Earlier today, a couple of us were talking about things people consider free that aren’t really free at all.

“Free drinks” at your all-inclusive vacation really means pre-paid drinks. “Free evenings and weekends” on your mobile phone means that you paid for those minutes as part of your calling plan.

Free services are a core business model for many internet companies.

Following up on my posting from a little over a week ago, Hal Niedzviecki has a review of Chris Anderson’s book in the Saturday Globe and Mail.

The review points out that there is always a cost to free.

This should be on the curriculum starting in kindergarten: Free isn’t free because, kiddies, in corporate North America there is no such thing as a free lunch. If there’s one flaw in this book, it’s that Anderson spends too little time addressing the social costs of this rapidly emerging free economy.

How do we reconcile the way we are paying for ad-supported services? What kinds of events could trigger a backlash against the willingness of so many to pay with intangible currencies such as personal privacy?

Brad Fox testified on Wednesday in front of the CRTC this week that his Sick Kids Couchathon was throttled by Bell last November.

Various news media have picked up the story, including Tech Media and CBC.

Why is this the first we have heard about it, more than 7 months after the event? What is the real story?

Even on his own blog and the official event blog, immediately following the event, Fox didn’t say anything about throttling or resets.

In fact, on the Couchathon website, he wrote:

In the fog of “the day after” I’m left with nothing but warm feelings, and cool memories

Exhaustion and fat fingers on an untested platform could have also come into play. The opening clip speaks about technical challenges experienced at the beginning.

Fox said that he was losing 2-300 people each time the server (uStream.tv) needed to be reset, representing about 5% of the audience – that puts the audience at about 5-6000 people. CBC says that the losses occurred between 3 and 4am, which means that people going to sleep could also explain the loss of viewers.

The telethon generated $5500.

While it is convenient to blame ISP traffic throttling, there are a lot of other potential points of failure, including the originating PC and the serving application.

As the Chairman stated on Wednesday in respect of other accusations of misdeeds:

If you have specific evidence, why don’t you use the provisions of the law? Why don’t you make a complaint under section 27(2) and say, here there is undue preference, there is predatory conduct, rather than here in a policy hearing?

Why was this week’s policy hearing the first time we have heard of this problem?

I don’t think we have seen enough evidence on this story.

Talk about irony.

CIPPIC’s tweeting of the CRTC’s network management proceeding got throttled. Not by its ISP, but by Twitter itself!

As CIPPIC wrote on the National Post live blog at 11:44:

Heh “Wow, that’s a lot of Twittering! You have reached your limit of updates for the hour. Try again later.” CIPPIC got twitter throttled 😛

Unclear to me where Twitter is transparent in its Terms of Service as to what constitutes limits on updates.

I can’t wait to see the regulatory complaint on this one.

Net neutrality can kill investment in broadband, according to a must-read commentary by Financial Post editor Terence Corcoran.

He says that what we need is more investment in broadband, not more rules that inhibit capital spending.

The CRTC got this right the first time. Moving now to force Bell and the other firms to shape their businesses to meet the demands of people who want a piece of the action or who have fantasy views of the Internet as a public utility can only divert industry attention and resources away from market solutions and efficient development of new broadband services to reduce congestion.

He uses a swimming pool metaphor, perhaps in hopes of more summer-like weather.

Read the full column.

Just days after Bell Aliant announced fibre to the home in the two largest communities in New Brunswick, Rogers released word of two innovations for its customers.

First, Rogers is launching an N-series wireless router, integrated into its new DOCSIS 3.0 modems. It becomes the first company in North America to offer this device.

Secondly, Rogers announced that beginning next month, it will be offering a 50Mbps service, initially in the greater Toronto area, but getting rolled out further.

With Canada’s three major cable companies offering speeds of 50Mbps and more, the pressure is on the telephone companies to respond.