May 14, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- The Canadian Radio-Television Commission chose Wednesday to allow Bell Canada (bell.ca) to continue regulating the levels of service it provides to different types of traffic on the wholesale network it provides to smaller Canadian ISPs, while it reaches a final decision about the question.
Last month, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, on behalf of these smaller providers, issued a complaint to the CRTC, asking the group to stop Bell from "traffic shaping," calling the practice illegal. The CAIP alleged that the practice was part of a larger plan by Bell to eventually implement a tiered system of pricing for Internet service.
The debate is essentially similar to the so-called "net neutrality" question being debated by the Federal Trade Commission in the US.
Bell Canada and Rogers, Canada's other major Internet carrier, both use traffic shaping practices to manage the load on their networks. Practically speaking, the practice involves slowing down or limiting the bandwidth available to certain types of traffic, such as peer-to-peer and torrent traffic, that tend to be major drains on network capacity and can cause other traffic to perform poorly.
The CRTC will reportedly issue a letter on Thursday outlining the factors it considered in reaching its decision.
Before it can issue a cease and desist order, the CRTC has to believe there is a "serious issue" to be determined, and that the group seeking the order will suffer irreparable damage if it is not granted.
In the case of Bell throttling traffic, the CRTC said the policy did present a serious issue, but that the CAIP did not provide sufficient evidence that its members would suffer irreparable harm as a result.
Read Back Issues of WHIR Magazine
October 2009 - Web Hosting's All Star Team
This has been, for us, one of the most interesting, exciting and challenging build-ups to an issue of the magazine yet, Web Hosting's All Star Team. The balloting process was our first experiment with a kind of user participation we're planning to do a lot more with in the months to come. We had thousands of ballots submitted, with hundreds of write-in suggestions and a demonstration of user engagement that has us feeling super positive about the project.
About This Issue | Read Digital Edition
July 2009 - What am I Worth?
One of the interesting luxuries of working on a project like the printed WHIR magazine is that it allows us to play with things like our point of view from one issue to the next. In recent months we've been giving added attention to the kind of practical and applicable advice aimed at smaller hosts and resellers. This issue carries on with that point of view, asking, in our cover story, "what am I worth?" It's a complicated question without a clear-cut answer.
About This Issue | Read Digital Edition
May 2009 - The Blueprint for a Small Web Host
I was a little surprised by how difficult it became to see this idea through. We set out to assemble a blueprint for a small hosting business, but butted up pretty quickly against the general impossibility of covering all the territory that was out there to be covered. The basic constraints of a printed magazine, and the less-than-infinite amount of time we had available forced us to face the fact that we could never produce an exhaustive guide to starting a hosting company.
About This Issue | Read Digital Edition
Comment anonymously or log into your WHIR account
Logging in allows enhanced commenting features (such as external linking) in news, features, blogs and more.
Comment by Anonymous on Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Bell hasn't won anything yet.
The CRTC said that they would not grant interim relief as requested by CAIP.
The CRTC will still be considering the question of whether Bell can or cannot throttle the independent ISPs.
Comment by Anonymous on Thursday, May 15, 2008
You're right. While we were writing about the injunction (or the decision not to grant one) we glossed over the later decision to the point where this sounded like a final decision. Thanks for commenting on it. I've changed the story a bit to reflect that.