CRTC rules in favour of Bell
Farhan Ashraf
Issue date: 11/25/08 Section: Business
Last Thursday, the CRTC ruled in favour of the telecommunications giant, Bell Canada, by rejecting an application by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) to cease traffic shaping on its wholesale lines. This decision was a direct blow to the fight for net neutrality.
In late 2007, Bell began using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to throttle its retail Peer-to-Peer (P2P) programs, such as Limewire, Vuse, and BitTorrent, between 4:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Bell claims that P2P programs cause network congestion and therefore slow the service for all users. Bell says that the best way to stop network congestion is by throttling the speed of P2P downloads.
Lately, P2P traffic has not been only for illegal downloads. Vuse offers services to download music and movies legally. CBC also released a TV show, Canada's Next Great Prime Minister, which was distributed using BitTorrent. This goes to show that the issue is not that Bell is dealing with piracy; but rather, they are limiting an efficient means to distribute legal content.
The CAIP got involved when Bell began to throttle the service to its wholesale customers. Allowing unlimited downloads at maximum speeds was a competitive advantage for smaller Internet Service Providers (ISP). The CAIP believes that Bell is not throttling the wholesale service to stop network congestion, but rather to eliminate competition. If Bell throttles wholesale lines, there is less of an incentive for consumers to explore other ISPs.
The Canadian Radio Television Commission (CRTC) ruled that because Bell offers the same limitations to its own retail consumers, there is no reason to believe that Bell is giving an unfair disadvantage to its wholesale customers. The services that Bell provides are therefore not discriminatory because everyone is given the same services. The CRTC did not rule about Bell's methods to manage its network, they have only acknowledged that traffic shaping for wholesale customers is not in violation of any competition laws.
In late 2007, Bell began using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to throttle its retail Peer-to-Peer (P2P) programs, such as Limewire, Vuse, and BitTorrent, between 4:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Bell claims that P2P programs cause network congestion and therefore slow the service for all users. Bell says that the best way to stop network congestion is by throttling the speed of P2P downloads.
Lately, P2P traffic has not been only for illegal downloads. Vuse offers services to download music and movies legally. CBC also released a TV show, Canada's Next Great Prime Minister, which was distributed using BitTorrent. This goes to show that the issue is not that Bell is dealing with piracy; but rather, they are limiting an efficient means to distribute legal content.
The CAIP got involved when Bell began to throttle the service to its wholesale customers. Allowing unlimited downloads at maximum speeds was a competitive advantage for smaller Internet Service Providers (ISP). The CAIP believes that Bell is not throttling the wholesale service to stop network congestion, but rather to eliminate competition. If Bell throttles wholesale lines, there is less of an incentive for consumers to explore other ISPs.
The Canadian Radio Television Commission (CRTC) ruled that because Bell offers the same limitations to its own retail consumers, there is no reason to believe that Bell is giving an unfair disadvantage to its wholesale customers. The services that Bell provides are therefore not discriminatory because everyone is given the same services. The CRTC did not rule about Bell's methods to manage its network, they have only acknowledged that traffic shaping for wholesale customers is not in violation of any competition laws.
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