Technology Info

Google Inc. says Bell Canada Inc. is breaking Canadian telecommunications law by slowing certain internet traffic, and is urging the CRTC to take action against the company.

“Bell claims its throttling of peer-to-peer applications is a reasonable form of network management. Google respectfully disagrees. Network management does not include Canadian carriers’ blocking or degrading lawful applications that consumers wish to use,” the company wrote in a 15-page submission to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which was made public over the weekend.

“From consumer, competition and innovation perspectives, throttling applications that consumers choose is inconsistent with a content and application-neutral internet, and a violation of Canadian telecommunications law, which forbids unfair discrimination and undue or unreasonable preferences and requires that regulation be technologically and competitively neutral.” (link)

After raising the ire of its customers with what are believed to be overly expensive iPhone 3G plans, Canadian provider Rogers Wireless is allegedly being punished by Apple with fewer shipments.

Blogger Daniel Smith claims multiple sources, including a senior Rogers representative, claim that Apple has diverted a significant amount of its initial iPhone 3G Canadian deliveries to Europe in retribution for the carrier’s steep rate plans, which at similar prices offer a third fewer minutes and limited data compared to AT&T.

Stores may be getting just 10 to 20 iPhones each and are being told to “exercise caution” not to promise ample stock on launch day, according to the rumors.

At the same time, Rogers is also claimed to be promptly firing the part-time staff that had been hired to handle an expected deluge of customers at some stores.

With the story breaking on the weekend, neither Apple nor Rogers officials have commented on the allegations. However, the provider in recent days has faced a steadily mounting backlash against its planned rates with approximately 42,000 would-be iPhone buyers signing a highly-publicized petition for lower rates that they plan to deliver to Rogers in person. (link)

Rogers Communications Inc. announced earlier this month that it will bring the iPhone to Canada on July 11 at the same prices as AT&T, but it will require customers to sign three-year contracts. The company sells a number of phones with the option of one-, two- or three-year contracts, where the shorter the deal is, the more the customer pays for the device up front. The iPhone, however, will be the only device with just the three-year option.

A spokesperson for Rogers declined to comment as to why Canadian customers will have longer contracts than their counterparts in other countries.

“While I won’t speak to our contractual agreement, all carriers are different,” Elizabeth Hamilton said.

While it is possible another carrier elsewhere in the world could announce it will sell the iPhone under a three-year contract, a longer term than that is unheard of, making Rogers’ plans the longest. (link)

Bell Canada Inc. has been ordered to publicly disclose information that details the level of congestion on its network in regard to a dispute over the company’s internet speed-throttling practices.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on Thursday told the company it has until June 23 to make public data that was marked confidential in a May 29 filing. Bell had said it needed to keep quiet the information, which details the level of internet traffic and possible congestion on its network, for competitive reasons.

In a letter sent to Bell, CRTC director general of competition, costing and tariffs Paul Godin said the need for public disclosure outweighed the company’s competitive privacy concerns.

“Commission staff has determined, based on all the material before it, that no specific direct harm would likely result from disclosure, or that the public interest in disclosure outweighs any specific direct harm that might result from disclosure,” he wrote. (link)

ACTA could make the information on Canadian iPods, laptop computers or other personal electronic devices illegal and greatly increase the difficulty of travelling with such devices.
On October 23, 2007, the Canadian Federal Government announced that Canada will participate in preliminary discussions with the United States, Mexico, the European Union, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and other countries toward an anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA).

The main objective of ACTA would be to develop international standards to better combat the trade in counterfeit trademarked and pirated copyright goods. Provisions would focus on international cooperation, enforcement practices and legal frameworks, including enforcement systems. (DigitalJournal)

Iron Man Canuck may be appearing soon at a theatre near you.

The Defence Department posted a contract tender Monday asking companies for proposals for high-tech body suits that could help Canadian soldiers carry bigger loads into battle.

“One of the key challenges faced by soldiers today is the large weight they must carry,” says the notice.

Soldiers have been beasts of burden since the early days of the Roman legions, when the legionaries fighting under Gaius Marius laughingly called themselves Marius’s mules.

Soldiers in the field today regularly tote loads of 45 kilograms, including water, rations and ammunition. (link)

The search for Canada’s next pop idol has headed into cyberspace.

“Canadian Idol” said Monday that wannabe contestants can now get a shot at stardom by submitting an audition video online - and it didn’t take long for dream seekers to apply.

Within minutes of the announcement, a few grainy videos appeared on the show’s website, http://lastchance.idol.ctv.ca/, most of them featuring off-key amateurs offering up more enthusiasm than talent.

Executive producer John Brunton said he’d be surprised if more than a handful of video tryouts result in Top 100 contenders, noting the cross-Canada audition tour has already produced strong competitors.

But he said the online experiment was meant to broaden the talent search to those unable to travel to an audition city. (link)

Users of the Canadian family-run ISP Teksavvy (which we profiled last year) have started noticing that Bell Canada is throttling traffic before it reaches wholesale partners. According to Teksavvy CEO Rocky Gaudrault, Bell has implemented “load balancing” to “manage bandwidth demand” during peak congestion times — but apparently didn’t feel the need to inform partner ISPs or customers. The result is a bevy of annoyed customers and carriers across the great white north. Says Gaudrault in our forums:

After some discussions with Bell, while doing upgrades to zones that are under capacity, it looks like they’ve now started to implement a type of load balance system of sorts…As a side note, we have no plans to throttle anything, so if anyone is experiencing anything remotely related to this, it would be before it hits our side…Our concerns are that they are doing it without telling us. That we don’t know where they are doing it. That we don’t know if and when it will end. What are the plans to add capacity… what’s going on? what are we getting for our money? what can we tell our customers? (link)

Google Maps of reported problems

As Canada considers a new copyright bill with some apparent similarities to the US DMCA, one MP is trying to clear up misconceptions. New Democratic Party MP Charlie Angus has written an open letter to Industry Minister Jim Prentice, arguing that Canada can ratify a key WIPO treaty without passing draconian DRM legislation. Here’s a taste: “Parliament must also stay away from the more hysterical claims that we need to start banning circumvention devices. This is like saying we need to ban axes because they could be used to break down a door.”

For months now, rumors have swirled about a new copyright bill being prepped by Prentice (though the text has never been officially introduced). The bill was pulled from Parliament’s calendar late last year after a popular uprising against several of its leaked proposals. Critics charged that the bill was simply a “Canadian DMCA,” while proponents often claimed that the bill was necessary since Canada had signed (but never ratified) some key World Intellectual Property Organization treaties in the 1990s. (link)

Quebec provincial police say they’ve dismantled a computer hacking network that targeted unprotected personal computers around the world.

Police raided several homes across Quebec on Wednesday and arrested 16 people in their investigation, which they say uncovered the largest hacking scam in Canadian history.

The hackers collaborated online to attack and take control of as many as one million computers around the world that were not equipped with anti-virus software or firewalls, said provincial police captain Frederick Gaudreau.

“That way, they were able to introduce some Trojans or worms in those computers, and that way they were able to take control of the computers from abroad,” he said at a Montreal news conference on Wednesday. (link)