Canada's Net Neutrality Enforcement Failure

Rogers Communications has been the target of nearly half of all cases opened in response to net neutrality complaints. In recent months, there have been multiple complaints arising from bandwidth throttling of World of Warcraft, a popular multi-player online game. Rogers initially denied any wrongdoing, only to later acknowledge that there was a problem. The company promised to address the issue, though no consequences arose and it was not forced to publicly disclose the issue.

In November 2010, Bell Canada was hit with a complaint over throttling download speeds from Hotfile.com, an online locker service that lets users store and access music and other files from any computer. Bell admitted its deep-packet inspection technology was mistakenly treating downloads from the site as peer-to-peer activity and slowing connection speeds. Bell promised a fix, but only after asserting that it was compliant with the guidelines.

There has been only one complaint that led to a clear change in provider policy. In January 2010, ExaTEL, an Ontario-based Internet phone company, filed a complaint against Barrett Xplore, a satellite Internet provider. ExaTEL alleged that Barrett Xplore was degrading Internet telephony traffic, creating an unfair advantage for its own phone service.

The CRTC ruled that there was no undue preference, but that the throttling of time sensitive traffic violated its guidelines. Faced with the prospect of changing its practices or seeking special approval from the CRTC, Barrett Xplore changed its throttling approach to ensure that Internet telephony was unaffected.

Barrett Xplore was also the source of the longest running complaint as the company took months to respond to CRTC requests to improve its disclosure practices. Only after the Commission threatened to launch a public proceeding into the matter did Barrett Xplore respond.

On occasion, the CRTC is itself the source of the problem.

In March 2010, a complaint was filed against Cogeco, a cable provider with a traffic shaping policy that continuously limited bandwidth for peer-to-peer applications on a 24/7 basis. Given the CRTC’s requirement that traffic management limits be linked to actual network congestion, the Cogeco policy raised red flags.  Even so, the CRTC demanded that the complainant provide more evidence before it would investigate.

In a December 2009 complaint against Bell over throttling access to the MediaMonkey.com website, the CRTC dismissed the complaint on the grounds the site did not appear in Bell’s list of affected sites.

Yet even when the CRTC pursues a complaint, there is little actual investigation. Most activity is limited to exchanging correspondence or prodding Internet providers to respond. This typically leads to revised disclosures, rather than real changes.

After more than 30 investigations in nearly two years, it is clear improvements are needed. At a minimum, the CRTC should be publishing all public complaints and resolutions so that the issues obtain a public airing. Moreover, the system needs penalties for violations as well as pro-active audits to ensure Internet providers are compliant with their obligations. Without change, the CRTC’s net neutrality rules offer little protection for Canadian Internet users.

The CRTC provided a response in advance of the publication of this column, noting that it is looking at ways to make complaint information public:

Our policy was praised for being fair and practical: allowing users to have as much freedom to explore the Internet while giving the ISP the flexibility to manage their networks to ensure that their customers receive an acceptable level of service.

As to the issue of making the complaints and relevant correspondence public, we are looking at ways to be more transparent while respecting the privacy rights of the complainants.
Under the current legislation, the Commission has limited tools to enforce its rules.

New tools, such as AMPs (administrative monetary penalties) allow the Commission to be more effective in its enforcement activities, as we have demonstrated in the case of DNCL (the Do Not Call List) and the significant penalties that were recently imposed.

Below is a full list of all complaints and resolutions obtained via Access to Information from the CRTC. It is complete as of early June 2011. Links are provided to original CRTC letters and responses from the parties.

