Labour takes on "Net Neutrality"

I'm very pleased to see that the labour movement in Canada is beginning to take on the very important issue of "Net Neutrality".

Recently, James Clancy, president of the 340,000 member National Union of Provincial Government Employees (NUPGE) issued an open letter to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) demanding an investigation into the so-called "traffic shaping" practices of Bell Canada and Rogers Communications.

What's "Net Neutrality"?

It's the very simple principle that no matter who you are or what your content is that your internet stuff travels through the vast network of cables and switches at the same speed as everyone elses.

Whether you are Google, Microsoft, Apple or "Joe & Mary's Blog About Their Pet Poodle", you are treated equally. That's supposed to be how the internet works. But in Canada it hasn't worked that way for quite some time.

First it was the cable internet service providers like Rogers that began so-called "traffic shaping" i.e. slowing down file sharing protocols like "bittorrent". They were very cagey about releasing info on these practices. It had to be pried out of them by bloggers and net activists.

Now Bell Canada has gotten in on the act, slowing down bittorrent traffic during so-called "peak periods". What makes it worse in Bell's case, is that they are not only throttling down their own customer's traffic, but also traffic on lines that are leased by third parties. So if you want to dump Bell Sympatico and go to an alternative DSL provider that doesn't throttle traffic, you're out of luck!

There's nothing particularly dastardly about using bittorrent. I use it myself for downloading copies of versions of the free software GNU/Linux computer operating system. It's the most efficient way to move large files around the internet.

Recently the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) began distributing an historical documentary television series on Canadian prime ministers using bittorrent.

So, our taxpayer-funded public broadcaster pushes out a television series on the net, but the internet service providers (ISP's) slow down your ability to grab the files. Nice how that works eh?

It's also important that the labour movement take this issue on because it was union members who were the very first victims of outright censorship by an ISP. In the summer of 2005, Telus blocked all of its customers access to a couple of websites operated by the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) during a labour dispute.

Of course in their ham handed stupidity, Telus not only blocked access to the union sites, they also blocked access to hundreds of other websites.

In the United States, where activists are miles ahead of Canada on this issue, Telus' net censorship was used as an example of what can happen without net neutrality legislation.

So how about dashing off an e-mail to your MP?

Or, given that our current government is only a non-confidence motion away from defeat, making it an election issue.