I usually don’t spend a whole lot of time debunking the more crazy conspiracy theories about Net Neutrality because I presume most online users are smart enough not to be suckered into sideshow distractions, usually paid for by providers trying to wave shiny keys at consumers to get them to support things exactly opposite their own best interests.  Unfortunately, there are a few shills out there who insist on trying to conjure up bizarre conspiracy theories about Net Neutrality representing some sort of Obama Administration/left wing takeover of the Internet.

When Newsbusters, a conservative media watchdog group, bought into this (and also sprang for the deluxe undercoatings, fabric protection, and deluxe floor mats), it was time to fire up the Debunk-o-matic once again and set the record straight.

What is particularly insulting is the ongoing effort to try and co-opt conservatives into this corporate protection circus, when truth be told, conservatives should absolutely be in favor of Net Neutrality for the same reasons any other person, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum, should be — it protects their rights to be able to speak out on the issues that concern them the most, judged on the quality of their content, not on how much money they can pay to be sure those views can travel unimpeded to interested readers across the country and beyond.

Put on the rubber boots, because we’re going to splash through some inch deep puddles:

Enter the similarly-misnamed ‘net neutrality’ movement, which advocates total government control of Internet browsing. Net neutrality would forbid Internet service providers from regulating traffic on their networks, and would place that regulatory control in the hands of the FCC.

While the left bemoans restrictions by private companies on their subscribers’ use of the Internet, progressives have few qualms with allowing the federal government a say in what we can or cannot see, do, or say on the Internet.

The centralized control of Internet use by the federal government would provide a powerful tool for the censorship of websites deemed politically unfavorable. The current administration’s labeling of right-wing fringe groups as ‘extremists’ and potentially national security threats, and the labeling of town hall protestors as ‘political terrorists’ suggests that the realm of impermissible internet use could conceivably include groups that espouse intense opposition to federal policies.

I think author Lachlan Markay has been stuck in a parallel universe, like in that Star Trek episode, because he defined Net Neutrality the exact opposite of its reality.

The FCC can’t even get rational limits on cable system ownership to survive court review.  How Markay believes a naked attempt by the FCC to regulate political content on the Internet will pass muster requires something more than simply writing alarmist claims it will happen because he says it will.

The feeble effort to link town hall protesters and Obama conspiracy theories to the issue of Net Neutrality is a transparent effort to co-opt conservatives into a cause that means standing with the providers waiting to throttle their broadband speeds and charge their favorite websites more money.  I don’t believe for a second conservatives trust the local cable or phone company to do the right thing by them, as they continue to be stuck with ever-increasing bills for channels they don’t watch and certainly don’t want to pay for and phone features they don’t want or use, but end up paying for anyway.

Though no elected net neutrality advocate would ever suggest that the movement intends to regulate content, pundits on the left have been far more forthcoming. In March, a blogger at the Huffington Post lauding net neutrality wrote, “We have a very rare opportunity right now to lock in a progressive advantage in Internet communications, information sharing, and Netroots mobilizing.”

Markay attempts to bolster his argument by linking to a Huffington Post blogger that supposedly lets it all hang out in public — conspiracy revealed, case closed.  He assumes his readers won’t bother to click on the link, because if they do, they’ll discover Markay’s source didn’t have to be linked via HuffPost, he could have just turned around to the guy figuratively sitting at the desk behind him and quoted him directly.  Yes folks, he linked to a “Contributing Editor for NewsBusters.org,” the very site Markay writes for.

Seton Motley isn’t the go-to-guy for the quality expose either.  Indeed, Motley himself quoted from Joseph A. Palermo, another HuffPost blogger who penned a piece that proved he didn’t really understand Net Neutrality either.

Palermo instead advocated that progressive causes use broadband to bypass the “media filter” and talk to audiences directly.  Motley saw the words “Net Neutrality” in the headline and figured he’d done his job for the day.

Not so much. Not one of these people appears to understand what Net Neutrality is all about.

Net Neutrality is completely above the partisan divide because it insists, regardless of content, if it’s legal it should not be impeded by a broadband provider and should be allowed to travel unfettered across their wires.  Indeed, it also demands that the Internet be a true democracy of ideas, not one of entrenched interests with lots of money that can buy their way onto the fast lane while others make due with a potentially slower “free lane” that some providers proposed.

There you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. The left is seeking net neutrality as a means of consolidating control over the Internet, the same way it sought consolidated control over the airwaves with the Fairness Doctrine, and the same way it is now seeking that same objective in the guise of ‘diversity’ and ‘localism.’ Those on the center-right should not be fooled into thinking that ‘localism’ or ‘net neutrality’ promote free enterprise or free speech.

