A lost opportunity for openness

Find this article in The Tyee, rabble.ca, Common Ground, and VUE Weekly.

Last month, in both the speech from the Throne and release of the budget, the government had a perfect opportunity to address Canada's deficit in Internet openness or "Net Neutrality." It should have seized this opportunity to present an openness agenda. If the Conservatives are committed to lifting foreign ownership rules for the telecommunication industry, as mentioned in their speech, why aren't they first ensuring that Canadians enjoy open access to all the Internet has to offer from our current providers? Seems like they are putting the cart before the horse, or rather the carriers before the users.

In what many consider a major victory for the open media movement, last fall the CRTC developed new "traffic management" guidelines. However, under these new guidelines, the CRTC will not enforce its own framework and instead, the onus falls on the consumer to file a complaint and prove that an ISP is unjustly throttling (degrading) the Internet. It is unfair to force consumers to somehow obtain the technical and policy expertise to make their case effectively before the CRTC, and to also out maneuver some of most powerful businesses in the country.

Mixed Bag

Unlike the U.S. and other countries, several Internet Service Providers in Canada continue to limit access to content and services in this country. As Telecom Law expert Michael Geist points out, it's currently "a decidedly mixed bag" in terms of how ISP's are reacting to the CRTC's new guidelines. Four of the dominant six providers continue to throttle Internet use, and two of them do not make it easy to find their traffic management disclosures despite the CRTC's transparency rule.

Read the rest of this article on Common Ground's website.

Steve Anderson is the national coordinator for OpenMedia.ca. He is a contributing author of Censored 2008 and Battleground: The Media and has written for The Tyee, Toronto Star, Epoch Times, Common Ground, Rabble.ca and Adbusters.

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