WMD: A column from May based on an interview with Matt Thompson of Savetheinternet.com. Every time I read another story about the shenanigans of companies like Rogers, I shudder:
Big Internet providers control on-ramps to information highway
Bell, Shaw and Telus well-positioned to dictate shaping of Internet in Canada
Barry Link, Vancouver Courier
Published: Wednesday, May 21, 2008Imagine ordering a pizza over the phone from the locally owned pizza shop a few blocks away. You try calling but find it takes forever to get a dial tone. Frustrated, you hang up and call the nearest pizza chain and are instantly connected.
Now imagine the next day you learn that the chain corporation cut a deal with Telus to provide super quick phone service, while the local guy, as a much smaller pizza maker with limited funds, refused or could not afford to pay for a similar deal and was given an inferior phone line. As a consumer in search of open and equal pizza choices, you'd be outraged. And so would the local guy.
Of course, this scenario is a fantasy. Anyone of us can order from a small independent pizza place as easily as we can call Dominos or Panagos. But according to Internet defenders like Matt Thompson, this kind of imbalance could soon occur on the Internet thanks to the monopolistic cable and telecommunications companies that now control almost all the on-ramps to what we once called the information highway. In the U.S., giant Internet providers want to charge a premium to web destinations which have the potential for high traffic. Those who pay the premium would be offered a fast lane for Internet users to patronize to their websites and services. Those who don't pay the premium will find their traffic relegated to a second tier of inferior service on a bumpy and winding dirt road.
The issue has become known as net neutrality, which Thompson highlights during a talk Friday at VIDFEST, Vancouver's annual geek gathering of digital new media. The Vancouver-born Montreal resident, a consultant with the U.S.-based SavetheInternet.com campaign, will share the podium with John Perry Barlow, the former Grateful Dead member who co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Net neutrality is a complicated issue to wrap our heads around. We gripe about monthly fees for broadband access, but most of us don't care about the technical workings behind the scenes of the Internet as long as we can poke friends on Facebook and watch cats play piano on YouTube.
But the pizza by phone analogy, which Thompson used when I talked to him last week, is useful to remember. The Internet is as much a key part of modern economic and social life as the telephone, Thompson argues. And just as consumers expect certain rights involving phone usage--such as the ability to easily call any number in the phone book--we should expect the same rights online.
Canadian Internet providers such as Shaw and Telus haven't made noises--yet--about providing premium service to web destinations that can afford to pay. But they are messing with the Internet in other ways. Telus infamously blocked a union website to its subscribers during its last labour dispute--the equivalent of cutting off phone service to the union office. Most providers routinely throttle the connection speeds of users who engage in peer-to-peer file trading. And Bell, a major provider in Eastern Canada, recently admitted slowing down connection speeds for third-party providers that legally lease the use of its network.
In the U.S., similar moves by American providers have sent geeks to virtual barricades. Last year, Thompson produced an award-winning online video that was part of a massive campaign to thwart legislation that favoured the giant Internet providers. The campaign went far beyond geekdom to include hundreds of organizations--from conservative Christian lobby groups to artists--and hundreds of thousands of individuals. That same diverse and powerful coalition has a shot at passing genuine net neutrality legislation in the U.S. in coming months.
But in Canada, net neutrality is an emerging issue at best The CRTC has washed its hands of Internet regulation, and Thompson believes the federal Conservatives will let Bell, Shaw and Telus dictate how the Internet will be shaped in this country.
Thompson, who says the economic importance of net neutrality can't be emphasized enough, notes the Internet was built as an open and equal marketplace. Anyone with an idea--or service, company or political position--has just as much a chance of promoting that idea to the world as anyone else.
Thompson hopes Canadians wake up. We developed a plan for the 19th century railway lines which built the country in its early years, he says. We need to have a similar plan "for the most important invention since the printing press, and the public needs to have a role in that plan," he says. If we don't, better start preparing for limited choice in pizza.
See VIDFEST at www.vidfest.com.
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