Bell Takes Aim At DSLReports Readers That Criticized Company You might recall that back in 2013, some DSLReports.com regulars, including University of Manitoba graduate student Ben Klass (bklass ), filed a complaint against Bell in Canada. Basically, they were annoyed by the fact that Bell's $5 a month Bell Mobile TV service -- which provides 10 hours of live or recorded TV show access each month -- didn't count against user usage caps, while competing services unfairly did.

It's not entirely dissimilar to complaints here in the States about Comcast exempting Comcast video transferred via the Xbox from Comcast usage caps. In Comcast's case, the company tried to claim that what they were doing wasn't violating the principle of net neutrality because at least a portion of the data transmissions occur over a private IP network rather than the public Internet. Bell took a different but similar approach, and tried to claim that they weren't violating net neutrality, because the neutrality provisions of Canada's Digital Media Exemption Order (DMEO) only apply to telecom services. Bell's Mobile TV service, Bell claimed, is a broadcast television service and therefore not governed by net neutrality. Unlike here in the States, Canadian regulators didn't buckle to the incumbent's claims, and at the tail end of January quote: In addition to seeking the right to appeal, it is asking for Klass and other respondents in the lawsuit, including several other individuals and groups representing consumers, to cover its legal costs. Klass told CBC News Monday that he hasn't yet made up his mind how to respond to the court filing. "It appears that Bell is simply pursuing the argument, that it unsuccessfully made to the CRTC, through the court," he said. He added that being potentially liable for costs is unnerving, even if it may be a matter of procedure. "In that regard, it really strikes me as a method of intimidation," he said. Obviously, Bell hopes that by holding regular citizens like bklass Unlike here in the States, Canadian regulators didn't buckle to the incumbent's claims, and at the tail end of January ruled the practice unlawful (this impacted a similar service offered by Videotron). Bell is of course appealing, and is actually going after consumers like Klass and the other consumer advocacy groups involved in the complaint financially by demanding they pay Bell's legal costs Obviously, Bell hopes that by holding regular citizens like bklass , jfmezei and resa1983 financially liable, they can deter such pesky behavior down the line. Here in the States, we're about to see new net neutrality rules unveiled on Thursday that don't specifically prohibit the use of bandwidth caps in such a fashion, but will allow a process for complaints related to the practice. How well that process will actually work when bogged down by ISP lawyers is anybody's guess.







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Mike2009

join:2009-01-13

Ottawa, ON 7 recommendations Mike2009 Member They're bullies! Awful company bullying the little guys and discouraging indivdual citizens from speaking. Not surprising though. Time to cancel my phone service!