Perhaps now would be a good time to take stock of the highs and lows from the CRTC hearings on Broadcasting and New Media that took place over this past February and March. I was lucky enough to have the participation of two graduate students, Elizabeth Martin and Samantha Burton, in covering a number of days during the hearings. Their reports were posted here earlier. I am grateful to them for agreeing to contribute their reflections on the hearings.
Here is Samantha Burton’s review. I’ll post Elizabeth Martin’s later today and I’ll add my own two cents before the end of the week.
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There was a lot of talk about “pipes” throughout the CRTC hearings on Broadcasting in New Media. Many of the questions that emerged at the forefront of debates were connected to the capabilities of the ISP’s so-called “pipes” that connect users and content on the World Wide Web:
• Are the pipes smart enough to distinguish between text and video? CanCon and foreign content? Legal and illegal use?
• Or, are the pipes just dumb tubes indiscriminately facilitating the sharing and transfer of information they know nothing about?
• And, perhaps more significantly, how smart or dumb should these pipes be?
Throughout the proceedings, ISPs played the dumb card. This was largely to combat the proposed ISP levy, which will undoubtedly play out in court if the Commission decides to go this route. “We don't know what you're downloading . . .” says Ken Engelhart, a senior vice-president at Rogers, “so how can we be responsible for the content?” (Chianello)
Of course, what ISPs neglect to mention is that they could know, if they decided to take a look.
We can see this by going back to the 1999 technical white paper from Cisco Systems, which boasted a new router that would allow broadband providers to
“…identify each traffic type—Web, e-mail, voice, video… [and] isolate network traffic by the type of application, even down to specific brands, by the interface used, by the user type and individual user identification, or by the site address… The [network’s capabilities] allow you to specify the user access speed of any packet by allocating the bandwidth it receive… you can . . . limit subscriber access speed to [a] service . . . to discourage its use. At the same time, you could promote and offer your own or partners’ services with full-speed features to encourage adoption of your services.” (Cisco Systems)
This is the system that was integrated into networks used by AOL/Time Warner, AT&T, Bell Canada, Cable & Wireless, Cogeco, Comcast, Microsoft, Rogers, Shaw, Videotron and “160 of the most successful service providers around the world” (Winseck, 806). Further, the recent CRTC-commissioned expert report on deep packet inspection demonstrates that these technologies are already being used by ISPs for both network and content management (Finnie).
So, it would be naïve for ISPs to expect the CRTC or general public to actually buy into their “dumb pipe” argument; we can see from experience that ISPs are dumb pipes, except when it’s better business for them to be smart.
Which perhaps explains why the Commission’s line of questioning often ended up at something along the lines of,
COMMISSIONER DENTON: “If bandwidth throttling worked in favour of Canadian content, would you change your mind about it?” (CRTC)
Of all of the questions raised during the proceedings, this is the one that concerned me most. It seems in many ways to be the apex of many issues discussed, as well as foreshadowing of the upcoming summer hearings on net neutrality.
If the CRTC decides to impose a levy on ISPs for the creation of a new media fund, it will need to be coupled with some means of measuring and tracking CanCon as it flows through the pipes. Although the debates about such a method throughout the hearings illustrate that this will be tricky, knowledge of the existing network technologies shows that it is certainly not impossible. Moving from measuring CanCon to privileging it is not much of a stretch, technologically or theoretically, particularly if the Commission isn’t satisfied with the results of those measurements.
I am not by any means arguing that supporting CanCon in new media is unimportant. I would delight in a strong Canadian presence online; in fact, I think that with the multitude of innovators and creators in our country, this presence currently exists, and is growing. So yes, industry professionals should be compensated and supported in their work. But a levy with potential filtering strings attached is not the way to do this. Instead, we should focus on:
a) developing and pioneering new ways to monetize new media (P2P technologies are not going away, so how can traditional media industries take advantage of them?)
b) giving Canadian audiences not only the ability, but the reason to choose CanCon
What is needed for these avenues to be explored is an internet where bandwidth throttling doesn’t work in favour of Canadian content—or foreign content. Or ISP business interests. Or any interests. Given our autonomy, if the CRTC focuses on making sure that what Canadians are producing is the best—and ensuring that we know about it—chances are we’ll choose CanCon.
