The federal government is on the hot seat for allowing Internet service providers to impose usage limits and charge extra for customers who exceed them.

The issue came to a head last week, when the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission denied independent service providers the right to continue offering unlimited Internet plans.

Industry Minister Tony Clement issued a statement this week, saying he’d look carefully at the CRTC’s ruling.

“Canadians can count on us to do what is in the best interest of consumers,” he said.

The consumer interest seems to be firmly against usage-based billing or UBB, a pricing system that already exists in the wireless sector.

More than 250,000 people have signed a petition on Facebook and Twitter, asking Canadian decision-makers to “stop the meter.”

They’re also writing to the media, demanding greater coverage of the issue. (The Star has received several dozen emails in the past few days.)

The social media protest was launched by OpenMedia.ca, a non-profit group based in Vancouver, founded in 2007 by a student doing a master’s degree on the politics of the Internet.

“It may seem orchestrated, but this campaign is pretty grass roots. I think we’ll win this whole thing,” says the group’s 29-year-old paid director, Steve Anderson.

Thanks to his organizing efforts, the federal Liberals and NDP both support the cause.

As a consumer columnist, I hear lots of grumbling about telecom issues. People complain about bill surprises when travelling with cellphones, for example, or paying fees to get out of long-term contracts agreed to verbally and not in writing.

Rarely do I see the grumbling galvanize into an effective political protest that leads to change.

So, how did Anderson get this far? I was keen to find out his secrets.

OpenMedia tries to engage citizens by breaking down a complex issue and showing how it affects them on a personal level, he says.

In the past few years, the CRTC has already allowed — even encouraged — big telecom providers to impose usage limits on customers.

“Bell actually began pricing its Bell Internet service this way in late 2006,” says spokeswoman Jacqueline Michelis. “The vast majority of our customers typically don’t pay fees for excess usage.”

Last October, the CRTC’s decided to make Bell’s wholesale providers adopt the same usage-based billing system.

“That’s only fair since, while our own customers are billed using UBB, wholesalers have been able to offer unlimited Internet plans, driving network usage up disproportionately,” says Michelis.

OpenMedia downplays arguments about the billions of dollars invested in building networks.

Bell and Rogers are using profits on other services, such as wireless phones, to subsidize their Internet businesses, Anderson points out.

Both companies have ambitions to offer movies and TV as streaming video over the Internet — and may exempt their own services from the caps imposed on outside services, such as Netflix.

The Internet is at a critical point in its history, OpenMedia likes to say.

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Governments recognize that the Internet is a tool to keep democracy alive. Access to broadband communication is a public right that must be upheld.

Around the world, nations are encouraging the growth of the Internet (except perhaps in Egypt) by keeping pricing low and stable.

Canada seems to be moving in the opposite direction — turning the Internet into a tool for the affluent middle class, similar to smart phones.

If we move to a future where Internet service providers charge per byte, “Canadians will have no choice but to pay MUCH more for less Internet,” says the group’s petition.

“Big telecom companies are obviously trying to gouge consumers, control the Internet market and ensure that consumers continue to subscribe to their television services.”

Forcing small competing providers to adopt the same pricing “will crush innovative services, Canada’s digital competitiveness and your wallet.”

Who wouldn’t sign something like that?

I find little sympathy for big telecom companies among average Canadians, unless they work for one of them.

The federal government made a decision not to regulate cellphone billing and contracts, as it does landlines. But unfair contracts proliferated, so Quebec jumped in to pass new laws — and Manitoba’s government wants to follow suit.

In Ontario, a private member’s bill by Liberal MPP David Orazietti to curb cellphone billing and customer service practices is moving through the Legislature after being introduced last November.

Cellphone abuse — an issue close to Canadians’ hearts — is igniting the revolt against usage-based billing for the Internet, Anderson says.

People signing the petition are upset and angry with wireless billing and customer service. They’re drawing a line in the sand and telling companies, “You shall not go any further.”

OpenMedia’s petition had only 39,000 signatures last week. Yesterday, the petition page crashed because of the traffic, but there was a temporary site set up to catch the overflow.

This campaign has a good chance of success, in my view. Canadians are tired of allowing big telecom providers — and their pro-business friends in government — to make decisions without taking customers into account.