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During Question Period in the House of Commons yesterday, Charlie Angus (NDP MP for Timmins) questioned the Minister of Industry, Jim Prentice about the practice of throttling by some ISPs. Watch the video on Kevin McArthur’s great website “Mycelium“. Or read the transcript (see below) from the House Publications.

Jim Prentice says there is nothing he can do about throttling since the Internet is not publicly regulated. According to a colleague, Bell or Rogers subscribers should complain about ISP service to the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services, since “this may be the only recourse for consumers who are being charged additionally for bandwidth, even as that bandwidth is being unfairly limited”.

In the meantime, Canadians for Democratic Media have set up an action alert “Stop the Throttler!”, where you can send a letter to Minister Prentice.

House of Commons Question Period transcript from April 2.

Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, average Canadians are being ripped off by the telecom giants which are arbitrarily throttling information on the Internet. This is about a practice of a few large players being able to squeeze out smaller competition.

What steps will the Minister of Industry take to ensure that consumers who paid for access are not going to be ripped off, that badly needed competition will not be squeezed off, and send a message to the telecom giants that they have no business monkey wrenching with the free flow of information?

Hon. Jim Prentice (Minister of Industry, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, for the edification of my friend, the Internet is not regulated in Canada. We continue to monitor the discussion that is taking place, but there is no regulation of the relationship between Internet providers and consumers.

We will continue to see how the issue unfolds.

Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, the minister’s hands-off approach to hands-on interference is bad news for the development of a Canadian innovation agenda. Net neutrality is the cornerstone of an innovative economy, because it is the consumer and the innovator who need to be in the driver’s seat, not Ma Bell, not Rogers, not Vidéotron. They have no business deciding what information is in the fast lane or what information is in the slow lane.

Will the minister come out of the Gestetner age and take action on the issue of net throttling?

Hon. Jim Prentice (Minister of Industry, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, I think virtually all members of the House could agree that if anyone inhabits the Gestetner age, it is the New Democratic Party. Members of that party would carry our country into the economic backwater that they propose.

We have a well advanced Internet system in this country. It is not publicly regulated. At this point in time we will continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and Internet service providers on the other.

There has been some news in the Canadian blogosphere about Bell Canada’s introduction of traffic shapping (or throttling - “or the practice of shaping Internet traffic by selectively limiting bandwidth”). Essentially, Bell will be slowing down access in peak hours to P2P applications, like BitTorrent. This has affected legal uses of this technology, like downloading TV programmes from the CBC, which has chosen to experiment with this technology to offer their programming in a new way.

Michael Geist wrote a great post about the whole thing two days ago, and points to a Facebook group. The Council of Canadians has also set up an action alert, asking Canadians to write to the Minister of Industry, Jim Prentice.

This is another issue of Net Neutrality. Comcast in the US has been taken to task for doing the exact same thing. (They are now collaborating with BitTorrent - the company - to address more effectively issues of network management). The Canadian government and the CRTC should definitely be looking at setting up clear and enforceable rules to protect Net Neutrality.

On February 25, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) held hearings into the allegations that Comcast (an ISP in the US) degrades P2P traffic. (The FCC makes the hearings available as an audio or video file. Listed under the February, 25 2008 “Public En Banc Hearing”). Ars Technica has a series of very good articles relating to the issue:

• January 8: FCC to investigate Comcast BitTorrent blocking
• February 24:Comcast, net neutrality advocates to square off Monday
• February 25:Comcast, net neutrality advocates clash at FCC hearing

The hearings occured because of a complaint made last year by the Electronic Frontier Foundation charging that Comcast interfers with BitTorrent. (BitTorrent is an application that allows people to quickly download large files such as videos, movies, and music . See Wikipedia’s entry.)

All five FCC commissioners were present at the hearings, as well as net neutrality advocates, academics, and industry representatives. Comcast’s Executive Vice President David Cohen vowed that Comcast does not malvolently degrade BitTorrent but simply engages in reasonable network management. Some experts at the hearings agreed that network management is necessary, however, if it has to be done, it should be nondiscrimatory (degrading ALL Internet traffic, not just certain applications like BitTorrent, for example). Furthermore, this degradation should be disclosed to customers ahead of time.