Yes, three people who completely misunderstand the basic premise of Net Neutrality have weighed in and passed judgment on Net Neutrality. Palermo wasn’t writing about Net Neutrality and it should have not been in his headline.  Motley went along for the ride and assumed Palermo knew what Net Neutrality was, and then reflexively attacked just because Palermo plays for the blue team and Motley plays for the red.  Markay just provided the frosting for this big cake of wrong and added even more rhetorical sprinkles on top.  All that’s missing from this recipe for disaster is a provider to come on by and overcharge everyone for a piece.

The true risk of consolidation of control of the Internet isn’t coming from the federal government, it is coming from the providers themselves.  Where Markay has no concrete examples of actual government abuse, I do have real world examples of what happens when Net Neutrality protection is not guaranteed by law.  Providers in Canada, where Net Neutrality does not exist, uniformly throttle the speeds of certain content, and at least one provider directly blocked access to a website because of a political/business dispute the site had with that provider.

What should really scare conservatives is not having Net Neutrality.  These policies guarantee the right for all Americans to speak their minds and share their views, even those polar opposites Glenn Beck and Janeane Garofalo.  Let the best ideas win.

Shaw Communications has fired back against accusations by Novus Entertainment that it is engaged in predatory pricing by filing a defamation suit in the British Columbia Supreme Court.

Shaw president Peter Bissonnette said Novus is intentionally spreading misinformation about Shaw’s competitive promotion in the Vancouver area, which he said charged $29.85 a month for a comprehensive package including digital HD cable, high-speed broadband, and telephone service that includes free long distance calling across North America.

Novus fired the first legal shot in July, accusing Shaw Cable of engaging in predatory pricing by offering cable, broadband, and telephone service “below cost” only to residents in the high rise buildings where Novus currently offers service in the city of Vancouver.  Novus, a fiber optic-based competitor, offers service in 225 residential high rise buildings in downtown Vancouver, at prices that have traditionally been lower than those offered by Shaw, western Canada’s largest cable operator, based in Calgary, Alberta.  Novus announced it was filing a predatory pricing case with the Competition Bureau of Canada and the BC Supreme Court.

Shaw officials counter that many of those high rise buildings are owned by Concord Pacific, which also has a major ownership interest in Novus Entertainment.  Bissonnette dismisses Novus’ accusations of anti-competitive behavior, accusing Concord Pacific of blocking access to Shaw, preventing the company from wiring the buildings during their construction, which would have reduced costs significantly.

“Those buildings up until recently have never had access to our services,” he said.

February 2009 Shaw Communications Promotional Pricing (click to enlarge)

Novus’ disdain for Shaw began this past February, when Concord Pacific employees noticed Shaw was promoting special discount offers targeting their buildings’ residents with special discounts for new Shaw customer signups.  The special offers expired at the end of February, and the two companies stopped specifically targeting each other in greater Vancouver until July.

Novus co-president Doug Holman told the CBC that was when things really began to heat up.

The cable provider resumed its efforts in July with a more aggressive deal, which it promoted by slipping flyers under doors and with “street teams” that would stand in front of buildings and ask people entering and exiting whether they were Novus customers. If they were, they would get the $9.95 offer, he said.

The $9.95 offer Holman mentions was an even more aggressive promotion than the one Shaw offered in February. The July promotion offered each component of Shaw’s package — television, broadband, and phone — for $9.95 a month each, with two free months thrown in, as the promotional flyer obtained by Stop the Cap! illustrates (shown on the left).

Shaw's flyer distributed to Novus customers (click to enlarge)

Who exactly could obtain this promotional pricing became a point of contention between the two companies.  Shaw president Peter Bissonnette claims the promotion is not just available to existing Novus customers, but to any resident of West Vancouver, which he called “highly competitive” for cable and broadband service.  Novus claims the promotion is targeted specifically at their customers, and is not widely known or available outside of its own customer base.

Vancouver residents sharing their experiences with Stop the Cap! report that Novus’ version is probably closer to the truth.  When the skirmish went public with Novus’ PR and Twitter outreach campaign, many Shaw customers in Vancouver had no idea such an aggressive promotion existed.  Neither did Telus customers (British Columbia’s telephone provider).  Some Shaw customers called Shaw to complain about the wide disparity between the rates they were paying and those Novus customers enjoyed.  Some Telus customers also called Shaw in late July to inquire whether they could sign up for the promotion.  Existing Shaw customers were disqualified from the promotion because they were existing customers, and the Telus customers who shared their experiences with Stop the Cap! were told the “offer was not available in your area” by Shaw customer service representatives.

