Late last month, advocacy group OpenMedia.ca held a rally in Vancouver, where participants canvassed for signatures, dressed up as “Internet traffic cops,” and handed out fake tickets with information about its campaign on usage-based billing.

The rally, as part of the group’s national day of action on Feb. 26, wasn’t a smashing success, as far as rallies go (or events for “creative education,” as OpenMedia called it). Although media reports criticized the local events for poor turnouts, OpenMedia says it wasn’t a day about the numbers.

But when it comes to numbers, OpenMedia’s petition is another matter. Petitions come and go, but industry observers say this one is different. They say the group’s “Stop the Meter” social media campaign almost single-handedly provoked Industry Minister Tony Clement to call for a CRTC review of its usage-based billing decision. 

In the process, the campaign, which rallied grassroots support on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and email, has rather suddenly propelled the unlikely Vancouver-based not-for-profit organization onto the national scene.

Detractors say the group’s success comes in part from misleading, emotional appeals that tap into pent up consumer frustration. OpenMedia says it is trying to get the government and the CRTC to “listen to the people.” Whatever its secret, the number of signatures on its petition is now inching towards half a million.

The petition, called “Stop the Meter,” speaks out against a CRTC decision that permitted telco incumbents to charge usage-based rates for third-party Internet service provider (ISP) resellers. The CRTC set wholesale usage-based rates at a 15 per cent discount off the incumbents’ retail prices.

But the decision is now under review following a request from Clement on Feb. 3, 2011—although CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein says its review is self-initiated.

“I don’t think there is any doubt that [OpenMedia.ca’s petition] played a pretty big role. The shear numbers and interest that it generated unquestionably had an impact on the perspectives across the political spectrum, not only with Clement but the opposition parties as well,” Michael Geist, the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said in an interview.

Steve Anderson, national coordinator of OpenMedia, adds that the petition and the people who signed onto the campaign were very influential. 

“I think it’s really the only reason [Clement] did that,” he said in a phone interview. “Clement was very aware of the numbers and I think [the petition] was 100 per cent of the reason he moved on it ... I think what tipped the balance for [the minister] to make a decision on this was that so many voters were making it clear.”

OpenMedia sent Clement an email for every person that signed the petition. At the time that Clement asked for a review of the decision, in the first week of February, Anderson said the minister’s office was receiving 20,000 emails a day.

“Some people take a cynical view that [Clement] is just doing this as a momentary thing to capture attention and get votes, but I think he listened to the people on this one,” Anderson said.

Clement, for his part, says the Harper government "stands with consumers." In an email statement passed on by his office, the minister said OpenMedia's campaign "was an example of Canadians agreeing with their Government," and that "Canadians have always supported our Conservative governments policy to inject competition and choice into internet and wireless markets." 

Now, OpenMedia is on the national scene. The group tweeted about a meeting it had with Clement on Tuesday, noting that it hopes to work with the minister to “solve [the] root cause” of the issue. The organization has also sent a letter to the minister to ask that he support its call for a broad review at the CRTC.

The advocacy group had planned to purchase ads in Clement’s riding to encourage him to look at its position on usage-based billing, but by the time the ads were ready in early February, Clement had already called for the CRTC review.

The organization then changed tactics and bought print ads in The Globe and Mail and the Ottawa Citizen, targeting MPs and the CRTC.

Anderson said that, at the “bare minimum,” he would like to see the CRTC’s review give third-party ISPs full autonomy over their billing, with no usage-based system. He won’t be completely satisfied unless the commission takes other measures to afford small ISPs more autonomy, he said.

“There is a reason that these ISPs only have upwards of four per cent of the market, and it’s not because they’re not trying hard to be innovative. It’s because there is a stranglehold on the independents by the big telecom companies,” he said.

Since 2007, OpenMedia has been advocating for a more democratic and participatory media system in Canada. Its causes have included net neutrality, bringing Al Jazeera English into Canada, and the recent controversy over false or misleading news broadcasting regulations at the CRTC.

Formerly called the Campaign for Democratic Media, Anderson founded the group from his parent’s basement while a graduate student. Anderson also now works as a film producer.

John Lawford, counsel with consumer advocacy group the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), said in an interview that he would describe Anderson as an “earnest, idealistic guy with lots of Internet smarts” who is just trying to “help folks in the same demographic express themselves.”

Anderson said he would like to see the small ISPs connect further up on the network so that they can have more control, access to faster speeds, and be independent from network throttling.

The incumbents should adopt a “functional separation” model for retail sales, he said. Effectively a form of “unbundling,” the model encourages a complete separation of a company’s wholesale and retail services.

Anderson referred to a KPMG study published in 2009, which said that, after the United Kingdom adopted a functional separation model, retail prices decreased. He pointed to New Zealand, Italy and Sweden as jurisdictions undertaking the move towards functional separation.

