Bell Will Win…
It’s my gut feeling Bell will win the net neutrality complaint brought against it by the ISPs despite the public outcry. For one thing, the CRTC will likely limit itself to addressing the specific issue before it; namely the ISP complaint and thereby duck the larger question of whether or not net neutrality is a good or bad thing.
The ISPs in question are wholesale broadband providers which means they are actually reselling Bell’s service and are not true ISPs in the sense that they own their own networks. This is exactly the kind of wholesale service that the Conservative government has targeted for elimination in their policy directive to the CRTC for the review of wholesale services.
The Conservative government has done a good job undermining the CRTC with its policy directives. Any Telco or Cable company that doesn’t get its way at the CRTC now feels empowered to do an end-run around the agency. In the courts as Bell has done, or by appealing directly to the Prime Minister like Jim Shaw. And those are just the ones the pubic are aware of. One can only imagine how many lobbyists are bending ears in high places. Don’t forget, Bell is now owned by the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund; a massive political lobby machine with a 108 billion dollar hammer to swing.
So the CRTC will avoid the issue because it has the perfect excuses; a) it doesn’t currently regulate the internet; and b) the government has been explicitly clear that it should “rely on market forces”. However I’m hopeful the CRTC will at least issue a public notice before bailing on the issue. This will give the public an opportunity to comment and if it generates enough interest perhaps it might gain some traction.
The only other chance network neutrality has is with the politicians. Unfortunately the only party to come out in favour of network neutrality is the NDP. And one things for certain, if the NDP is for it, then the other parties are against it.
But we might get lucky; maybe Jim Prentice will have another open house?
