Net neutrality debate comes to Canada: CAIP files complaint against Bell Canada's Internet traffic-shaping measures with the CRTC
The debate over traffic-shaping measures undertaken by Internet service providers in the United States such as Comcast - and whether such measures constitute reasonable network management to control congestion or unreasonable interference with Internet content and discrimination against competing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) - has come to Canada.
In October, 2007, Bell Canada implemented measures for its retail Sympatico customers to delay the delivery of some so-called Peer-to-Peer (P2P) data during peak Internet usage periods. The extension of these measures to its wholesale Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) customers led to the filing of a complaint by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on April 3, 20081.The complaint requests, among other things, interim and final injunctions prohibiting Bell Canada from using the traffic management measures in respect of its wholesale ADSL services, as well as declarations pursuant to sections 27(2) and 36 of the Telecommunications Act that Bell Canada has granted itself an undue and unreasonable preference and subjected independent ISPs to undue and unreasonable disadvantage, and that Bell Canada has violated the prohibition against carrier interference with the content of messages carried over its telecommunications network. The CAIP complaint states that there is no proof of a network congestion problem, and that Bell Canada's measures, introduced at a time when Bell and some other incumbent ISPs are phasing out unlimited Internet service plans at retail, are intended to "stem the losses that [Bell Canada] will likely face in the retail market if its wholesale ADSL customers continue to offer unlimited usage or flat-rate billing plans" and, as such, are anti-competitive.
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