Hong Kong company, City Telecom (CTEL), seems to be defeating the North American Internet system. It's apparently cheaper and faster with CTEL. And if the company doesn't "clock 80% of the promised speed, they'll pay the consumer twice their monthly fee."

The most recent annual study produced by Sandvine Inc. indicates two important findings regarding the use of the Internet. According to this report, in North America, P2P traffic has actually decreased from the year 2008. This contradicts corporate ISPs' reasons for throttling. Large ISPs claim that they should be able to throttle P2P networks because they slow down Internet bandwidth for other Internet users.

Broadband DSLReports.com published a news post regarding Bell Canada and the company's double dipping strategy to keep its profits high.

Last year Canadian incumbent Bell Canada throttled the bandwidth of wholesale competitors, so they couldn't offer unthrottled services that were better than Bell's own, throttled DSL service. The company then started pushing for usage-based billing (UBB) for wholesalers, meaning competitors would now be paying for bandwidth on both ends (smaller Canadian ISPs lament this as double dipping and a tactic designed to drive them out of business). Bell Canada has justified the moves by saying they're financially necessary in order to fund network expansion. However, BCE's earnings this week indicate the company's profit more than doubled. Why was usage-based billing necessary again? Surely someday, somebody is going to notice that the North American ISPs who claim expensive new metering models are financially necessary are never able to prove it.

The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) has released a policy statement regarding copyright and net neutrality. In this statement, the CLC addresses how important the Internet is for innovation and development. The policy mentions that the Internet is a source of democratic discourse and is essential for economic growth.

News Release
Original article retrieved from: CATA Alliance

OTTAWA – October 30, 2009 – Last week the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) introduced a long-awaited but disappointing Internet traffic management policy.

Last Thursday, the CRTC denied an appeal made by the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP), which is a group of smaller internet service providers.

The association requested that Bell should not have the ability to throttle customers using peer-to-peer software. Bell has claimed that using peer-to-peer software causes network congestion. Though, the CAIP argues that Bell hasn't proven that peer-to-peer traffic causes congestion. The CRTC believes that Bell is within its right to throttle peer-to-peer customers.

The CRTC claimed:

According to Michael Geist, the Canadian government should take some initiative and aid the complete enforcement of net neutrality in Canada. Now that a policy has been created regarding net neutrality, the government needs to make sure that ISPs are following this framework correctly. Geist mainly places this task in the hands of Industry Minister Tony Clement. Geist thinks that Clement should become more engaged in the issue.

Free Form created a video about keeping the Internet free and open, and how this will benefit people everywhere.
Check it out!

At 3pm EST Amber Mac and a panel of other media makers will talk about Net Neutrality and other pertinent media issues.

The panel is part of OpenMedia.ca's Fresh Media initiative.

Viewed it live at: http://freshmedia.me

The FCC has come to a conclusion regarding net neutrality in the US. They have kept their "promise to preserve an open Internet" and have approved four open internet principles. SaveTheInternet.com has published an article claiming that today is a historic day for net neutrality and congratulated the 1.6 million people in support of it.

SaveOurNet.ca coalition urges action to save the open Internet in Canada
FRENCH VERSION

NEWS RELEASE
Date: Oct 22, 2009

OTTAWA — The SaveOurNet.ca coalition, a broad alliance of groups
fighting for a free and open Internet, is calling today's CRTC
decision on traffic management (Net Neutrality) a step in the right
direction, but it doesn't go far enough to protect online innovation
and consumer choice.

The CRTC's ruling comes despite broad consensus that meaningful and

Google, Skype, Ebay, Facebook, Amazon, Digg, Flickr, Craigslist and Sony Electronics; all of these big Internet companies are in support of net neutrality. Many of these companies have joined together to compile a letter to the FCC. All of them believe that net neutrality maintains competition in cyberspace, which inevitably supports a democratic medium because consumers can pick and choose which products and companies succeed in the world.