CRTC Decision is Foundational to the Fate of the Nation

Net Neutrality is likely a very foreign concept to most Canadians. It is a critical issue in terms of free speech, fairness, consumer law, connectivity, productivity, fair trade rules and the overall 21st century competitiveness of the country.



It is essentially that all Internet users should have the same rights to use the technology within the law. Some service providers are charging for services they are not providing because the "throttle" bandwidth. That means they restrict bandwidth to customers under the discretion of the Internet service provider and without notice or adjustment of payment. Some of the big boys in the ISP world claim they need to do this for technical reasons but that is a factious argument since not all of the big boys do it.



The CRTC has been holding hearing on the issue. The outcome of these hearing will be a fundamental to the future of rights and freedoms as it will be to economic and community capacities of the country.



Michael Geist has a very good summary column in the Toronto Star. It is a good place to start to get you heard around the issues.