About the CRTC decision on network neutrality
The CRTC just announced the results of their consulting process, and it's not pretty.
The reaction of Bell Canada is telling a lot about how this ruling is just too soft and indeed "has left the wolves in charge of the henhouse" (NPD's spokeperson):
"Bell's existing internet traffic management practices are already compliant with it. It addresses fundamental policy concerns around consumer issues in an appropriate manner, in particular regarding transparency and disclosure," said Bell spokesperson Jacqueline Michelis.
If Bell's existing practices are compliant, then there's a problem with the CRTC ruling, there's just no other way. The claim that Bell is transparent is completely ludicrous: as a user of a reseller of Bell, I have never been made aware of throttling being imposed upon me by a third party, throttling which I consider completely unacceptable in the first place. They also don't disclose on their website that the announced bandwidth provided with their packages is effective only between 2AM and 4PM, as demonstrated in this experiment I have done, using only legal torrents (and Tomato).
In general, it's still the same old policy of pretending that broadbad is an open and competitive market in Canada, which is simply not the case. We need stronger regulations or nationalisation, otherwise we're stuck with feeble statements like this:
"With this information, consumers can compare between different internet services and match their bandwidth needs with the amount they are willing to pay. Technical means to manage traffic, such as traffic shaping, should only be employed as a last resort." - CRTC
... which basically approves the telcos practices, which have admitted their own incompetence at managing a high-performance country-wide network. Pretending we have a choice as a consumer is preposterous.
Bell, Rogers, Videotron and the others should just step up to the plate to provide the proper infrastructure or get out of the kitchen.