Internet – Page 12

Canada’s unfair data rates get international attention, believe it or not.

June 30, 2008July 25, 2009 Danny X Bell, Rogers0 comment

Anyone who has even taken a cursory glance at our main page will know that we’re what you might call a little irked over the ramrodding Canadians are taking if they want to purchase an iPhone from Rogers. In a nutshell, Rogers is offering half what AT&T is for more money, and a third what O2 in the UK is offering, also for significantly more money. It’s a grossly unfair monopolistic practice that can in no way represent what the “vast majority” of consumers want or need, and considering the…

Bell’s Own Data Shatters P2P Red Herring

June 26, 2008February 2, 2011 Doug Groves Bell, CRTC, online rights, Teksavvy10 Comments

About a week ago, the CRTC demanded that Bell release to the public by June 23rd information that would prove it’s claim that P2P throttling was having a negative impact on it’s network. Some, but not all, of that information has been made public. Many details are being kept from public view for ‘competitive’ reasons. Even the scant evidence released shows exactly how flimsy Bell’s case is. One would assume that the company would release the most damaging evidence, but their claim is that over a 2 month period, 2-5%…

Canadian Internet Updatepalooza.

June 19, 2008April 17, 2009 Doug Groves 5 Comments

There’s a few points of interest regarding the issues facing Canadian internet access this past week, which actually makes for some good reading, so here we go. With regards to the Bell throttling issue raised by the CAIP, the Globe & Mail has an article that suggests that despite ruling against the CAIP’s request for interim relief on the issue, the CRTC is leaning towards the CAIP’s position. Part of the CRTC mandate is to ensure that there’s no interference with the application and development of information technologies, and Bell…

Bell’s VideoStore and Net Neutrality

May 22, 2008July 25, 2009 Doug Groves Bell5 Comments

Over the past month or more, there’s been an uptick in Net neutrality issues in the Canadian ISP space. Over the decades, Bell Canada has received untold millions in government subsidies to build out it’s infrastructure. In return, it’s is mandated by the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission) to lease wholesale to 3rd party companies to run their own services on Bell’s physical infranstruction. Back in March of this year, Bell announced that it would start packet shaping, or throttling bit torrent transfers ‘during peak hours’, even on these…

CAIP vs. Bell – Round One

April 8, 2008April 17, 2009 Doug Groves Bell, CAIP4 Comments

In the latest news regarding the Bell bandwidth throttling issue, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) has filed a Cease And Desist application with the CRTC, to put an end to Bell’s packet shaping. From the press release: Tom Copeland, Chair of CAIP states, ” Bell has undertaken an activity that it has no regulatory authority to do and it did so without notifying it’s wholesale ISP customers which it has a legal responsibility to do before making such changes. It did so without the knowledge of its customers…

Canadian Throttling: It’s Not Just For P2P

April 4, 2008April 17, 2009 Doug Groves Bell, Teksavvy, throttling10 Comments

The issue of net neutrality is quickly coming to a head here in Canada. It’s been long known that the largest cable internet provider Rogers has been throttling P2P activity, but since the announcement a couple of weeks ago that Bell would start throttling P2P on it’s 3rd party wholesale lines (which would affect DSL users not subscribed to Bell’s Sympatico service), there has been a lot of action. What has been largely overlooked is that not only is Bell throttling P2P, but they are, if the evidence is accurate,…

Hadron Collider Injunction Sought – Head Crab Fears

April 2, 2008April 17, 2009 Doug Groves Hadron collider499 Comments

With the construction complete on CERNs Large Hadron Collider, two men have sought an injuction in a Hawaiian court to prevent them flicking the switch, out of safety concerns. The two major concerns are the possibility of creating small scale black holes that could suck up the earth, or the creation of strangelets that could theoretically convert us all into matter straight out of a Kurt Vonnegut novel (or possibly “Plan 9 From Outer Space”). Though the chances of either of these senarious actually playing out is essentially zero, it…

Net Neutrality Perfect Storm, eh! – Updated

March 31, 2008July 9, 2009 Doug Groves Bell, net neutrality86 Comments

For some time, net neutrality has been below the radar for most Canadians. Sure, we’ve read about what’s going on in the US, but many of the regulations governing internet backbones and content delivery are different up here. For example, Canadian law charges a piracy tax on writeable media such as CDs, to offset piracy. In the past couple of weeks we’ve seen a perfect storm brewing regarding net neutrality in our home and native land. Here’s a quick breakdown… Bell Canada is required to sell DSL lines wholesale to…

Nine Ways Yahoo! Has Already Eviscerated Itself Better Than Microsoft Ever Could

February 8, 2008August 29, 2009 Doug Groves Microsoft, Yahoo2 Comments

1. Previewing a next generation beta mail interface that looks and moves like 300 lb. ass. Google walked an artful line with its first iteration of Gmail, introducing responsive AJAX code without sacrificing too much time in preload. It’s a line that Yahoo! blundered right over as if it were never even there. Google saw what Yahoo! didn’t — just because new tools give us the ability to recreate a desktop application within a browser, doesn’t necessarily mean we should. There is a way to make smart choices about how…

Institutions of Higher Earning?

November 15, 2007July 25, 2009 Doug Groves online rights2 Comments

Top Democratic leaders have introduced a new bill that would essentially force universities to sign up to paid music services, or face losing federal financial aid including that for students who don’t use a computer. The proposal is buried in a 700+ page spending and financial aid bill. They also have the option of using technology based deterrents to prevent illegal downloading, and would suffer the same consequences if they fail to implement such measures. This amounts to little more than an extortion racket, and it’s not surprising that the…

Video Sharing – is it illegal?

September 21, 2007July 25, 2009 Doug Groves online rights2 Comments

This VCR is so old, it’s clock flashes 11:00… From boingboing.net: a discussion about video sharing via Nightline circa 1981. Yep. Though it’s pretty dry stuff, it’s essentially the same discussion that’s going on now, albeit sharing is just a little easier nowadays. There’s also some small measure of irony that the videos are being shared on Youtube.com Essentially, a rep from MCA and a lawyer discuss whether it’s illegal to use a Sony Betamax machine to record television shows. After all, back in the day home taping was going…