Realistically this has to do with one main thing, traffic throttling (Mainly of bittorrent and other p2p applications). In previous decisions and hearings they discussed at length the management of networks in regards to spam and viruses. These have nothing to do with what this ruling is about and they stated that there is a clear distinction between managing spam and viruses and management of traffic for specific applications. This ruling really doesn't amount to much at this point as bell, rogers, shaw, cogeco etc will all still throttle whatever they want, whenever they want without much regard for the rulings of the CRTC. They ignore many other rulings every day, why would this one be any different. Michael Peddemors wrote:
Holy Hannah!
ISP actions affecting content According to the Telecommunications Act, a telecommunications company must obtain the Commission’s prior approval to “control the content or influence the meaning or purpose of telecommunications” carried over its network. The Commission does not consider such disruptive actions to be proper Internet traffic management practices, and they will always require prior approval. An ISP would therefore need to seek the Commission’s approval before it implemented a practice that would: block the delivery of content to an end-user, or slow down time-sensitive traffic, such as videoconferencing or Internet telephone (Voice over Internet Protocol) services, to the extent that the content is degraded. When faced with these requests, the Commission will only grant its approval in the most exceptional cases.
The email marketing lobby already got the legislation watered down on the spam front, but does this in essence say that ISP's are no longer allowed to block email content, viruses et al?
On October 21, 2009, Jeff Gallagher wrote:
For those following the regulatory / net neutrality debate, the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission released this morning a decision requiring additional transparency with respect to the traffic management practices of Canadian service providers.
News Release: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/NEWS/RELEASES/2009/r091021.htm
Policy Details: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2009/2009-657.htm
Jeff Gallagher Network Engineering jeff.gallagher@bellaliant.ca
-- Tim Lampman Co-Owner/CTO *Broadline Networks Inc.* 57 Colborne Street West, Brantford, ON, N3T 1K6 *c.* 905-746-3114 www.broadlinenetworks.com <http://www.broadlinenetworks.com/> | tim@broadlinenetworks.com <mailto:tim@broadlinenetworks.com>