Glossary

Bandwidth caps:

A limit on the amount of data that may be transferred over a network in a defined period of time. This generally limits the amount of data users may upload or download via their Internet connection without paying additional fees, typically over a monthly period.

Cloud Computing:

The usage of remote servers to store, host, process, and manage data as an alternative to performing those operations on a local computer.

Common Carriage Principle:

The principle that owners of infrastructure must allow all traffic to flow through that infrastructure without discrimination. Common carriage provisions require carriers to commit that each customer should have the same opportunity as any other customer to buy the same service, and transmit the same data, on the same terms, as any other customer.

CRTC (The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission):

The independent regulatory organization for broadcasting and telecommunications in Canada. According to its website, the CRTC’s mandate is to ensure that broadcasting and telecommunication systems serve the Canadian public.

DPI (Deep Packet Inspection):

A networking technology used by ISPs that controls the flow of network traffic. It examines the headers and payloads of the elements of each piece, or packet, of network traffic. The header contains information necessary for delivery (sender’s and recipient’s IP addresses, how to reassemble the information, etc.). The payload contains the content of the transmission. DPI raises competition and privacy concerns because it allows for the examination of unencrypted data transmissions and the prioritization or discrimination of transmissions based on their content.

E-commerce (Electronic Commerce):

Business transactions that are conducted electronically, especially over the Internet. The term encompasses buying and selling goods and services, as well as advertising, customer service, and marketing.

End-to-end Principle:

A principle of network design calling for an architecture of ‘dumb pipes’, where the ends of the network (sender and receiver) exchange information with minimal interference or interruption by the network. The pipes of a network are ‘dumb’ because they know little about the content of the packages they are carrying from one end to another and most activity requiring network intelligence, such as reassembling and making sense of packets, resides on devices at the ends of the network.

Facilities-based Competition:

When new entrants compete in the telecommunications market by building their own infrastructure. This type of competition faces barriers to market entry because of the significant sunk capital costs required to develop broad-based competition in national markets.

FCC (Federal Communications Commission):

An American government agency that regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, cable, and, by extension, the Internet (though this aspect of its regulatory power has been in dispute).

Functional Separation

Separates the incumbent’s infrastructure ownership from its retail Internet access operations. In many cases, incumbent providers own this infrastructure through a complex series of transactions, sometimes including the move from being a Crown corporation or public sector entity to a privately owned business.

ICT Systems (Information and Communication Technology Systems):

Communications technology systems consisting of hardware, software, data and the people who use them.

Incumbent Providers:

Companies that have been long-term actors in a market and are dominant in terms of their regional market power. In telecommunications, incumbent providers control key elements of the national telecommunications network, such as communications lines entering consumers’ homes and businesses. Providers often enjoy natural monopolies or oligopolies, and this gives them considerable market power in comparison to newer, competing providers.

ISPs (Internet service providers):

An ISP is a company that provides access to the Internet. ISPs connect customers to the Internet using copper, cable, wireless or fiber connections. Big Canadian ISPs include, primarily, Shaw, Bell, Rogers, Videotron and Telus. Independent ISPs include TekSavvy, Acanac, and Telnet Communications. Find more at: http://www.openmedia.ca/meter/resources#isp.

ITMP (Internet traff ic management practice):

Any measure an ISP implements to intentionally mediate the flow of data traffic along its network, whether by technical or economic means, in order to address network congestion.

Net Neutrality:

The principle that the Internet should be a level playing field for all users. Neutrality infers that ISPs should not discriminate against certain applications or websites by selectively blocking, speeding up, slowing down, or preferencing any web content, services or users.

Open Access Policies:

Regulations that attempt to ensure fair access to network infrastructure – i.e. the pipes used to bring the Internet to users’ homes – by enabling competitive, nonincumbent service providers to effectively and efficiently compete with incumbent providers.

Open Internet:

The public Internet where users are empowered to decide what practices, content, services and applications gain popularity, capture imaginations, and proliferate. This means a neutral network where connections are affordable, found at internationally comparable speeds, within reach of all Canadians and, ideally, ubiquitous.

P2P (Peer-to-peer):

A decentralized model of Internet communication where users share information directly with each other as opposed to through a third-party server. P2P applications allow users to share content directly with other interested peers. The exchange (uploading and downloading) between peers creates a greater pool of shared content without requiring expensive centralized servers to host downloadable content.

Quality of Service:

A term that refers to the importance placed on getting a particular data packet to its destination. Internet communications were designed to function on a 'best-efforts' basis. Internet service designers build their applications in a manner that assumes not each and every packet or piece of information will reach its destination. The ISP obligation in this scenario is to make its 'best effort' to deliver all packets to their destination as quickly as possible. Many Internet applications have been designed on this model, including time-sensitive VoIP services such as Skype. Quality of Service protocols permit ISPs to discriminate or privilege certain types of traffic over others. For example, an ISP may prioritize a VoIP conversation to ensure highquality voice communications while slowing down a P2P session, making the file exchange take longer.

Service-based Competition:

A measure that ensures entrants’ access to incumbents’ infrastructure. Entrants use the facilities of the incumbent provider either through wholesale or unbundled access. Through wholesale, incumbents are usually required to lease infrastructure to competitors at wholesale prices. Unbundled access requires incumbents to make available hardto- duplicate telecommunications infrastructure on a non-discriminatory basis in a manner that is financially fair and technically feasible.

Tiered Internet:

An Internet business model where ISPs create tiers of service, and charge for access. Tiers refer both to the different levels of Internet sold to home users and to the different delivery models sold to content producers, such as access to video-on-demand.

Throttling:

The slowing down or blocking of Internet applications in order to make space for other traffic on an ostensibly congested network.

Upstream/Downstream:

Upstream refers to the outgoing transmission of data from a users' computer. It can be a request from a server to provide a specific webpage, it could be an email sent to email server, a file being uploaded to another user through a P2P client, or a voice communication to another VoIP user, Downstream refers to incoming Internet transmissions that a user's computer receives, such as a web page, a streaming movie, any file download (P2P or otherwise), or an incoming conversation via VoIP,

Usage-based billing (a.ka. Metering, UBB):

A billing system for Internet use that charges consumers on a per-byte, megabyte, or gigabyte basis. Under this system, users are charged on the basis of how much they upload and download, typically over the course of a monthly period. Usage-based billing is sometimes referred to as an economic Internet traffic management practice because it is meant to reduce Internet congestion.

User-generated Content (UGC):

Content created by the general public and shared on the Internet. Its creators are typically non-professional, non-commercial producers, such as independent bloggers, home video producers or Wikipedia editors. It differs from content generated by traditional media producers, such as professional television producers, mainstream newspapers and pop artists. User-generated content depends upon the democratization of media production through new technologies that are accessible, affordable, and easily used.

Vertical Integration:

An arrangement where one company owns or controls a set of companies that supply each other products, such as where cable or satellite television distributors also own the television channels they distribute. Within the telecommunications industry it typically refers specifically to firms controlling access to Internet content, traditional dissemination systems (e.g. television lines, radio), content acquisition, and content creation processes.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP):

Technology that allows voice calls to be made over computer networks.

Web 2.0:

A term for Internet services that emphasize interactions between users in often collaborative or participatory ways. This is distinguished from ‘Web 1.0’, where users visited online sources but were unable to significantly interact with the owner of the source or other visitors. Examples of Web 2.0 services include blogging, social networking services, and social gaming services.