Category Archives: broadband

More on the student ISP ratings: Bell’s Internet disaster (3)

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A new bundle from Bell: Internet access with poutine

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I have bad news for Bell. On our campus, those steaming piles of french fries and gravy didn’t help convince any of my students that Bell has the “best Wi-Fi” or the best anything. And I have detailed files to prove it.

Poutine aside, why would Bell’s marketing department create an association between students resenting their roommates and students signing up for Wi-Fi? Well, first of all because Bell is counting on nobody actually knowing what the hell the “best” Wi-Fi would look like. Wi-Fi is a highly unpredictable technology whose performance depends on many factors out of Bell’s control, from the composition of walls to the type of data being transferred, the age of the router, the extent of bandwidth sharing and so on.

Meanwhile, there’s no clear value proposition for a commodity like bandwidth, except variations on “We’re the Best, period.” So Bell is betting that its brand equity will be enough to get people signing up, even as it’s getting its ass kicked in the Internet access market by Rogers. Bell has other trucks cruising around my neighborhood with another peremptory message slapped on the side: “Bell Internet. Perfect for laptops.” Continue reading →

Broadband as a basic service: be careful what you wish for (4)

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[This post continues from the previous one, comparing the FCC and CRTC approaches to the principle of universality, and finding the CRTC’s approach to broadband puts this principle at risk.]

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For my money, the key lesson we can take from Chairman Wheeler’s FCC lies in the willingness to admit when they’ve got a big problem on their hands. The FCC spends little time reflecting on its successes, compared to worrying about how they will correct market failures and right social injustices. In that spirit, Wheeler’s recent statement on the new Lifeline proceeding gets straight to the main issue: “…nearly 30% of Americans still don’t have broadband at home, and low-income consumers disproportionately lack access.”

Compare that blunt admission to the CRTC’s habit of seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. The rosy glow is not confined to decisions; it’s also been a feature of the CRTC’s research documents. Take last year’s Communications Monitoring Report on telecommunications (pdf uploaded here). Turning to the section on the Internet market sector and broadband availability (p.171), the reader is hard-pressed to see that anything is amiss in this parallel universe. Continue reading →

Broadband as a basic service: be careful what you wish for (3)

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I’m taking a further shot in this post at the question of the decade: should Ottawa guarantee Internet access to all Canadians?

This question is now drawing a great deal of attention. In April, the CRTC launched a new proceeding to review “basic telecommunications services.” As I wrote previously:

“The most important single question to be addressed in this proceeding is whether the time has come to start treating a broadband connection to the Internet as an essential service to be provided to all our citizens, just as we have done for decades in the provision of basic telephone service.”

As luck would have it, that is exactly the issue the FCC voted to examine on June 18: FCC Takes Steps to Modernize and Reform Lifeline for Broadband.”

Nevertheless, the two agencies see what is at stake in very different terms. These differences are evident in a comparison of the relevant public notices and agency research documents. My reading indicates our American friends are way ahead of us in the assumptions they’ve made about the public interest, as well as in the tools at their disposal to make a success of this epic broadband venture. Continue reading →

Rebooting basic services: hope for policy reform? (2)

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New ideas for policy reform from Bell

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Update on other reactions to Turcke/Bell (1:10pm): Pete Nowak has his own biting critique in yesterday’s post – If VPN use is theft, then Bell’s CraveTV is extortion. And over at OpenMedia.ca, Josh Tabish has stirred up some really unfriendly reactions on Facebook about the whole fiasco – 181 315 and counting. (When I showed the FP article to my teenage daughter, her eye-rolling reaction was, OMG, as if using a VPN is hacking.)

As I suggested in my last post, some of the conclusions reached at the Rebooting conference will be echoed in the current CRTC proceeding on basic service objectives. Despite all the compelling reasons for reform, however, numerous barriers stand in the way. Some of those discussed at the conference will certainly play a continuing role in the broadband proceeding…

1 – No political will or vision. Short of improbable legislative change, we need something the Harper government is incapable of formulating: a national digital strategy. The CRTC suggested the need for a national strategy six years ago in its new media decision (2009-329, para 78). What we got from the Tories instead was a lousy marketing brochure. Even the opposition parties seem to regard our broadband future as unworthy of serious attention. Continue reading →

Rebooting basic telecom services: hope for policy reform?

