NEWS: Fighting for a ‘free’ internet

While ‘Information Superhighway’ may now seem like an antiquated term to describe the internet, online traffic congestion continues to be a problem — and media activists and technologists say it’s not because of the drivers in the cars, but the people paving the roads.

In its efforts to stop the internet from going the way of the TV network, where access is hierarchical and more money determines better access, media-democracy groups across the country have rallied behind a movement calling for net neutrality. In other words, they’re working to create a policy framework that stops Canada’s internet service providers (ISPs) from bandwidth throttling, slowing transmission speeds, and other tactics that clog up the user’s online experience.

Canada’s telecommunications regulator, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), wrapped up six days of hearings yesterday (July 15) in which it explored possible regulatory steps in managing internet traffic. The long-anticipated hearings, held in Gatineau, Quebec, marked a landmark meeting of citizens’ groups, internet experts, telecommunications firms, and businesses coming together to try to determine how the future — and the content — of the internet will be handled in Canada.

Having the CRTC establish regulatory policies to protect net neutrality would theoretically keep the internet functioning in the interests of users over profits for big companies. According to 27-year-old Vancouver resident Steve Anderson, that might now be closer to reality, thanks to what he saw while giving his own presentation to the CRTC in the first days of the hearings.

“Overall, they received us really positively,” Anderson said when WE reached him by phone on July 9, while he was in the midst of post-hearing beers with representatives of Google, the internet communications giant, which has publicly called for a stop to throttling by ISPs. “They [CRTC commissioners] almost seemed resigned to the consensus that there’s kind of an inevitability that they need to put some ruling in place in order to keep the internet open.”

Anderson added that a new policy framework can be expected from the CRTC by early fall. “Now I’m just waiting to see if they actually take [us] seriously when they put their policy together,” he said.

Anderson is founder of the Campaign for Democratic Media and the Save Our Net Coalition, both Vancouver-based advocacy groups working to garner support for a neutral internet free of bandwidth throttling and traffic control by ISPs. His efforts have resulted in more than 11,000 people from across Canada submitting comments to the CRTC in support of net neutrality.

“I think there clearly is growing public sentiment about the need for legal and regulatory protections for net neutrality,” says Michael Geist, who participated in the CRTC hearings and holds the Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa. “We are at a key point in the development of the internet in Canada. We need to get the rules right or face the prospect of troubling limits on competition, innovation, and free speech.”

Geist, like Anderson, remains hopeful that the wide range of groups speaking in favour of net neutrality at the CRTC hearings bodes well for the future of Canadian internet policy. But, he says, if the CRTC sticks with the business-minded arguments of telecommunications firms, the pressure for a political solution will increase dramatically. So far, the federal Liberals and federal NDP have spoken out in favour of policies supporting net neutrality. The Conservatives have yet to express their views on the issue.