The CRTC got it right yesterday with its Decision on Bell’s network management, but then everyone proceeded to mismanage the communications.
Let’s be clear.
Notwithstanding what you may have read elsewhere, the CRTC fully endorsed:
- the claims by Bell that its network is congested during peak periods (see paragraph 29);
- that intensive use of P2P file-sharing applications could “result in network congestion and degrade the performance of Internet services for other end-users” (paragraph 30);
- that it is reasonable to assume that CAIP’s members end-users would generate traffic in a similar fashion (paragraph 31); and,
- that Bell established that some network measures are required to prevent its customers from using, or permitting to be used, P2P file-sharing applications so as to prevent fair and proportionate use by others of its network (paragraph 32).
Focus on this last citation with an eye to the statement in today’s National Post:
The decision closes one chapter in a long-awaited ruling that industry observers saw as a judgment on how fair Canada’s Internet is for consumers.
The Decision is an endorsement for fair use of the internet. The CRTC said that shared internet resources should not be hijacked by a minority of users, using an application that is not sensitive to latency. The CRTC found that network measures were required to prevent P2P file-sharing from harming the fair use of the network by others.
While some ill-informed observers try to draw a parallel to a different outcome with the FCC and Comcast, they conveniently neglect to say that Comcast was blocking applications, with no evidence of their actions being tied to managing their network. No action was taken to target video streaming, other than to enhance it.
Let’s get the facts right. This decision was for a consumer friendly internet.
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CRTC, net neutrality