Canada's telecoms regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is in the midst of a network neutrality proceeding, and the responses that rolled in this week were vociferous. Several ISPs and music groups objected to any such rules, arguing that they might stop ISPs from implementing all sorts of wonderful policies such as P2P upload throttling, website blocking, and graduated response rules.

One of the more interesting responses came from an ISP called Videotron, which told the CRTC that controlling access to content "peut �tre b�n�fique non seulement pour les utilisateurs de services Internet mais pour la soci�t� en g�n�ral"—that is, "could be beneficial not only to users of Internet services but to society in general."

As examples of such benefits, Videotron mentioned the control of spam, viruses, and child pornography. It went on to suggest that graduated response rules—kicking users off the 'Net after several accusations of copyright infringement—could also be included as a benefit to society in general.

Canadian law professor Michael Geist is astonished at the comments. The "submission achieves a remarkable combination," he says, "arguing against net neutrality and for a three strikes approach that would terminate its own subscribers. That any ISP could demonstrate such hostility toward its own customers provides a clear indicator of the utter lack of broadband competition in Canada and serves as a warning that the New Zealand fight could eventually make its way here."

The Canadian Independent Record Production Association (CIRPA) wasn't as concerned with benefits to society as it was about making sure indie artists in Canada could earn a living. One good way to do that, it suggested, might be to just flat-out block access to P2P sites like The Pirate Bay—a practice that certain kinds of neutrality rules might prevent.

"Certainly policies that limit the consumers access to P2P sites that distribute large volumes of unauthorized content would be controversial," says the group, "but we believe that it is in the interest of both ISP's and content producers to examine such alternatives carefully and act to the degree it can be determined that such content is not authorized for redistribution."

Rogers, one of Canada's big ISPs, also chimed in and explained that new regulations might limit its ability to throttle P2P uploads, which it does at the moment. "P2P file sharing is designed to cause network congestion," says the company. "It contributes significantly to latency, thereby making the network unreliable for certain users at periods of such congestion."

Throttling, in its view, is therefore necessary, and if the situation sounds just like the Comcast case here in the US, Rogers assures CRTC that "the Comcast case involved a set of very unique facts that are unlikely to occur again. Rogers’ traffic shaping practices are very different from those employed by Comcast."

Not everyone is pleased with the current hands-off situation toward the Internet, especially companies that are directly affected by discriminatory policies. Canadian website operator Pelmorex offered the CRTC a long and candid list of ways that its own business has been affected by ISPs. But it is clear that significant forces in Canada would like to maintain the discretion to throttle, shape, or manage traffic on their own terms.

The CRTC will hold a public hearing on the issue this summer in Gatineau.

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