CRTC Revists Net Regluation

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, the regulator for broadcasting and telecom, has flipped-flopped on the issue of regulating the Internet. Way back in 1999 the CRTC said the Internet is too broad and that it would be futile to even try to regulate. While this approach was generally good to allow Canadians to enjoy the same Internet that the rest of the world uses, it has also allowed broadband providers to cap and throttle bandwidth those users who use a lot of bandwidth.

The Internet regulation that CRTC is being asked to consider comes from arts and culture groups. Looking for some way that Canadian Internet subscribers to get steered to Canadian created online content. The Canadian Recording Industry Association is back looking for their ISP tax even after online peer to peer file shaing was made illegal in the copyright bill.

Use of the Internet without restriction will not come without some kind of net neutrality regulation to, the kind of regulation unlikely to come from the CRTC after dismissing a complaint against Bell Canada from subscribers and third party DSL providers because Bell's caps and throttling.

The arts and culture groups will just have to go home because can-con regulation is just a futile now as it was a decade ago, and the recording industry needs to go and do a better job of selling music online, just like American record lables are just starting do do now. The CRTC should do another flip-flop but this time of net neutraliy because that's the only way the Internet should be regulated in Canada.