NOW WE KNOW WHAT happens when you try to combine an ideology that says big business is all-bad with sets of inaccurate data to try and make recommendations on fostering Internet “openness”.
You end up with a rambling report (honestly, we stopped counting after 10,000 words, but the 44-second video about the report is cute) chock full of conflicting messages and untenable ideas. And that’s just what Internet advocacy group OpenMedia.ca has produced with its report “Casting an Open Net.”
Instead of a concise and well-researched case against usage-based billing (UBB) that could have sparked a constructive debate between OpenMedia.ca and the telecom/cable industries, this new missive only serves to drive the two sides farther apart.
“I don’t see a study here, just an ideological view,” says Michael Hennessy, senior vice-president of government and regulatory affairs for Telus. “It reads like a polemic against the telecom industry … to generate enthusiasm for functional separation and public investment in building infrastructure that already exists.”
Hennessy calls the report “incredibly insulting” by distorting industry realities and ignoring the millions being spent by the industry on the broadband network. He questions why a debate on UBB has escalated into an “overwrought attack” on his industry in the report.
According to the report, the internet in Canada is under threat by large, vertically-integrated telecom companies that seek to control, and even to discourage its use.
“How can you contend that the telecom industry is trying to slow Internet traffic when Canadians spend more time watching online videos than people in any other country?” says Hennessy.
He adds that the telecom and cable industries, in order to remain competitive, have spent billions upgrading their technology including pushing fibre deeper into the networks, and introducing IPTV services. For example he says that Telus’ investment in its network is the highest of any telecom in North America.
At the heart of the sprawling 144-page study entitled “Casting an Open Net,” is a call for the adoption of “functional separation” (separation of an incumbent telecommunications company’s infrastructure ownership from its retail operations).
Its other key recommendation is that the federal government should allocate $2.2 billion from upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction proceeds to the development of broadband Internet infrastructure.
You don’t have to get past the first page to discover that it was written by committee, in fact the report’s 11 authors openly acknowledge they worked to create a “community-crafted” vision – which may make for great flashmobs, but it does not make for good reading.
But, in capturing the raw views and recommendations of the more than 480,000 Canadians who signed their “Stop the Meter” petition, the resulting report contains so many contradictory statements and unworkable recommendations, that it reads more as a political manifesto than a serious, analytical study of the future of the Internet in Canada.
In a blog posting on The Mark, Reilly Yeo, the report’s editor and managing director of OpenMedia.ca, writes that if the government was to act on the report’s “detailed and painstakingly researched list of recommendations … it would be like doubling down on accountability: It would prove that the government is truly willing to put citizen interests over corporate interests, and safeguard the open platform where citizens have invented new ways to engage in politics.”
However, even OpenMedia.ca’s key messaging appears to be in conflict with itself. It’s press release announcing the report draws a different conclusion than what is found in the actual report. The press release concludes that the report found “there is no technical or economic justification for restricting access to legal online content.” But that conclusion is not noted anywhere in the report. Rather, the executive summary reflects the ideological bent of OpenMedia.ca by claiming “It’s time to protect and expand the open Internet through concrete institutional changes and public policy that prioritize access, choice, diversity and innovation.”
Some more of the contradictory or unworkable statements and recommendations the report makes:
• “Enable Independent ISP autonomy, and Internet access choice. Functional separation should be adopted to enable ISP competition and choice.”
The report is unclear how it would be implemented or why it makes particular economic sense in Canada. So, how would functional separation work? More fundamentally, how would functional separation stimulate further investment? As George Hariton, a telecommunications lawyer remarked online on the subject “I welcome functional separation. It will keep me and my colleagues in the lifestyle we aspire to.”
• “Support the installation and extension of fibre to public institutions such as schools, libraries, community centres, hospitals, and public housing. Encourage CANARIE to allow these Institutions to connect to its network.”
CANARIE is in fact a dedicated network of high-speed, fibre optic cable to link researchers and innovators throughout Canada, not to support public housing.
• “It is the responsibility of ISPs to invest in their networks.”
But OpenMedia.ca’s call for functional separation would separate the incumbent’s infrastructure ownership from its retail Internet access operations. So they would essentially eliminate the business case for ISPs to invest in infrastructure.
• “In favour of a free and open Internet.”
But the report’s authors write that “this free and open Internet requires the CRTC to take a proactive stance [i.e. more regulation].”
• “The government should direct the CRTC to ensure the creation of open, accessible and neutral networks and maximize user preference.”
But to create this “open” network will require “ongoing reviews of legislation, regulation and practice. Legislating or regulating to protect network neutrality in Canada is essential for innovation.”
• "Provide incentives for construction to include fibre as a component of any construction process."
It is not explained how these incentives would work in practice and how they would avoid over building where fibre already exists, nor does it recognize that except for the very last miles fibre is already built pretty deep in Canada and is an automatic when wired, terrestrial networks are built now.
• In a tweet, the NDP MP Charlie Angus professed his support of OpenMedia.ca and its report and was thanked publicly by OpenMedia.ca, even though the NDP wants to see Cancon regulations applied to those transmitting video over the Internet, something we bet most of OpenMedia.ca’s petition signers would object to.
Hennessy also disputes the report’s claim that Canadians pay a “whopping $64.72 per month for access, compared to $33.49 in Japan, and $35.92 in the UK.”
“It’s simply not true,” says Hennessy. “Depending on speed, most rates range from $20 to $60.”
He also criticized OpenMedia.ca for referencing OECD data that indicated broadband access drops below 60% for rural Canadians connecting in the North.
He cited a recently released report by StatCan that indicates the difference between rural and urban access rates, with 81% of households located in census metropolitan areas wired for the web, compared to 71% of households outside of urban centres and their surrounding municipalities.
The report also contends that Canadian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are transitioning towards “technical architectures that discriminate against and seek to control certain applications,” and warn that this “gradual enclosure of the Internet threatens to restrict user access, choice, and innovation, and thus threatens to reduce the value of the Internet overall.” But Hennessey replies the opposite is true.
“Our goal at Telus is to support any platform our customers want. This is good for our business and it’s good for innovation.”
by John Bugailiskis, consumer electronics editor, Cartt.ca
