Ars Technica talks about an article in the WSJ about a possible antitrust investigation of At&T and Verizon who apparently own 90% of landlines and 60% of the mobile market. The article also mentions that non-net neutrality may be examined as it pertains to wireless providers.
I wish the CRTC was having a look at what is happening in the US regarding telecoms. I’ve been listening to and reading tweets (#netneutrality or #crtc) today from the net neutrality hearings in Gatineau. In my opinion, Chairman von Finckenstein is blatently biased and poorly informed, siding with ISPs at every opportunity. It’s extremely frustrating.
And why has no one yet mentioned that I just noticed that yesterday, the Open Internet Coalition (which includes Google) mentioned that the FCC found Comcast guilty of discriminatory behaviour when it was caught throttling P2P. Yet, I feel as though von Finckenstein is always alluding to the fact that throttling is not discriminatory. Maybe he should read the FCC ruling. The first three lines say:
We consider whether Comcast, a provider of broadband Internet access over cable lines, may selectively target and interfere with connections of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications under the facts of this case. Although Comcast asserts that its conduct is necessary to ease network congestion, we conclude that the company’s discriminatory and arbitrary practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet and does not constitute reasonable network management. Moreover, Comcast’s failure to disclose the company’s practice to its customers has compounded the harm.
Also, why hasn’t anyone mentioned that The Open Internet Coalition also mentioned that Comcast can manage it’s network (and was forced to by the FCC) without DPI.
This morning, someone mentioned Comcast as an example of an ISP gone wild and the Chairman would not believe that Canadian ISPs would act in the same way. Perhaps the methods used to discriminate against P2P are different (I don’t think Canadian ISPs are using RST injections), but the result is the same.