[ NNSquad ] Re: Bell Canada proposal to cap wholesale customers

[Wes Felter <wesley@felter.org>]

Russell Smiley wrote:
> Bell Canada has submitted a proposal to the CRTC to allow it to cap
> bandwidth usage of wholesale customers (mostly independent ISPs). The
> independent ISPs are concerned that this will essentially eliminate the
> possibility of 'unlimited bandwidth' type offerings to their customers.

We should keep this in mind whenever someone suggests that open access 
or structural separation are the solution to broadband monopoly problems 
in the US. If you have a "friendly" ISP sending traffic over Time 
Warner's pipes, TW can still cap or throttle you and they would lobby 
the government to make it legal. If monopolies don't work and 
overbuilding doesn't work and open access doesn't work we could be in 
for a grim broadband future. Or maybe I'm just being pessimistic.

Wes Felter - wesley@felter.org

   [ It doesn't need to be grim.  But the complexity of the broadband
     environment (technically, economically, and politically) is such
     that "single-category" solutions are unlikely to be adequate in
     isolation, particulary when we start off with inadequate
     information about what's really going on.  Historically, these
     are the sorts of situations where carefully tuned regulatory
     approaches have needed to be introduced and evolved over periods
     of time.  The analogies between broadband access issues and past
     industrial controversies such as oil industry competition and
     railroads are not insignificant.  To better understand the future,
     it's often very useful to pay closer attention to the past.

            -- Lauren Weinstein
               NNSquad Moderator ]