Indeed, other online forums reported some similar experiences, noting the offer was limited to a tight geographical area, notably right in the heart of Novus’ primary service areas — those high rise residential buildings.

One reader of Digitalhome.ca, one of Canada’s largest home entertainment forums, said Shaw would offer this promotion to him if he “moved downtown.”  He also noted some friends who do live downtown are trying to shovel through a blizzard of promotional mailers from Shaw received day after day, as well as personal visits from Shaw sales employees knocking on the doors of residents known to live in buildings wired for Novus, despite posted signs “clearly marked ‘No Canvassing’.”

On the CBC website, one Vancouver resident has received dozens of promotional mailers and plans to return them to Shaw at some point: “It’s insane; some friends and I are saving them up to dump on Shaw’s doorstep at some future point.”

Over on Broadband Reports, one resident looking for service outside of Vancouver was told the promotion was not available:

“I phoned up Shaw asking them to give me this offer at my residential house that is not located in Vancouver. They would not.  The closest deal that the Shaw customer service representative would give me is $70/month for six months and then $110/month after that – Citing at first that they could only offer this promotion to buildings with Novus/Telus/Bell. When I asked why I could not get the promotion at my house because I have Telus available, the CSR backtracked and told me that it was only available in multi-dwelling buildings. Eventually the CSR backed down and told me that Shaw was only offering the promotion to buildings with Novus.”

Another reader who did live in the right neighborhood and ostensibly should have qualified was told he did not:

“I called 15 minutes ago and spoke to a CSR about setting it up in my Kits apartment (moving on Aug 15, do not have an account with Shaw currently) and he came right out and told me it’s only for Novus customers. I said I understood it to be an offer to multi-dwelling buildings and that Telus was offered in my apartment as well, but he said that I don’t qualify because I’m not in a Novus building.”

Sign outside of The Concordia in Vancouver promoting Shaw Communications' special offer (click to enlarge)

One possible clue about who this promotion was intended for could be found on a signboard placed just outside the entrance of one Vancouver building heavily promoting the Shaw offer (see photo on right).

Meanwhile, both companies continue their war of words:

“They’ve publicly stated in the past that they’re going to become the bane of the life of Shaw,” Shaw’s Bissonnette said. “True to their word, they’ve embarked on this defamation campaign.”

Counters Novus’ Holman: “That number [$9.95] is way below our cost. We don’t know what Shaw’s cost is, but it’s hard to believe it could be that low and that their cost savings could be that much better than ours,” Holman said. “If we price matched on that, we’d be losing buckets of money.”

Vancouver residents have mixed reactions to the war of words (and pricing.)

Some are eager to take advantage of the competitive price war, and are dropping Novus for a year’s worth of service from Shaw at a fraction of the regular price, citing the savings during the current economic climate.

Others defend Shaw’s aggressive pricing as competition, brutal as it might appear, doing its job in reducing prices for consumers.  Some have suggested the aggressive rate cutting exposes the enormous profit margins enjoyed by the cable industry, particularly pointing to Shaw’s comments that they are not losing money, even at the low prices they are charging in certain areas of Vancouver, as clear evidence of the gouging that goes on elsewhere in cable pricing.

But some Vancouver residents are defending “the little guy,” upset that Shaw may be using its market power and presence across western Canada to put an upstart like Novus out of business.

One CBC reader summed up the views of Novus defenders:

I’m increasingly annoyed by how heavy-handed Shaw is being in this price war. I qualify for Shaw’s anti-competitive price, but have no intention of switching to get it. If I leave Novus now then I’d be playing right into Shaw’s dream of a city-wide monopoly.

And that’s before I even start to mention the aggression of Shaw’s sales tactics. Green-shirted employees on every street corner downtown, bugging me multiple times as I walk from point A to point B on a weekly basis. Two or three pieces of junk mail a week that get around the red dot I have in my mailbox that indicates I Do Not Want Junk Mail, because they’re addressed to Current Occupant.

I’m all for healthy competition, but this ain’t it.

A few Novus customers have found a happy middle ground while the war plays out in the courtroom.  They contacted Novus and asked them to match Shaw’s prices:

Novus customers who are tempted to switch should contact Novus, as they will match the deal. That is what I did, and I am now paying $10 bucks a month for 20Mbps (23.79 according to Speedtest.net) download speed. My total Internet bill over the next year will be $120 for a service that is equivalent to Shaw’s “High Speed Warp” package, a service that costs $94 a month! That’s the apples to apples comparison, and it works out to be a $1000 savings for Novus customers.

