I watched a video from the SaveOurNet.ca folks and I was struck by a comment that followed a clip of Industry Minister Jim Prentice saying:

we have a well advanced internet system in this country, Mr. Speaker. It is not publicly regulated and this point in time we will continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and internet service providers on the other.

Steve Anderson (credited as the founder of SaveOurNet.ca) says

So the danger of that is that Canada could become the backwater of internet innovation because companies could move to the US because they know they have the open internet there.

He goes on to suggest that Canadian politicians and regulators are looking south to follow suit.

Actually, as I have written many times before, Canada already has stronger rules enshrined in our legislation than our neighbours to the south, something that keeps getting overlooked in our zeal to impose additional regulation on the internet.

There is an important concept in Anderson’s statement – the migration to the US. In the old economy, to move to another country, you packed up the office and people and moved bricks and mortar to a new place. In the internet world, you simply host your content on servers bearing a flag of convenience. Your developers may work around the world and come together in the ether of the virtual world.

Do most users have any idea where websites are physically located? Do they (or should they) care? A digital presence is at once global. As a content publisher, if you are anywhere, you are everywhere. As a result, there is global competition for hosting. If you don’t like the prices or terms and conditions being offered by Canadian ISPs, then host your stuff elsewhere.

Isn’t that competitive dynamic more powerful than any regulator?

Our friends at Arnold & Porter have released a paper [ pdf, 197KB] that looks at the “non-discrimination” and “network interconnection” obligations attached to the US broadband stimulus program. In particular, funding recipients are required to adhere to obligations at least as strong as those found in the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement [found here].

As we have written a number of times, the FCC’s 2005 policy statement is not particularly onerous by Canadian standards, which already captured these concepts in legislation in the Telecom Act. The A&P; paper raises some interesting questions, such as the potential for applicability of these obligations to wireless networks, in light of the fact that, to date, they have only been applied within the wireline context (ie. to telco and cable networks).

We have a session looking at Building Broadband at The 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit, taking place in June in Toronto. The session features the leaders of Barrett Xplore and Sasktel, companies that are profitably providing universal broadband in some of the most remote areas in Canada. In addition, Ian Collins of Cogeco Data Services and Derek Slater of Google will provide views of the role of fibre in urban residential and business broadband. Mike Dixon, of Motorola’s Wireless Networks group rounds out the panel.

Affordable, universal access to broadband service is an achievable goal. Accelerating its deployment delivers immediate jobs constructing the networks as well as the long term economic benefits of a more connected populace.

Early bird registration rates are available until the end of this week. Have you registered yet for The 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit?

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broadband, Canadian Telecom Summit

I saw a headline that reads “B.C. Government Voices Support for Net Neutrality” and the story describes one small aspect of a submission by Network BC to the CRTC’s network management proceeding.

It isn’t clear to me that Network BC’s view of net neutrality is really the same as the vision of many others in that camp.

If you actually read the submission [zip, 752 KB], you will see that Network BC advocates strict acceptable use policies.

acceptable use policies (“AUPs”) can be relied upon to monitor and police usage abuses…

AUPs should not be limited to infrastructure owners but are practices that should be adopted by all ISPs. AUPs are a practical way to manage traffic and maximize revenues.

Further, Network BC acknowledges that “Aggressive traffic shapers must continue to constrain traffic flows where their networks are not capable of handling increasing traffic demands.”

These two points – managing limited network facilities through traffic shaping and imposing AUPs – are hardly an unqualified endorsement of net neutrality principles.

Acceptable use policies imply that there are also unacceptable uses. How does one reconcile AUPs with the open and accessible network that Vinton Cerf describes as inviting and inducing creativity and innovation.

In fact, one might argue that deep packet inspection is simply a technology that polices AUPs without blocking traffic. As such, with a careful read of the filing, one might not conclude that Network BC’s submission voices support for the same type of net neutrality as advocated by others.

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Network BC, CRTC, network management

Many of the parties submitting comments in the CRTC’s network management proceeding have looked at flow control and suggested that this results in a form of control of the content of the telecommunications, in contravention of S.36 of the Telecom Act.

The Open Internet Coalition parses the language of that section, word for word – even looking at the French language version of the section to confirm its interpretation of the meaning.

Some of the parties suggest that delaying the completion of a file transfer, such as a movie could inhibit the use of the file for the intended purpose, such as entertainment for that evening.

Let’s look back to the old days of circuit switched telephonic voice communications to examine a metaphor for which S.36 also applied.

After all, the section was written in the predominantly voice pre-internet era.

Let me take you back to a time not so long ago…

Active network management was required to handle voice network congestion. Whether it was a weather related event, Mothers’ Day or other peak times, at times, the network could not handle the full load. Certain applications, such as radio station contest lines, would get choked during peak traffic loads.

Not all Mothers’ Day long distance calls got through. Sometimes, a percentage of capacity was reserved for other applications or users. Some callers experienced constrained capacity to allow incoming overseas calls to get through.

Various techniques would be employed to manage the traffic – some of them invoked on the fly – responding to conditions the best way the industry could. In some cases, no matter how many times you dialled the numbers you just couldn’t get through to Mom on Mothers’ Day. [As an aside, I remember that a colleague of mine – here is my shout out to you, Corrie – was the voice of the Windsor toll switch Mothers’ Day congestion announcement. She had wanted to say “For all of you who couldn’t be bothered to stay in touch all year long, shame on you…”]

When you couldn’t get through on Mothers’ Day, the meaning of your call the next week just wasn’t the same, but I don’t recall people arguing that this was a violation of S.36. A Mothers’ Day call on the following Monday is no longer a Mothers’ Day call.

There was no control of the content of your message to mom. No knowledge of what you wanted to say. No invasion of privacy. Simple re-prioritization of certain traffic because the network just couldn’t handle all of the offered load. And this was in the days of fully regulated monopoly telcos. No competitive long distance choice. No wireless alternatives. Our only competition came from Hallmark and the Post Office.

Maximizing utility of the network.

Skimming through the submissions, I enjoyed reading the views of some of the academics who suggest that over-provisioning is more effective than QOS or prioritizing certain types of traffic over others. Who do they think is going to pay for this over-provisioning?

We’ll have more to say about the submissions in the coming days.

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network management, CRTC

On Monday evening, many parties filed hundreds of pages of comments, supplemented by expert reports and consultant studies, in response to the CRTC’s call for comments in the network management proceeding.

In addition, another 285 comments had been filed electronically at the time of the writing of this posting.

These interventions add to the record created by the comments filed by the dozen or so ISPs that were named in the Public Notice.

The next step in the schedule for the proceeding is for the CRTC to decide on whether to ask additional questions of the intervenors and for them to file responses by the end of the month. Reply comments are schedule to get filed by April 30.

That would form the final paper record, prior to the commencement of an oral hearing on July 6.

The Commission’s schedule does not currently provide for a final round of comments following the oral proceeding. Yesterday, Bell filed an application asking for a final reply:

The Companies submit that parties must have the opportunity to address any issues or comments raised at the oral stage, particularly given the technical nature of this proceeding.

Their proposal calls for the final submission to be no more than 10 pages long submitted by July 17 – a week after the hearings are expected to conclude.