Yesterday’s forum on net neutrality in Ottawa brought together some of the voices on both sides of the issue from both sides of the border.
An important observation was that the Canadian legislative regime is very different from that in the United States.
One of the US-based net neutrality advocates said that Canada is “years ahead of the US from a regulatory perspective.” The American participants observed that the major Canadian ISPs are carriers as well and as such are subject to regulatory oversight. The luncheon speaker questioned why anyone would want to discourage experimentation in the way services are packaged for consumers – the implication being that this is a likely outcome with regulatory intervention.
Of course, there was some confusion in their terminology and some kept saying that in Canada, ISPs are considered to be common carriers – which is not true; only some of the ISPs happen to be carriers. Resellers are still ISPs, but are not carriers.
There were a few other areas that need to be examined further.
Some people bemoaned the lack of competitive choice of ISPs, suggesting that we cannot rely on market forces to discipline network misbehaviour by some ISPs. A specific question was asked if a carrier would accept net neutrality obligations in a monopoly situation, with a suggestion that this exists for 15-20% of all of Canada.
Of course, the premise is not sound. There are very, very few places where only one provider is an option. Satellite service is an alternative, as are the resellers. Further, we have a regime that enables ISPs and CLECs to lease loops and install their own DSLAMs.
I have written before about HSPA being used for fixed broadband applications. The current advertising campaigns and wireless data plans in the market seem to point to mobile becoming a genuine substitute for residential broadband.
How can we say that there are broadband service monopolies?