Survey Finds Canadians Support Net Neutrality Law

An anonymous reader writes "A new public opinion survey conducted in Canada finds overwhelming public support in that country for net neutrality legislation. Three-quarters of Canadians believe the government should pass a law to confirm the right of Internet consumers to access publicly available Internet applications and content of their choice — even though most of those surveyed did not know the term 'net neutrality.' The survey was commissioned by eBay." Of course the devil is in the wording. Given the survey's sponsorship, it's unlikely that respondents were presented with examples of the value that ISPs say packet shaping can bring, or asked to weigh such against net neutrality.

And if you care too

[Anonymous Coward]

You can go sign the petition at http://www.neutrality.ca/ [neutrality.ca]

But...so?

[DragonWriter]

Given the survey's sponsorship, it's unlikely that respondents were presented with examples of the value that ISPs say packet shaping can bring, or asked to weigh such against net neutrality.

Since traffic shaping that is done based on the kind of content without regard to the source of content and which is accompanied by sufficient bandwidth so that non-prioritized content isn't just dropped on the floor in favor of prioritized content is neither inconsistent with the concept of net neutrality as a common-carrier-like provision nor inconsistent with the goal articulated in the question asked in this survey, I'm not sure how you think pointing that out would be relevant.

Re:Somebody define net neutrality

[Opportunist]

What net neutrality is about is that you may not charge more for traffic from this content provider than from that content provider. That's pretty much all. That you pay more for a fatter pipe is fine. Use more, pay more. No problem there. The problem is whether the packets from this source should cost (you or the source, doesn't matter) more than packets from that source. Should they be allowed to charge more for this kind of packet than for that kind of packet.

Generally, the "weigh" is the same, and that's where the "neutrality" part comes in.

Yes Minister on surveys

[Trillan]

I think Yes Minister said it best.

Humphrey: You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: " Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
Bernard: Oh...well, I suppose I might be.
Humphrey: "Yes or no?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told her you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one.
Bernard: Is that really what they do?
Humphrey: Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result.
Bernard: How?
Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample.

Lets wait for a real problem before passing a law

[SuperKendall]

Net Neutrality is the Sarbanes-Oxley of the internet. Everyone has good intentations, but people with little understanding are trying to write a law based around the *potential* for a problem that simply does not exist, nor shows signs of existing anytime soon.

Let's not hasten to have government come in and wedge a big old bureaucratic foot in the door of networking - any bill that specifically defines how ISP's are to shape traffic, even if initially neutral, is only a small amendment or two away from something like banning all P2P packets. And of course any law dictating how traffic is to be shaped includes expensive compliance documentation that must be kept by the ISP, raising service prices for all of us...

Re: Right?

[Rakishi]

Build your own damn network.

Effectively illegal in a number of places where government sponsored monopolies are the only option. furthermore many of these networks were paid for by taxes to various extents making them effectively partially the property of the government.

Re:Ok

[grcumb]

Sounds good. So then let's take a situation some years in the future where it's law. What happens when you are watching TV, and all of a sudden the stream starts stuttering. You call your cable company angry. They explain that TV is now delivered over IP, like everything else. Currently you have some neighbours hitting the P2P really heavy and it is using up enough of the segment that it is interfering with video traffic. They'd love to have video have a higher QoS, but alas the law says they can't. The "contents of your packets are none of their business."

I know you're just responding to the GP, who is off the mark as well, but can we please get something straight: Net Neutrality is not about traffic shaping!

These silly digressions are really aggravating. We need to be clear about the problem, and we're not. So let's try to keep this topic simple:

If you believe that people should only pay once for Internet, then you support Net Neutrality. If you think telcos have a right to charge twice for the same service, then you're against it.

The Net Neutrality Debate [sic] is about letting telcos decide which providers get preferential service, based either on corporate allegiance or on the provider's ability to pay whatever the extortion rate du jour is.

Anybody who knows anything about multi-user networks knows that some amount of traffic shaping is necessary. While the GP and I probably agree that less is more, there is no real-world scenario in which no QoS occurs. The telcos want us to focus on this red herring, precisely because they know they can win this argument.

But if we could just stop our collective knee from jerking for a moment, we could consider what is really proposed:

Google wants to provide the world with search-related services. To that end, they pay gobzillions of dollars for state of the art data centres with tubes so big that even Ted Stevens couldn't comprehend them. The consumer wants state of the art Internet services, of which quick and easy searching is a pretty significant part. So consumer goes to telco and subscribes for X megabits at Y dollars per month.

So Google have paid for their Internet access. Consumers pay for their access. But telco's still feeling hungry. The Lear jet's in the shop and baby needs a new silver spoon. So they go to Google and say, "It's going to cost you Z dollars per megabyte that you transmit to our consumers. If you don't want to pay, that's okay, we'll just throttle your service and let Yahoo! through quicker."

Consumer never sees this. All that consumer sees is that Google is 'slow' and Yahoo! is 'fast'.

Ultimately, what we're looking at is a situation where telcos aren't satisfied with Y dollars per month from the consumer, and gobzillions more from Google. They want to charge Google more for the right to access their particular bunch of consumers.

There is nothing morally, ethically or even legally right about this model. Telcos know this, so they're lobbying governments around the world to make it legal. The problem that we face is that consumers will never actually see the effect of this legislation, if it ever passes. The only people who will know that things could be different are the geeks. And for all anyone cares, we'll simply be a voice in the wilderness.

Re:Right?

[thecountryofmike]

What I haven't seen is the argument that:

The current state of the internet is where you know it today WITH net neutrality. That's what's currently in place.

Net neutrality was decided years ago. The question isn't whether or not to put net neutrality in place.

The question is "Should net neutrality be RESCINDED?"

This Canadian votes NO.