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 Greatly Exaggerated (By Those Who Stand To Benefit)”) in Techdirt’s Check-the-biases department? The one that Broadband Reports exposed (“The Internet Ends in 2010, Unless you give AT&T what they want”) as industry lobby group self-interest promo? The one that, oddly enough, surfaced around the same time as a resurgence of interest in net neutrality? Well, what in the name of Sam Hill is an august geek rag like PC World doing effectively reprinting the press release?

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.

Indeed, content neutral pricing is exactly the behaviour one would want to encourage as an alternative to a departure from network neutrality. And the real issue here – one which the Globe once again fails to raise – is whether the broadband market is sufficiently competitive in Canada to allay concerns about new pricing models. Before we pull out the violins for the ISPs on how expensive it is for them to upgrade networks, it would be useful to reflect on poorly we’re faring when it comes to access and pricing for broadband. Remind me now – when did the Canadian broadband ISP speed wars end? And why exactly did they end?

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. More tellingly, he also neglected to reveal that it was Bell Canada that commissioned the survey.

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. Update: Susan Crawford weighs in here.

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 upon a time the broadband providers in Toronto competed for their customers by leapfrogging over each other’s maximum speeds, with prices staying essentially the same for progressively faster speeds. But the offerings haven’t changed since 2004, as far as I can recall. And now it looks like we will face price increases. This, of course, because of the sad state of competition here.

Competition for service is still the rule in Quebec, of course, but only because Videotron is in that market to make it more competitive ($44.95 for 10 mbps and 900 kbps up; unlimited transfer). And even in the U.S., where broadband providers have been much maligned for their efforts to subvert net neutrality, a policy concern because of the absence of competition in most metropolitan areas, Verizon is busily rolling out its FIOS service ($44.95 for 15 mbps down and 2 mbps up, theoretically; new installs get a free wireless router).

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