
Two disclaimers:
– It’s been a while since I read the full document, so these comments could very well be taken out of context. But I recall the theme of the document arguing that ISPs should be allowed to do such a thing, so long as the base-level internet experience is still offered.
– Craig is very clear that these arguments are his own, and not of his employer, TELUS. But it’s not difficult to read between the lines when he’s putting out documents with the same themes with TELUS’ name on them (see New Media or CAIP v. Bell submissions.
Some commentators have argued that ISPs should not be allowed to sell services that enhance the performance of particular content and application providers’ products on the ISP’s network. However, so long as such offerings are generally available to content and application providers and do not derogate from the ability of customers to access and use the legal Internet content and applications of their choice, there is no good reason to prohibit them.
To the contrary, there are good reasons why these kinds of value-added services should be encouraged. As noted above, it is a myth that all Internet traffic is equal, such that a rule that purports merely to codify the status quo would do no such thing. Content and application providers with the means to do so can already significantly improve the relative performance of their properties over those of other providers. For example, Google has invested significant capital in distributed server farms and telecommunications links to bring its servers closer to its customers, and hence to reduce response times.34 If an ISP can offer other, smaller providers services that enable similar advantages at a fraction of the cost, so that they may compete with the Googles of the Internet world, and doing so does not prevent customers from accessing and using the legal Internet content and applications of their choice, why should such commercial arrangements be prohibited?
Which ISP argued that they should be able to manage their network in a manner that distinguishes between content? I haven’t seen that argument put forward by any of the ISPs, so please help me find the reference. I have read the major ISPs submissions and I didn’t find that argument anywhere so please, please help me out here.
See http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1127203
(page 22)
Two disclaimers:
– It’s been a while since I read the full document, so these comments could very well be taken out of context. But I recall the theme of the document arguing that ISPs should be allowed to do such a thing, so long as the base-level internet experience is still offered.
– Craig is very clear that these arguments are his own, and not of his employer, TELUS. But it’s not difficult to read between the lines when he’s putting out documents with the same themes with TELUS’ name on them (see New Media or CAIP v. Bell submissions.
Some commentators have argued that ISPs should not be allowed to sell services that enhance the performance of particular content and application providers’ products on the ISP’s network. However, so long as such offerings are generally available to content and application providers and do not derogate from the ability of customers to access and use the legal Internet content and applications of their choice, there is no good reason to prohibit them.
To the contrary, there are good reasons why these kinds of value-added services should be encouraged. As noted above, it is a myth that all Internet traffic is equal, such that a rule that purports merely to codify the status quo would do no such thing. Content and application providers with the means to do so can already significantly improve the relative performance of their properties over those of other providers. For example, Google has invested significant capital in distributed server farms and telecommunications links to bring its servers closer to its customers, and hence to reduce response times.34 If an ISP can offer other, smaller providers services that enable similar advantages at a fraction of the cost, so that they may compete with the Googles of the Internet world, and doing so does not prevent customers from accessing and using the legal Internet content and applications of their choice, why should such commercial arrangements be prohibited?
Cheers,
Robert Hester
Ned –
I haven’t confused “don’t”, “can’t” or “won’t”.
The codifying you want is already in place in Canada – something that is lacking in the US. Sometimes I wonder if our net neutrality advocates have a cause in search of a problem, refusing to accept that we are ahead of our neighbours to the south. A case of “conflict envy”.
Read Section 36 of the Telecom Act: Except where the Commission approves otherwise, a Canadian carrier shall not control the content or influence the meaning or purpose of telecommunications carried by it for the public.
So ISPs don’t mess with the content and the law says they can’t without prior approval by the CRTC. So they won’t.
I wrote a posting about this a couple years ago. I have a car that can go through stop signs. I don’t, even though I can. And we already have laws that ensure I won’t without risking a date in court.
Too easy, Mark.
http://torrentfreak.com/virgin-media-ceo-says-net-neutrality-is-a-load-of-bollocks-080413/
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/net-neutrality-defeated-house-vote,2924.html
Yes, I know they are not Canadian examples. Doesn’t change the fact that ISPs are already arguing for this, and NN advocates are extremely wary of this possibility.
Also, it is impossible to completely separate the medium from the message. Content, source, and distribution method are all intricately linked. How long do you think it will be until Bell begins to identify ‘illegal’ traffic across its network, and ‘manages’ their network by blocking said content?
First off – neither article speaks of managing traffic based on looking at the content. Simply mentioning the word “content” in the article doesn’t cut it. Managing traffic based on originator, application, destination are different from managing based on content.
Secondly, we both know that there is illegal content blocking going on – in the form of Cleanfeed. Not management – outright blocking – any issues with that?
Does anyone have anything other than innuendo to actually contradict the statement I made. The comments seem to be supporting my thesis that people are putting words in Rogers’ mouth and then claiming that they are contradicting themselves.
Mark,
With respect, did you read the article?
Yes, Rob. I did.
I see references to content providers – meaning based on origination of content. As I said, that is not the same as giving Celine Dion videos on bittorrent a pass while throttling ACDC. That would be management based on content.
Mark, we disagree over semantics. You can’t separate content from its source. Prioritizing CBC traffic over CTV traffic necessarily prioritizes CBC content over CTV content. Degrading BitTorrent traffic degrades content hampers content distributed by BitTorrent.
As for Cleanfeed – you contradict yourself, Mark. You call this ‘content blocking’, but it is in fact ‘source blocking’ according to your separation. It uses blacklisted IPs and URLs, not inspection of content. You demonstrate the inherent impossibility of separating source from content.
To answer your question, however, yes I have problems with Cleanfeed. I understand the need to combat such highly offensive and illegal content, but scope creep is in human nature.
My point on the content blocking was not the same point as the earlier point about network management (which does not block content).
This isn’t a semantic issue. There is an important distinction between origination and content. Managing traffic based on whether it comes from one site versus another is “origination”; managing based on whether the traffic payload happens to be a particular singer or music group file or stream, regardless of which site hosts it – that is what I would consider to be “content based”.
Would that be a fair distinction? Can we at least agree that there are different issues that should be explored?
I can see the distinction you are trying to make, Mark. I can also see that it is not possible to draw a clean line between them. Your own previous comment showed the inherent relationship between content and origin.
I will happily acknowledge that content management is a complex, multi-faceted issue, and there are many important distinctions to be made.