“The Muslim Brotherhood of Broadband Liberation”

Down with internet tyranny!

The CRTC’s ruling compelling all internet service providers (ISPs) to charge users based on how much data they use “reinforces our country’s reputation as an overgoverned nation,” writes the Toronto Sun’s Kalvin Reid. “Leave it to Canada to find a need to slap regulations on anything that can be regulated.” Out of all the arguments Reid could have made against the CRTC ruling (which the government intends to reverse), the anti-regulation one is probably the dumbest. At issue here are the small ISPs that have been offering customers unlimited downloading at a flat rate, much to the annoyance of big ISPs that put caps on downloading. But the small ISPs only exist because of CRTC regulations that force the big ISPs like Bell to lease their internet infrastructure to independent companies. If not for the regulation-happy bureaucrats in Ottawa, the competition provided by small ISPs wouldn’t exist at all.

The Financial Post’s Terrence Corcoran writes that net neutrality activists’ claims that major ISPs are about to impose a 25 GB limit on all their customers are “populist bullshit, in the finest sense of the word.” This “myth” is being propagated by groups like OpenMedia.ca (which Corcoran calls the “Muslim Brotherhood of broadband liberation”), but as far as Corcoran can tell there is no basis for it, nor for claims that the major ISPs will start to charge as high as $2 per GB over the download limit. The statistically-challenged writers of The Mark Newsroom can neither confirm nor deny his numbers, but it’s safe to say both sides of this debate are spouting very different figures, and we are confused.

The Globe and Mail editorial board says the CRTC should reexamine not only its most recent decision, but the entire regulatory state of the internet, which hasn’t been updated since online video became popular. The Globe makes the interesting point that unlike commodities like oil that have defined values, Canadians have no way of knowing how much a GB is worth, and consequently if we’re being overcharged for downloading.