ISP, Date, CRTC File Number	Complaint	Resolution
Shaw June 2011 CRTC #538009	Intercepting failed domain name requests and redirecting to company pages	Ongoing
Rogers May 2011 CRTC #534293	Degrading Skype, Net2Phone	Ongoing
Videotron May 2011 CRTC #528197	Calculation of bandwidth usage. Monthly usage not charged fairly.	Denied. No regulation of retail services. Referred to CCTS.
Bell Canada, TekSavvy May 2011 CRTC #526400	Throttling applications even when no network congestion.	Denied. Burden on the complainant to provide evidence. No evidence provided of specific apps or length of time affected.
Rogers May 2011 CRTC #529619	Throttling of peer-to-peer applications.	Denied. Rogers discloses this practice.
Shaw May 2011 CRTC #533015	Inability to see monthly Internet usage	Shaw deactivated feature when it dropped usage based billing.
Rogers April 2011 CRTC #517209	Throttling of World of Warcraft online game. Leads to regular disconnection.	Admits problem and promises to fix.
Rogers April 2011 CRTC #530230	Throttling of World of Warcraft online game. Leads to regular disconnection.	Admits problem and promises to fix.
Rogers March 2011 CRTC #522253	Throttling of World of Warcraft online game. Leads to regular disconnection.	Admits problem and promises to fix.
Rogers March 2011 CRTC #517209	Throttling of World of Warcraft online game. Leads to regular disconnection.	Admits problem and promises to fix.  “Problem is not due to a Rogers' policy but rather due to a software problem which we will fix as soon as possible”
Rogers March 2011 CRTC #529411	Advertising of Speed Boost inconsistent with World of Warcraft throttling.	Denied. Marketing outside of policy. No evidence of violation provided.
Telus March 2011 CRTC #527577	General throttling concerns.	Telus works with customer to address speed problems.
Bell March 2011 CRTC #529146	Limiting HTTP upload rates and limiting upload on port 55145.	Unknown
Rogers February 2011 CRTC #505052	Disclosure of throttling practices inadequate as effect of upload throttling not fully discussed	Agrees to amend disclosure page
Rogers February 2011 CRTC #511366	Disclosure of throttling practices inadequate as effect of upload throttling not fully discussed	Agrees to amend disclosure page
Rogers February 2011 CRTC #510987	Disclosure of throttling practices inadequate as effect of upload throttling not fully discussed	Agrees to amend disclosure page
Rogers February 2011 CRTC #503207	Disclosure of throttling practices inadequate as effect of upload throttling not fully discussed	Agrees to amend disclosure page
Rogers February 2011 CRTC #514192	Throttling renders service useless.	Denied. Company provides disclosure and no evidence of non-compliant policies.
Rogers February 2011 CRTC #513298	Throttling of World of Warcraft online game. Leads to regular disconnection.	Denied. Rogers says throttling practices have no effect on online gaming (later reverse)
Barrett Xplore February 2011 CRTC #512810	Traffic management dramatic effect on services.	Denied. No evidence of violation.
Uniserve January 2011 CRTC #510718	Traffic shaping hurts some applications. Flash video very slow.	Agrees to amend disclosure page.
Rogers December 2010 CRTC #505777	Rogers customer service providing conflicting information about throttling practices	Acknowledges incorrect information provided by one representative.
Bell November 2010 CRTC #504432	Throttling speeds for downloads from hotfile.com	Admits error. Deep packet inspection technology mistakenly treating downloads as peer-to-peer traffic.  Promises to fix, but denies any violation of CRTC rules.
Telco Quadro Communications October 2010 CRTC #502906	Change in traffic management practices.	Denied. Practices ruled consistent with net neutrality guidelines.
Wind Mobile September 2010 CRTC #494833	Port blocking restricts some uses and not properly disclosed.	CRTC says disclosure inadequate. Agrees to amend disclosure page.
Wind Mobile August 2010 CRTC #496185	Speed slowed after 5 GB of usage on all Internet traffic. Lack of disclosure on Fair Use Policy.	CRTC says slowing usage of any time sensitive traffic would be a violation of ITMP rules or require CRTC approval. Says disclosure inadequate.
Rogers August 2010 CRTC #496562	Claim throttling speeds on xBox usage	Rogers denies the claim.
Bruce Street Technologies July 2010 CRTC #496016	Throttling traffic without disclosure.	Admits throttling for brief period without disclosure. Subsequently dropped throttling practices.
Rogers July 2010 CRTC #494836	Problems with SIP (session initiation protocol) on Port 5060.	Admits problem but argues it is not a traffic management issue.
Bell July 2010 CRTC #496316	Traffic management policy overbroad	Denied.
Barrett Xplore June 2010 CRTC #494139	Bad service with slow speeds	Outside the scope of ITMP policy.
Cogeco March 2010 CRTC #482415	Traffic management policy involves throttling 24/7	Denied. CRTC asks complainant for more evidence of policy and harm.
Rogers March 2010 CRTC #486625	Throttling affecting corporate VPN connection	Rogers policy says it does not affect VPN. Contact Rogers. If unsatisfied and you have evidence of rule violation, provide evidence for further consideration.
Barrett Xplore January 2010 8646-C12-2008154000	ExaTEL complains Barrett Xplore throttling renders Internet telephony unusable, creating an unfair advantage for its own voice telephone service. Traffic management policies not fully disclosed.	CRTC rules not an undue preference since Barrett Xplore runs voice traffic on a separate circuit. Further rules that throttling violates rules for degrating time sensitive traffic and requires change to policy or application for CRTC approval. Barrett Xplore changes traffic management approach. CRTC also rules that dislosure insufficient. Barrett Xplore non-responsive until May 2011, when CRTC threatens to take the issue to a public proceeding.
Bell December 2009 CRTC #475593	Bell throttling access to MediaMonkey.com	Denied. CRTC says Bell's disclosure page does not reference site, so problem may lie with the site itself.
Shaw December 2009 CRTC #475351	Blocking Skype users from accessing BC numbers.	Require Shaw account information before proceeding.