From Michael: “CAIP, Canada’s largest ISP association, has filed a Part VII application with the CRTC asking it to direct Bell Canada to cease and desist from throttling its wholesale Internet service.”

Net neutrality is back.

Remember that Nemertes Research Group report of a week or two ago that forecasted clogged pipes and a glacially slow internet? You know, the one that was tarted up for the mass media – the media that one would expect to be particularly gullible? The one that Mike Masnick flicked aside (“Death Of The Internet [...]

Praise be to Michael for pointing out the Globe’s apparent misunderstanding of network neutrality in its piece today conflating that concept and the notion of pay per bandwidth in ISP pricing. It’s a post I’ve been wanting to write since I read the article earlier today and was annoyed almost, but not quite, to action. [...]

Michael has a short essay on net neutrality and traffic shaping on his blog (it’s based on his Toronto Star article here). It’s gratifying to see Michael’s work on these issues getting traction on Techmeme and generating an increasing level of comment interest on his blog.

Michael’s latest focuses on net neutrality, and in particular on Tory efforts to pretend that they take the issue seriously and are even-handedly developing policy. What got my attention was one little nugget that goes into my Hall of Shame; the latest entry on the list of the (really, rather dismayingly creative) capacity that politicos have for disguising their mendacity and twisting reality into pretzels to avoid taking responsibility for their decisions:I conclude by noting that after reports of the internal government position on net neutrality leaked out, Bloc MP Paul Crête raised the issue last Wednesday in the House of Commons, asking [Tory Industry Minister] Bernier to commit to the principle of net neutrality. Bernier declined to do so, instead citing a recent Ipsos-Reid public opinion poll that he said demonstrated that 75 percent of Quebec residents support his plans for telecom reform. In addition to mistaking polls for policies, Bernier did not mention that only 14 percent of respondents were even aware of the government’s telecom policy changes and that the survey made no mention of Internet access issues.

Should we be surprised that, in the wake of the announcement of a net neutrality compromise to pave the way for approval of AT&T’s acquisition of Bell South, and the praise from all quarters that the deal has received, the ‘tropolis is the first to start poking around in the small print? First, this prescient fine print caution from Russell Shaw at ZDNet, and then the money post (credited to Dave Burstein) from Mike at Techdirt: there may well be a devil in the details.

From the “Just How Dumb Do You Really Think We Are” Department, the latest Joe Lockhart contribution to the Net Neutrality Debate.

Rogers is increasing the price for its “Extreme” service by $7 a month, to $51.95 (for 6 mbps down and 800 kbps up; 100 GB transfer limit). The explanation sent to customers is that prices have not increased since the service’s introduction in 2004, and “operational costs have increased”. It’s a curious thing, but once [...]

Finally, from John Hodgman, some sane thinking on the thorny issue of net neutrality.