I felt really guilty asking Novus to match, since I am extremely happy with their service and was paying a very reasonable $30 a month. But it’s hard to pass up a deal like that, and I will do my best to spread the gospel about how much better value Novus is over Shaw, and especially Telus and Bell. Healthy competition is great, but I do hope the CRTC steps in to ensure Novus isn’t bullied out of the market.

Telus hasn’t gotten involved because they are more concerned with selling the worst service at the highest price, while Bell is busy pitching you on how fast their service is to your face, and then throttling your speed behind the scenes to the point where Google has come out against them. I haven’t had any bad experiences with Shaw myself, but Novus is a real gem.

So those of you who live in downtown Vancouver should do the logical thing, and stick with Novus. You have access to a service that most people across North America, let alone Canada, drool over.

Broadband Reports this morning revisited Cogeco, the Canadian cable company that engages in Internet Overcharging, but relies on a usage-measurement gauge that customers say can be off from dozens to hundreds of megabytes every day.  Stop the Cap! also reported on this issue in June, with customers outraged that their monthly bill’s accuracy depends on a tool that is very good at making the company extra money, but not so good at fairly measuring actual usage.  The problems continue.

It’s ironic that the electric meter outside of Cogeco headquarters is subject to verification, the gas pump dispensing fuel to Cogeco’s service trucks is audited by Measurement Canada, which also verifies the accuracy of the scale used by the grocery store deli to weigh the meat for the submarine sandwiches purchased by some of their employees.  What isn’t audited, much less independently verified, is Cogeco’s usage measurement tool.

Cogeco customers have resorted to installing their own third party monitoring tools, from built-in traffic measurement in some routers to software applications that they run on their computers.  Thus far, reports of serious discrepancies have caused an indefinite delay before Cogeco actually begins billing overlimit fees and penalties, but many customers are asking why they have to resort to checking up on Cogeco in the first place.

One Toronto resident can’t understand it:  “Since when do customers in this country have to validate a business billing system?   Customers should be assured of fair and accurate billing under the law in Canada. I see a lot of legal challenges coming for this.”

Cogeco customers note the discrepancies will add up — to Internet Overcharges:

“Ever since I slapped Tomato [third party firmware] onto my router and started monitoring my [usage], Cogeco has constantly been anywhere from 20mb to 700mb off every day,” complains one user. “Any discrepancy is unacceptable with their outrageous overage charges,” the user adds. “Twenty five to thirty gigabytes is the difference between paying fifty dollars a month for your Internet or eighty dollars a month,” says another, adding that the problems are “unacceptable.”

As Karl Bode notes in his story, whether the meter works right or not, the customer will still be expected to pay in the end.

In a sorry development, Canada’s telecommunications regulator, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, today issued a rubber stamp approval of Bell’s proposal to impose Usage Based Billing and overlimit fees and penalties for “excessive use.”

The CRTC apparently breezed its way through Bell’s application, deciding it sounded good enough for them, and made only minor adjustments.  The CRTC’s short-sighted consumer protection angle was to demand that before Bell implemented any Internet Overcharging scheme on its wholesale customers (using the Gateway Access Service), namely those who purchase connectivity to provide independent ISP service to Canadians, they must first stick it to their own retail customers.

Like that represented a problem.

The Commission  approves on an interim basis the Bell companies’ proposed two new Gateway Access Service (GAS) speed options and rates. The Commission also approves on an interim basis their proposal to introduce UBB for GAS, effective 90 days from the date of this order.  The Commission further approves on an interim basis their proposal to introduce an excessive usage charge for GAS of $0.75 per GB in excess of 300 GB, effective the date the Bell companies notify the Commission in writing that they apply an excessive usage charge of $1.00 per GB in excess of 300 GB to all their retail customers on UBB plans.

After all, if you are going to overcharge some people for broadband access, why not overcharge them all!

Bell serves both the wholesale needs of independent service providers and retail consumers subscribing to DSL service.  Last year, Bell suddenly began throttling the speeds of their wholesale customers without notification, killing a major marketing benefit independent providers offered potential subscribers – a non-throttled broadband experience.  The remaining independent service providers that compete against Bell and many cable companies in Canada by offering unlimited access now find that marketing angle also rapidly becoming unavailable.  Such actions benefit the larger providers by making independents uncompetitive and force Canadians into all of the classic Internet Overcharging schemes, with no alternatives.

