Another Victory for the Internet!

With all this talk about SOPA (USA), Bill C-11 (Canada), ACTA (International), we at least identified the government as a potential enemy of our precious internet (no sarcasm intended). Of course, the entertainment industry and its lobbyists are still the big bosses calling the shots while churning out a generation of bad music and even worse movies. In this war against the internet, however, I think a third enemy has not been given enough attention as of late. The salesman of internet: the ISP.

The ISP is the window between your computer and the glorious world of the internet. This window's blinds can be drawn little by little until there is nothing to see. This is what almost happened a few years ago in Canada with the usage based billing that the CRTC thankfully ruled against Bell and Rogers. Having lost that battle, the big 2 started the disdainful practice of throttling internet for certain type of usage. According to their policies, they claimed to only throttle P2P file sharing, but as shown by the Star they also started throttling PC gaming packets as well. The complaints came flooding into the CRTC!

By next month, Bell has been ordered to stop this illegal act for both gaming and P2P traffic. It's not a complete win because there is some complications with higher pricing, but internet users everywhere will take it for now. Of course, it was not long before Rogers followed suit and grudgingly accepted its legal papers a few days ago.

This is definitely good news and step in the right direction to control private companies from contesting net neutrality. However, we must not be complacent. Started on Feb. 2, TekSavvy, a small ISP that buys its bandwidth from Rogers, had to increase its pricing model due to unreasonable (and probably illegal) demands from big R and Bell. A recent email from TekSavvy to customers read:

"This cause is an extremely important one. Even before this decision, Canada was an international laggard when it comes to the cost of internet service, with per Mbps costs well above most of the rest of the industrialized world. These regulated wholesale rates that are in place from our suppliers only make matters worse.  In our view, while these tariffs remain in effect Canadians will continue to be punished for the “sin” of enjoying the benefits and pleasures the internet has to offer.  Unique in the industrialized world, Canadians will be forced to carefully select what, when and how they engage the world through the internet.

This new wholesale pricing is a big win for the incumbents, especially Cogeco and Bell, whose tariffs are noticeably out of line with most of their competitors."

As a loyal customer of TekSavvy who enjoys their reasonable prices for reasonable usage, and as a frequent and enthusiastic net user, I wish them lots of luck in their legal battles. We all have a small part to play to maintain our quality of life and seek happiness. Please stay informed, and inform others!