Comcast says that BitTorrent applications eat up a lot of bandwidth, and slow down the network for everyone. However, some believe that by discriminating against and blocking (or degrading) BitTorrent specifically, Comcast is engaging in unfair competition, since some uses of BitTorrent can be competition for Comcast’s own video business. (reference)

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Andy Kessler argues that the problem is not about net neutrality but about competition in the broadband market. If there were more than two major ISP companies in your city (as there is now in most cities), and if your ISP company degraded your access to BitTorrent applications, it would be easy to switch to another company that didn’t. (Personally, I don’t think increasing competition and regulating in favour of net neutrality are mutually exclusive.)

Another issue is the network itself. One of the presenters at the hearings, Eric Klinker, CTO of BitTorrent, argued that the United States falls far behind other nations in terms of its Internet infrastructure: “Geopolitically, we might think of ourselves as a superpower, but when measured against network power we’re a third-world country at best.” (reference)

Graham Longford wrote an excellent research paper (pdf) on net neutrality and he briefly covers the network infrastructure problem in North America by comparing it to the one in Japan:

While Japan does not have specific network neutrality legislation, its national policy does mandate network sharing by telecommunications firms like NTT East and NTT West, including in the last mile, so that competitors do not have to build rival network infrastructures in order to reach customers (Gross, 2007). As Bleha describes, open access and interconnection rules were key ingredients enabling Japan to leapfrog ahead of the U.S. in broadband deployment and penetration in recent years. The Japanese government “compelled regional telephone companies to grant outside competitors access to all their residential telephone lines in exchange for a modest fee (about $2 per line a month). The antitrust authorities also ensured that these companies did not create obstacles for their competitors, helping provide a level playing field” (Bleha, 2005). The Japanese case is worth noting, as it stands in contrast to the U.S. example, where the FCC has eliminated network sharing obligations over the last few years. It is also worth noting that such network sharing obligations have had little if any negative impact on broadband deployment and investment in Japan. While opponents of network neutrality in the U.S. and Canada allege that such requirements dampen investments in broadband infrastructure, the Japanese example appears to counter such claims. Major Japanese incumbents have proceeded with major new network deployments and upgrades despite obligations to share their networks. Consumers appear to have been well-served in the process. Japan’s predominantly DSL broadband market is far more competitive than in the U.S., and consumers enjoy 50 Mbps service for roughly $30 (US) per month, whereas an equivalent amount buys 3 Mbps service from AT&T in the U.S.

It will be interesting to see the FCC’s conclusions on this investigation.

Maybe I’m a little late on this, but last week, two congressman introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act (a bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to ensure net neutrality.) . Here are some sections of the bill:

With respect to any broadband service offered to the public, each broadband service provider shall—

(1) not block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade the ability of any person to use a broadband service to access, use, send, post, receive, or offer any lawful content, application, or service made available via the Internet;

(2) not prevent or obstruct a user from attaching or using any device to the network of such broadband service provider, only if such device does not physically damage or substantially degrade the use of such network by other subscribers;

(3) provide and make available to each user information about such user’s access to the Internet, and the speed, nature, and limitations of such user’s broadband service;

(4) enable any content, application, or service made available via the Internet to be offered, provided, or posted on a basis that—

• (A) is reasonable and nondiscriminatory, including with respect to quality of service, access, speed, and bandwidth;
• (B) is at least equivalent to the access, speed, quality of service, and bandwidth that such broadband service provider offers to affiliated content, applications, or services made available via the public Internet into the net work of such broadband service provider; and
• (C) does not impose a charge on the basis of the type of content, applications, or services made available via the Internet into the network of such broadband service provider;

(5) only prioritize content, applications, or services accessed by a user that is made available via the Internet within the network of such broadband service provider based on the type of content, applications, or services and the level of service purchased by the user, without charge for such prioritization; and

(6) not install or utilize network features, functions, or capabilities that impede or hinder compliance with this section.

More info from the Washington Post

The latest issue of Canadian Dimensions is out, with a nice story on Net Neutrality.