PIAC wants government to intervene in net neutrality on behalf of consumers

Consumer advocates are telling the federal government that it must intervene to better protect individual’s rights to unfettered Internet services and champion consumers’ rights to a neutral Internet. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) says consumers are frustrated by the actions of the ISPs to slow-down Internet connections as a way to deal with bandwidth congestion. “People don’t know what the hell is but when you explain it to them they have a pretty strong viewpoint on what they think. They don’t like being throttled and they don’t necessarily want pricing to go up,” Lawford tells Network Letter in an interview. Consumer concerns were revealed in a series of focus groups, conducted by Environics Research on behalf of PIAC. The findings are detailed in a 130-page report, titled Staying Neutral: Canadian Consumers and the Fight for Net Neutrality. There is fear among consumer advocacy groups that the CRTC’s decision on traffic management, which largely relies on pricing measures to control usage, will lead to greater segmentation of users. This, according to Lawford, could see the ISPs introduce a greater number of new tiered pricings aimed at charging for bandwidth usage that was previously included in existing packages. “They didn’t think they should be paying more money for a special brand of Internet. If push came to shove and there was a true shortage then a few heavy users might have to pay more,” Lawford says of the general sentiment expressed in the focus groups. Net neutrality was a hot button topic for the better part of the last 18 months beginning with a Canadian Association of Internet Providers’ (CAIP) Part VII asking the CRTC to order Bell to halt wholesale traffic throttling. The commission set the rules for ISPs’ use of traffic management in an October 2009 decision. The PIAC report, which was released Dec. 1, also recommends what the government can do to rectify the current situation, including speed benchmarks that ISPs have to make available to consumers. PIAC suggests Canada follow the lead of Finland where the government has mandated a minimum speed of 1 Mbps immediately be made available to all consumers, ramping up to 100 Mbps by 2015. “If broadband access and higher speeds were made an explicit government priority as has been undertaken in the EU and started in the US, the problems of network capacity might be somewhat alleviated,” reads the report. Added Lawford: “You could make it a condition of their operating as telecom providers in the Internet space that they meet the government standard speed.” There is a complaint mechanism built into the CRTC’s rules, but Lawford says it’s nearly impossible for the user to make a formal complaint due to the way the CRTC set up the complaints process. The CRTC’s framework placed a high evidentiary burden on those seeking to invalidate present throttling and other ISP practice. “The test further does not appear to favour consumer interests but rather those of ISPs and third party content providers, such a Google. Thus, traffic management practices may lead to such consumer woes as narrowed choice of services and segmented pricing plans, based on usage profiles gleaned from information about application use,” states the report. The consumer advocacy group recommends the CRTC and the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services create a system where consumers can get help filing formal complaints. In addition to making a number of recommendations (see below), PIAC calls on policymakers and legislators to adopt a consumer statement of rights with respect to net neutrality. In particular, consumers have the right to: use their internet connection to access the lawful content, applications or services of their choice without discrimination, modification, interruption, or delay of their internet transmissions by any party, subject to law; information about the user’s access to the internet, including the speed, limitations, and network management practices of the user’s internet service at any given time; pay similar prices for similar internet access services and freedom from price discrimination based on individual usage profiles; be free from surveillance and have their privacy protected when using the internet except where authorized by law; access the internet via the service provider of their choice, where facilities permit; attach any device to their network, provided the device does not physically damage the network or substantially degrade the use of the network by other subscribers; challenge any derogation from these rights in a simple, free complaints mechanism, or at law; and broadband internet access at minimum speeds in accordance with standards set by the federal government. Recommendations: The government should take leadership on this issue, bringing to the table legislation that champions the statement of consumer rights. Consumers need comprehensive and accessible education about net neutrality and the CRTC decisions. The Commission should, in conjunction with the CCTS, prepare an ITMP complaint form to guide consumers when they are writing a complaint. As well, the CRTC and CCTS should create a comprehensible and accessible FAQ regarding the complaints procedure. Given that the CRTC is unlikely to move a complaint forward unless there is a critical mass of complaints, the CRTC must rethink their complaint mechanism…The Commission should consider requesting that the CCTS modify the existing complaint process to accept some ITMP complaints from consumers. Consumers and consumer groups must use the complaint mechanism to challenge internet traffic management practices. The CRTC should strike a CRTC Interconnection Steering Committee (CISC) to examine the issue of “time-sensitivity” for internet services and applications and develop a report outlining what is and what is not time-sensitive. Canada’s government must set legal broadband service standards with forward looking minimum speed targets for ISPs. Consumers must have protection from removal of their internet access connection without due process of the law for copyright infringement allegations.

PIAC wants government to intervene in net neutrality on behalf of consumers

News | December 5, 2009

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