The sometimes waning popularity of Canadian content within Canada is not a new issue, nor is it unique to new media. I don’t know how to solve that problem. But I do believe that narrowing the Canadian audience’s content and technological options is not the answer: instead, the first step should be Canadian net neutrality legislation.
Although the CRTC’s February hearings were centered on broadcasting in new media, the proceedings demonstrated how this issue is inexorably tied to the issue of net neutrality. Although the Commission can argue that it does not see the connection between the February and July hearings, the connection will be made nonetheless when decisions rendered about ISP levies, ISPs vs BDUs, and measuring CanCon in new media impact the way Canadians use the Internet writ large.
Works Cited
Chianello, Joanne. "Canadian content available online may be regulated." Ottawa
Citizen (February 16, 2009) http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Technology/story.html?id=1295126.
Cisco Systems. White Paper: Controlling Your Network - A Must for Cable Operators.
(1999) http://www.democraticmedia.org/files/Cisco1999WhitePaper.pdf
Finne, Graham. Report ISP Traffic Management Technologies: The State of the Art.
(January 2009) http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2008/8646/isp-fsi.htm.
The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. Transcript of
Proceedings: Canadian broadcasting in new media. (February 24, 2009) http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/transcripts/2009/tb0224.html.
Winseck, Dwayne. “Netscapes of power: convergence, consolidation and power in the
Canadian mediascape.” Media, Culture and Society (24:6, 2002).
3 comments:
If the CRTC decides to impose a levy on ISPs for the creation of a new media fund, it will need to be coupled with some means of measuring and tracking CanCon as it flows through the pipes.
There is some confusion here.
Broadcasting distribution undertakings contribute 5 percent (rising to 6 percent) of their gross revenues derived from broadcasting to local expression -- at least 3 points to an independent production fund, up to 2 points to community television and, soon, 1 point for the production of local broadcast news in smaller centres.
The proposed "levy" would see this requirement extended to so-called new media broadcasting distribution undertakings. Because these undertakings (ISPs and WSPs) only derive some of their revenues from broadcasting, the 6 percent would be levied only on that part of their revenues. The proportion of their revenues derived from delivering broadcasting traffic would be estimated in some reasonable manner.
Then there is a separate issue which was raised during this proceeding (which is not yet over -- replies are due Friday). It has to do with how to measure and thus evaluate the success of creators of Canadian broadcasting in so-called "new media" (i.e. over the Internet and to mobile devices). This was what gave rise to all the talk about measurement.
So extending the contribution requirement to ISPs and WSPs (the proposed "levy") does not require any means of measuring and tracking CanCon as it flows through the pipes. Indeed, it has absolutely nothing to do with it. The contribution required of BDUs pertains to all broadcasting revenues, not the Canadian ones -- that would be opposite to the logic of the requirement. It is the extension of that requirement to ISPs and WSPs that has been proposed.
Unfortunately, there were a couple of instances in which certain Commissioners who, visibly, were not familiar with Canadian broadcasting regulation, confused the above issues. This has not helped anyone, least of all those who were putting this idea to the Commission.
Although the Commission can argue that it does not see the connection between the February and July hearings...
First, I don't think anyone argued that these things weren't connected. Rather, they argued that net neutrality would be dealt with at the later proceeding, and that this proceeding was intended to deal with issues other than net neutrality.
However, by the end of the oral hearings, Commissioners were in any case no longer arguing that they could deal entirely with net neutrality issues at the telecom hearing. See the transcripts of the final week re: undue preference rules.
It will be interesting to see to what extent the final comments that are filed will reflect evolution in the thinking about all of this!
In reading the Cisco White paper, it seems that the ISP should be able to restrict/throttle certain classes of traffic. So, if someone was downloading a torrent, they could slow down that particular class of traffic exclusively. Why is it that the ISP, Rogers for instance, slow down the entire connection, i.e. all classes of traffic - video, email, web, etc. I've experienced this before. When downloading a torrent (legal content) and achieving relatively slow upload and download speeds ( <10 kbps), browsing the internet becomes painfully slow. I can be downloading a file directly via http at speeds significantly higher (300-400 kbps) without this same penalty. It seems that the company is punishing me for downloading a torrent. Certainly I'm not alone here.
I would also like to point out that while they say they only throttle during peak hours, I experience this at 4pm and 4 am. Is their no such thing as non-peak hours in their minds?
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