I am going to guess that every one of us has thought of saying something to a customs or immigration official and then held back, because we figured we could wait until our next doctor’s appointment for the response that might ensue.

Last Wednesday was an interesting day at the BDU hearings, with Shaw in the morning and a panel in the afternoon that included Channel Zero, The Fight Network, High Fidelity HDTV and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.

When preparing their comments, the folks at High Fidelity HDTV acknowledged that their written comments were written in a stream of consciousness.

Sometimes the mood in which you write depositions like this is not the mood in which you deliver it.

While they cleaned up some of the language from their prepared written version, they didn’t stop to think about how a series of lines like the following would be received, especially when the Commissioners were reading along with the original version in front of them:

We think there are many areas in which the Commission is remarkably in the dark…

The CRTC chair listened patiently and finally responded:

Each time you make a submission to us, it is more abrasive and more offensive. To be called shamefully in the dark, woefully ‑‑ I’m failing to understand, et cetera.

You can obviously say that, but in my hearing and that of the Commission, our willingness to accede to your arguments does not increase with the level of attacks that we receive from you. I have no problem with you saying that we are wrong, et cetera, but I think that kind of language is uncalled for.

I think our mothers tried to teach us to remember our manners. It is reasonable advice for all of us who participate in public proceedings. Read it over again in the morning and stop to think about how the message will be received.

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CRTC

The Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) has filed its reply to Bell’s answer to its application to the CRTC asking for Bell Canada to be ordered to provide their customers with un-managed internet access service.

Michael Geist suggests that the reply pulls no punches and adds a few “new allegations.”

I am not going to get into the merits of one set of arguments versus the other. Read the file with a critical eye.

There was a better approach to resolve a technical interconnection issue in an expedited fashion. But, the process is now what it is.

We’ll be looking at all aspects of net neutrality at a special session at The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit on June 18.

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Bell, CRTC, CAIP, Canadian Telecom Summit

This is blog posting number 1000 for me. One thousand pieces of my mind in just over two years.

Back in February 2006, I launched this blog with a piece entitled “It’s a start“.

I quickly followed up with a posting about the newly released Decision from the CRTC on the Deferral Account and another posting later that evening that described the public notice on the telemarketing Do Not Call List. Who would have thought that two years later, both of those proceedings continue to provide fodder for this site – DNCL scheduled to be implemented later this year and the recent Commission, court and cabinet appeals for the deferral account’s followup Decision 2008-1.

Thank you for your loyal readership, your comments, your calls and email messages. Thank you to itWorld for recognizing this site as one of Canada’s top 10 technology blogs.

Thanks as well for visiting the advertisers and thereby supporting my caffeine addiction. The cheques buy me a bag of good espresso beans each month.

I hope I can continue to provoke you to come back for perspectives, musings and every so often, a little entertainment.

One thousand pieces. Not a bad start.

I have been troubled by the allegation that the use of deep packet inspection for network management purposes by Internet Service Providers is an invasion of privacy. The issue arises in the dispute over traffic shaping of customers of one of Bell’s wholesale shared internet access products.

One commentator says that CAIP “rightly” notes that a privacy violation arises since there is no contractual relationship between Bell and the customers of the independent ISPs. CAIP’s application said:

By examining the packet data and packet header information of GAS customer traffic, Bell can identify, inter alia, the type of data being transferred, the ISP upon whose network the data is being transferred, an end-user’s intention to acquire certain types of Internet content and the IP address and, hence, the identity of the end-user customer who is sending/receiving the data. The collection and use of such information by Bell, which in this case would have clearly been done without the prior consent of the end-user customers so affected, violates the privacy of such individuals.

It seems to me that the privacy complaint is predicated on carriers actually collecting and using individual information. But all of the statements seem to indicate that carriers don’t actually use any personal information. The DPI technology looks at packets and treat all packets associated with certain applications equally. The network management is non-discriminatory on an individual level.

Isn’t this precisely why traffic shaping has impacted both legitimate and inappropriate file transfers without differentiation?

Is this any different from compression technologies that were historically used in long distance telephone networks? Such technologies looked at the nature of the traffic and applied appropriate compression algorithms based on whether the call was fax, voice, dial-up data, broadcast audio, etc.

Think of enforcement of high occupancy vehicle lanes during peak traffic periods. The police can quickly look in the windows to see if there are 2 or more passengers in the car without pulling over the car, determining where the people are from, where they are going, who is in the car, the purpose of the trip, etc.

We can have an intellectual discussion about the rights of service providers to manage their networks and the methods that may or may not be appropriate. But, the invasion of privacy claim set out by CAIP makes little sense and serves to create noise that interferes with being able to hear a more fundamental, focussed discussion on internet access policy.

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privacy, CAIP, Bell, traffic shaping, net neutrality, Canada

Last November, Bell Aliant launched a series of residential internet support services under the banner of Aliant Expert. The service was brought to my attention this morning by a reporter who was following up on it.

When the service was launched, Aliant was the first telco in North America to offer such services. For many consumers, setting up home networks, connecting digital entertainment is a non-trivial task.

It seems to makes sense for a telco to try to build upon or re-establish the trust relationship with its customers. These services leverage the fleet of service vehicles and human resources that communications companies have deployed throughout their service territory – a greater presence than any chain of electronics retailers.

Will we see more carriers following Aliant’s example in the consumer space?

The theme of The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit, taking place June 16-18, is Maintaining Relevance for the Customer.

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Bell Aliant