Here’s the deal. Rogers hasn’t exactly been the best ISP in Canada from a net neutrality standpoint. They have been nailed numerous times for doing things that they shouldn’t be on that front. Now it seems they’ve become the champion of net neutrality.
Seriously.
Rogers filed a complaint with Canadian regulators because competitor Videotron has unveiled the Unlimited Music program. This program exempts the biggest and most popular music services from Videotron’s usage caps. And to nobody’s surprise, Rogers who owns a ton of radio stations that have streaming options are not part of Videotron’s program. Thus Videotron is appearing to favor one service over another. Something that’s kind of a no-no in this part of the world. Rogers had this to say:
“The Unlimited Music service offered by Videotron is fundamentally at odds with the objective of ensuring that there is an open and non-discriminatory marketplace for mobile audio services,” the company’s CRTC filing says.“Videotron is, in effect, picking winners and losers by adopting a business model that would require an online audio service provider (including Canadian radio stations that stream content online) to accept Videotron’s contractual requirements in order to receive the benefit of having its content zero-rated.”
So, what does Videotron think of Rogers complaint” Not much based on this statement:
Videotron said in its filing that a range of “ulterior motives” have been ascribed to what it insists is simply an effort to “make its services more attractive to customers.”
“In the present case, Videotron is being accused of everything from blocking competition in the music streaming business, to trying to control access to music content, to creating a two-tiered Internet, to trying to marginalize a part of its own customer base,” the company said, adding, “The truth is much less conspiratorial.
“Videotron has observed that the appeal of its wireless services to the key 14-to-34-year-old demographic could be better than it is and the company has found an attractive and innovative way to broaden that appeal.”
Other groups are joining Rogers party on both sides of the argument. So this will get sorted by the CRTC at some point. But you have to note the irony. A Canadian ISP known for not exactly playing nice with the concept of net neutrality has radically changed its tune when they are suddenly the victim.
Wow. I should check the temperature of hell as it might have frozen over.
Infographic: New Map Shows #StopTheFCC Support By State
Posted in Commentary with tags Net Neutrality on December 15, 2017 by itnerdSperling’s BestPlaces collected 145,000 #StopTheFCC tweets from November 24 to December 14 and analyzed them.
Each of the geolocated tweets was mapped to determine the number of tweets per state. Using this data, the research firm generated a choropleth map showing the number of tweets per capita (100,000 people).
Full rankings and data:
Source: Sperling’s BestPlaces – www.bestplaces.net
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