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The recent Rebooting conference in Ottawa was a terrific experience. Lots of people with lots of good ideas and the opportunity to debate them at length.

cbc_logo_1940_1958Oversimplifying a little, I would divide the conference participants into two general groups. The first and larger of the two was reform-minded, with many calling for serious changes, especially to the CRTC. The second group, while smaller, was just as eloquent in defending what I’d call the status quo. By that I mean maintaining or expanding subsidies for program production; a bigger role for the CBC; and measures explicitly designed to protect broadcasters with a view, among other things, to protecting jobs in the broadcast sector. This perspective tended to cast the socio-cultural objectives of the Broadcasting Act in a favorable light.

My six minutes of fame featured a half dozen reasons as to why there’s an urgent need to reboot the Broadcasting Act, and in particular to redraw the policy goals in section 3 from the ground up.

Why we need reform

1 – The 1991 Act is older than the Web. One simple argument for reform is chronological. The 1991 Act predates the Web by six months: the first publicly available Web page was posted on the Internet in August 1991. Worse still, most of section 3 is based on what became law in 1968 – 47 years ago! The main difference is that the current version is over three times longer and now refers to “programs” and “programming” 31 times. Continue reading →

Broadband speeding up, broadcast TV slowing down?

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This morning brought news that the CRTC has launched a national broadband measurement initiative using the SamKnows platform (“The global leaders in broadband measurement“). The announcement comes hard on the heels of Michael Geist’s Tuesday post entitled Missing the Target: Why Does Canada Still Lack a Coherent Broadband Goal? Ironically, after his well taken lament, the Commission suddenly seems ready to answer Michael’s question – though not in the way some of us might like.

“The CRTC is recruiting up to 6,200 Canadians to help measure the Internet services provided by the participating ISPs. Volunteers will receive a device, called a “Whitebox”, that they will connect to their modem or router. The Whitebox will periodically measure broadband performance, testing a number of parameters associated with the broadband Internet connection, including download and upload speeds.”

On this Commission page, the visitor is offered some details, including how to sign up. In a discussion with some other folks today, there was agreement that the Commission is going to have to work hard to attract mainstreamers who have no technical background. To do so, the project team is going to have to take a more didactic approach, and give up self-congratulatory marketing lingo like a “world-class communication system.” Continue reading →

CRTC’s code of conduct for TV providers: too little, too late?

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The CRTC is moving ahead with its Code of Conduct for TV service providers (TVSPs). The Code was initially announced on March 26, as a by-product of the Let’s Talk TV proceeding (Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2015-105). Now, in its best populist spirit, the Commission is asking for public comment on its TV Code:

“Canadians sent us a strong message that they were encountering problems with their television service providers. The CRTC is acting on these comments and has prepared a draft version of a TV Code that reflects what Canadians told us. I invite them to take an active part in the discussions. Now is the time to shape your TV Code.”–CRTC Chair JP Blais, May 12, 2015 (emphasis original)

Less consulting, more research

The Commission may have the substance right, but it has the timing and execution all wrong. The idea that TVSPs provide lousy service isn’t exactly new. Much of the evidence has been anecdotal. A public consultation, however, will not make up for that shortcoming. Worse still, the idea of holding this public consultation arose from the earlier public consultation that was part of Let’s Talk TV. They’re breeding. Continue reading →

It’s 2015: Cancon is the aberration, not VPNs or the Internet

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WiTopia is a provider of personal VPN services

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In a Globe and Mail piece last Friday, Kate Taylor starts off by asking the wrong question: Digital content may be cheap, but who will pay to create it? Things go downhill from there.

Ms Taylor’s old-fashioned apology for Cancon, with its predictable sideswipes at “freeriding” Netflix and marauding pirates, is based on ideology rather than evidence. It completely misconstrues the role of security tools like VPNs, at a time when Canadians should be far more concerned about their privacy and security online than about shelf space on the network for domestic TV shows. Most of all, it treats the Internet like a cultural and economic aberration that’s ruining our TV system, when the aberration is Canada’s bizarre and unworkable framework for broadcasting.

Virtual private networks and why you need one

What the article says about VPNs:

“The latest scheme is to use a virtual private network, or VPN, to trick Netflix into believing you are located in the United States and can thus subscribe to the video-streaming service’s American catalogue….

Internet advocates love to preach choice, diversity and freedom – after all, a VPN can also be used by citizens in China to access content censored by their government.”

A VPN is specialized client software that encrypts online messages, and is said metaphorically to “tunnel” through the public Internet. It’s a “virtual” network because there’s no real tunnel or separate physical network. Your data packets are still co-mingling with other people’s packets, but only you and folks with the authentication tools – like a password – can read those packets. The VPN is said to be private for exactly that reason, like an office behind a locked door. Continue reading →