Bell vs CRTC - Hopefully We Win
The Canadian Association of Internet Providers has sent a letter to the CRTC on the Bell throttling issue. This is a good sign, since they are basically trying to get Bell to stop all special routing of the reseller data. This should make the competition competitive again, and ultimately, force Bell to stop throttling their customers so they can compete with the resellers. This is a big step forward for net neutrality if the CRTC sides with the complainants.
The best part is that the complaint also goes after the whole throttling issue using the Privacy laws of Canada, since the company has to perform deep packet analysis to properly decide which packets to slow down and which ones not to. Because of this level of
inspection, they are able to trace the packets to the actual originator, which might be against the company’s allowed use of the information passing on its network, and a privacy violation. This may turn out to be great for consumers if the CRTC rules that Bell cannot do the throttling they are. If Bell loses, then someone will surely push the point and force Rogers and the others to drop their throttling as well.
Here’s hoping the CRTC makes themselves useful and does the right thing in stopping this practice of throttling and saving the internet for Canadians to use at it was intended.
Michael Geist has a great review of the document as it is not online yet.