Michael Geist reports on the response from the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) to the submission from Bell to the CRTC regarding Bell’s active throttling of bandwidth and P2P traffic.

Bell claimed in its submission to the CRTC that their traffic blocking actions were necessary, justified and oh-by-the-way it’s really none of your business so leave us the fuck alone.

Arrogant pricks.

The CAIP has responded in a kick-ass manner by saying:

It is also clear from Bell’s Answer that it fundamentally misunderstands (or has consciously misrepresented) several key facts and issues that are of direct relevance to the issues under consideration in this proceeding, including, most significantly, the nature of the local access and transport service that Bell provides to its wholesale customers, the extent to which its DPI “traffic shaping” technology interferes with both the content and privacy of end-user communications, and the tremendous impact that its traffic shaping practices have had - and are continuing to have - on competitors, their end-users customers and providers of new media content that make use of P2P applications to deliver content to their on-line users, listeners and viewers.

The CAIP doesn’t stop with just that though - as Geist points out they successfully dismantled each of Bell’s claims and added new information for the CRTC to consider:

There is also uncontradicted evidence . . . that strongly suggests that the reasons behind Bell’s decision to throttle its competitors’ GAS traffic have little to do with Bell’s unsubstantiated claims of “network congestion” and more to do with a desire to lessen competition in retail telecommunications markets. There are far too many “coincidences” between the timing of the initiation of Bell’s throttling practices and the timing of a number of other events in order to conclude otherwise.

They also pointed out that Bell’s throttling activities have done more than affect P2P traffic - also screwing up and slowing down virtual private networks and VoIP services. Bell’s decision to alter and slowdown traffic affects the content within that traffic and therefore becomes a violation of Section 36 of the Telecommunications Act which states that a carrier “shall not control the content or influence the meaning or purpose of telecommunications carried by it for the public.”.

It is ludicrous for Bell to suggest that the only way that content can be controlled or its meaning or purpose influenced is if it is blocked outright. Section 36 of the Act clearly contemplates instances where the meaning or purpose of a communication is being controlled or influenced while in transit from the content sender to the content receiver.

Bell’s throttling of GAS customer traffic degrades communications between users to the point where the intended meaning and purpose of these communications is fundamentally altered. This conduct, like the privacy concerns discussed above, also gives rise to a serious issue that Bell has violated its duty under section 36 of the Act.

Good for the CAIP and thanks to Prof. Geist for posting this.

The CRTC will now consider the submissions and responses from Bell, the CAIP, other interested parties and the public before making a decision. Let’ just hope they don’t fuck it up.

Cheers.