OTTAWA – A coalition of consumer groups and independent telecos is appealing the CRTC decision on whether or not Bell Canada unfairly capped the bandwidth of third party Internet service providers (ISPs), a practice known as ‘throttling’.
The group says they believe that there is “substantial doubt as to the correctness” of Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-108, as a result of a “multitude of distinct errors of fact and law” committed by the CRTC.
In the decision issued last November, the Commission denied the Part VII application by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers requesting that the CRTC order Bell Canada “to cease and desist” from traffic shaping of its wholesale asymmetric digital subscriber line services and, in particular, the wholesale service known as Gateway Access Service (GAS).
GAS is a mandated Bell Canada wholesale service that Internet service providers use to provide retail Internet services. It carries an ISP’s customer’s Internet traffic from the customer’s location to a point in the Bell Canada network where the aggregated traffic generated by the ISP’s GAS customers is handed off to the ISP.
The application was submitted by the Consumers’ Association of Canada, Canada Without Poverty (formally the National Anti-Poverty Organization), the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, and independent telecommunications service providers Acanac Inc., Accelerated Connections Inc., Cybersurf Corp., Execulink Telecom Inc., eagle.ca, Managed Network Systems Inc., Skyway West Business Internet Services, Start Communications, TekSavvy Solutions Inc., Vianet Internet Solutions and Yak Communications.
In addition to the errors, the group maintains that it was “manifestly unfair” to the parties that participated in the proceeding to then have the CRTC open a new proceeding examining “the very same issues raised in the CAIP proceeding”, otherwise known as Telecom Public Notice 2008?19.
For more on the group’s application, click here.