“Allowing a few companies to control access to the Internet creates an incentive for bandwidth scarcity, and that’s why Canada is falling behind,” he said.

The incumbent telcos, of course, disagree. They point to the billions of dollars they have invested to build, expand and upgrade their own networks.

Bell Canada adds that it should be permitted to implement wholesale usage-based billing so that all customers are treated the same. The company has also argued that billing by usage is a necessary measure to manage network traffic.

Some in the industry have questioned the integrity of OpenMedia.ca’s petition, pointing to the accuracy of the total number of signatures and accusing OpenMedia of appealing to citizens on an emotional level when they may be unaware of the details of the CRTC ruling.

The commission’s usage-based billing decision only directly affects approximately six per cent of Canadians who subscribe to a third-party ISP. Most incumbent ISPs have applied usage-based billing to their customers since 2006, and those customers would not be impacted directly.

In a panel discussion aired last month on TVO’s The Agenda, Mirko Bibic, Bell Canada's senior vice-president of government and regulatory affairs, suggested that OpenMedia’s campaign is misleading.

“I urge everyone to look at the question. The question is loaded. It says basically the equivalent of, ‘The CRTC is going to force you pay more, are you in support of that?’ Of course people are going to say that they aren’t in support of that. That’s not really the issue. That’s not what the CRTC is doing at all,” Bibic said.

Industry critics have also said literature distributed by OpenMedia has not been straightforward about how the usage-based billing decision is not directly related to the usage-based billing of the incumbent ISPs.

For better or worse, literature seems geared to appeal to people’s emotional triggers and beliefs that they are being ripped off by their service providers.

“Phone and cable companies are about to put a pay meter on your Internet use … If we allow this to happen Canadians will have no choice but to pay MUCH more for less Internet,” OpenMedia says on its website.

Its petition also notes, “Big telecom companies are forcing small competing ISPs to adopt the same pricing scheme, so that we have no choice but to pay these punitive fees.”

Geist said he believes OpenMedia’s petition reached a large group of frustrated consumers. “I think what OpenMedia.ca did was tap into a huge amount of pent up frustration with the lack of competition that exists in the Canadian marketplace with respect to Internet services,” he said.

Anderson would not provide a list of those who signed the petition, but said the people he has communicated with about it have been some of the most informed consumers he has ever dealt with.

“I am surprised by the level of sophistication of people who post on our Facebook wall,” he said, adding that he considers himself more of an educator than an advocate.

“They are so informed and so on top of this stuff. I can’t speak for all of the half a million people that signed the petition, but the people who are active with posting on our wall definitely get this—more than I do.”

But Michael Hennessy, Telus Corp's senior vice-president of government and regulatory affairs, said the debate has become overheated. The CRTC must ensure that it makes decisions based on facts and costs, not public pressures.

“The really important thing is that your expert tribunal is allowed to address the problem on a reasoned and objective basis, without public pressure on its actual decision making,” Hennessy said in an interview. 

OpenMedia.ca is registered as a not-for profit corporation and operates on public donations solicited through its website. Lawford said that, due to the income tax laws, it is very difficult for groups that do any sort of advocacy to gain charitable status in Canada.

Anderson said the OpenMedia website provides an option for those uncomfortable using PayPal to make a donation to The Media Democracy Project of Tides Canada Initiatives, a charitable media education network in Vancouver that Anderson is also involved with.

He said OpenMedia has met all of its recent fundraising targets, but would not say how much the group has fundraised. Independent ISPs Teksavvy Solutions Inc. and Acanac Inc. recently participated in a successful fund-matching drive with OpenMedia, where they donated a combined $15,000.

“A big part of the reason we were able to be successful this year is because of our fundraisers,” Anderson said. “When we ask for money now, and we set a target, we make it, because people see directly what’s happening with it.”

George Burger, an advisor for Teksavvy, said in an interview that the ISP has had a lengthy and mutually beneficial relationship with Anderson.

“I know that OpenMedia.ca has been doing this much more for love than for money. Whatever modest means that people on this side of the equation can do to support it is definitely beneficial,” Burger said.

Lindsey Pinto, OpenMedia’s communications manager, said in an interview that the organization has spent most of its donations on website maintenance costs, printing tasks, distributing campaign materials for its day of action, and putting together research reports.

“We are the world’s smallest organization and all of that is going to go towards keeping us afloat while we try and endeavor with these big tasks,” Pinto said.

She noted that it can be “scary” to face off with politicians and large corporations.

“It’s been amazing how tailored their messages are and how clear it is that we are fighting against something gigantic and organized,” she said. “We realize that we are a virtual David fighting a Goliath.”

asmith@thewirereport.ca

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