The result has been outrage by Canadians who have discovered, yet again, the CRTC represents the interests of large corporate telecommunications companies and not the common sense needs of ordinary Canadians for affordable, open Internet access.  While the CRTC continues to act like the cable and telephone industry’s BFF, Canada’s former leadership in broadband rankings continues its rapid deterioration, falling further and further behind other industrialized countries, all for the benefit of providers and their profits.

The CRTC remains impotent in promoting effective competition and consumer-friendly policies.  Broadband Reports notes that may be by design. Many staffers at the CRTC have past histories with the providers they are supposed to independently regulate.  They point specifically to vice-chairman Leonard Katz, whose amazing lack of consumer concern may partly result from his more pressing need to consider the interests of his former employers – Rogers Cable (17 years) and Bell (11 years).

Canadians can and must demand an end to the CRTC-Telecom Industry Friendship Festival that seems to be ongoing at their expense.  Contact your member of Parliament and demand some top to bottom changes in regulatory policy that are front and center focused on the needs of Canadian consumers, not on the interests of a handful of big telecom companies.  An investigation into possible conflict of interest is also warranted.  Exactly how many CRTC staffers come to the agency from the companies that are regulated by it, and how many find nice jobs waiting for them at those companies when they leave government service?

Stop the Cap! readers have seen the differences in broadband pricing between Japan and the United States.  The CRTC approval of Bell’s request makes a bad situation even worse across Canada, particularly in areas where there are no alternatives to Bell’s DSL service.

How low can they go?

Daryl Kramp, MP for Prince Edward-Hastings, announcing broadband initiative in eastern Ontario

Daryl Kramp, Member of Parliament for Prince Edward-Hastings, on behalf of John Baird, Canada’s Transport and Infrastructure Minister, and the Honourable Leona Dombrowsky, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs for Ontario, announced that the construction of a 21st century broadband network is a step closer in Eastern Ontario. The Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario have together set aside up to $110 million for the project.

“Our Government is delivering on investments that help create jobs and build sustainable communities,” said MP Kramp. “The construction of a broadband network in Eastern Ontario will help to expand and improve local businesses and their services, and significantly boost our regional economy.”

“Delivering broadband to Eastern Ontario is a critical infrastructure investment that will bring more industry to the region and create the jobs that will help our towns and rural communities prosper,” said Leona Dombrowsky, Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

“Today’s announcement marks a major step forward in helping to secure the future prosperity of Eastern Ontario. Having a high-speed, high-capacity broadband network is one of the most important assets that we can utilize to assist us in unlocking the ingenuity and creativity of our people and businesses. We are extremely grateful to both the federal and provincial governments for their tremendous financial support for this project,” said Ron Emond, Chair of the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus.

The governments of Canada and Ontario will each set aside up to one-third of total eligible costs of the project, to a maximum contribution of $55 million. Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus (EOWC) Incorporated and private sector partners will provide the remaining funding, with EOWC Inc. contributing up to $10 million. The total eligible costs of this project are estimated to be $170 million.

Once completed, the network will provide broadband service to the residents and businesses in many of the counties of Eastern Ontario (Hastings, Peterborough, Renfrew, Northumberland, Haliburton, Frontenac, Lanark, Prince Edward, Lennox & Addington, the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry, the United Counties of Prescott & Russell and the United Counties of Leeds & Grenville) as well as the City of Kawartha Lakes.

Many of these areas already have rudimentary broadband service in the form of DSL and limited cable television penetration, but many DSL accounts are speed limited to 1-3Mbps, which the EOWC has determined to be woefully inadequate for broadband applications of the near future.

Canada’s broadband initiatives outside of the most rural communities are starting to define the bare minimum network speed at 10Mbps for downloading if the network is to sustain viability in the future.  With a goal of reaching up to 95% of eastern Ontario with broadband service in the next four years, a variety of technologies are likely to be considered depending on the population being reached.  Those living in the most rural areas are likely to find wireless service the most viable option, delivered with a form of WiMax.  Rural enclaves or neighborhoods outside of community centers may continue to be served by DSL service for some time.  But those in suburban and more urban community centers should have access to advanced forms of DSL, fiber optics, or high speed wireless service.

Many public Wi-Fi “hotspots” will be established at community gathering points, accessible to visitors at no charge.

The Government of Canada’s 2009 Economic Action Plan is accelerating and expanding the existing federal investment of $33 billion in infrastructure across Canada with almost $12 billion in new infrastructure stimulus funding over the next two years.

Through the 2009 Ontario Budget – Confronting the Challenge: Building Our Economic Future – the province is investing $32.5 billion in infrastructure for the province of Ontario over the next two years, including a $5 billion contribution from the federal government that will support more than 300,000 jobs and strengthen Ontario’s economy.