Foundation news

There's a flurry of new submissions on the CRTC mailing list this week, but the biggest and most easily digestible thing so far is that Bell is backing off IMTP and throttling effective March 1st, 2012. Here's a roundup of other commentary we've seen so far. http://openmedia.ca/news/media-advisory-bell-backs-throttling-caves-internet-openness-supporters-openmediaca-available-commen - Openmedia's media advisory release http://wordsbynowak.com/2011/12/20/bell-throttling-2/ - Nowak speculated earlier that this was part of a quid-pro-quo deal to give Bell something they wanted out of the UBB ruling and it's starting to look like he was right. As for the other submissions, as mentioned in The Road Ahead post, our current team will refrain from further entanglements in policy issues to ensure that we are back on track and stay there! However looking over them briefly it looks like there may be another storm brewing with implementation details and dates. We are looking for further additions to the Canadian team that can review and analyse such submissions and we'll make later comments about this if it happens. There is ongoing discussion on DSLReports here. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26676163-Cable-Rogers-New-TPIA-Service-Agreement http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26677319-NEWS-Bell-Backs-Away-From-Throttling

The Road Ahead For those following us, this may be considered a late update and if that is the case I apologize :) It's been very time consuming and stressful just getting to this point so we've been taking the time to recuperate as well as react to the 2011-77 decision which was not as good as many would have hoped. We'll have a background summary report with videos of our presentation up soon, but the videos can be viewed from our facebook page early as a thank you to our early supporters. In the meantime this post is meant to be about the direction we're going. In the coming weeks this site will begin to be reorganized to be much more of an international resource on broadband including a behavioural database on ISP's and what their track record has been with their customers up to this point. This will be not so much of an "ISP review" initiative but a bigger view on specific corporate directions they've taken such as throttling, imposing or lowering caps as well as more positive things like contributing to the local community or being a strong proponent for net neutrality and bringing greater service to the customers they serve. Much of the resources are already linked to on our forums and we'll be combining things there with what we've been collecting internally i.e. broadband research and reports around the globe to give you a much more international picture on things going around the world. After the more "international flavour" is completed and there is a clearer message and picture of what this foundation is about in the long run then we'll being to expand our public presence more considerably. We'll be speeding up and slowing down a bit if that makes any sense ;) We'll be slowing down since the frequency of what's been happening internally has been more than what our team has been able to keep up with in the run up to Tuesday's decision so we'll be slowing down to get things better organized and for everyone to be on the same page. At the same time we are speeding up now that we don't have to deal with the CRTC's processes anymore, at least for the time being and can refocus on our own direction. We've also reorganized what we consider staff vs contributors. Michelle Ventress will be handling communications for the time being while we've also moved many who have only contributed on special occasions or sporadically over to contributors. Staff requirements are quite demanding (the leadership already does a lot if you guys haven't noticed :) ) but this is a much bigger effort than most people can reasonably commit. We've also picked up some extra help we'll be happy to announce soon :) Lastly, we are refocusing on map building. The CRTC's 2011-77 decision was an immediate call to action that left us with little time to do anything else but it's also steered us quite far from our original goals. Challenging or figuring out if the rates proposed by that decision are even workable will take some time, and is more of the ISP's burden. Mapwise our priorities are to organize the international research we have thus far as well as turn our attention to highlight community broadband efforts in the US, as well as regions that will be left with no other choices if AT&T and Cox imposes caps and begins billing on metering already taking place. If you are a regular visitor thanks for the support so far and things are only just beginning :)

CRTC announces a new billing scheme for wholesellers, based on the MTS allstream preposed capacity model.  More details to come, but it appears as if resellers will not be forced to use UBB. The CRTC has decided that a capacity based model is more appropriate than a volume based model but independents have noted there are still some pricing inequities to resolve. Existing flat rate models used by companies such as Bell Aliant, Sasktel, Shaw and Telus can be allowed to continued. More details to come. Read more at: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-703.htm  

(FINAL DRAFT AND TITLE ADDED) Hot on the heels of Canada's own usage capped fight this past year, AT&T has also began rolling out/"testing" usage meters on some markets in the US but not all. We believe "testing" will not be completed until after the result of the T-Mobile decision and will likely be influenced by the result of the CRTC (Canadian FCC pseudo-counterpart) decision we are awaiting on Tuesday. We've already seen complaints of gross inaccuracies and bill shock. Cox is doing similarly too, also not widespread in all markets yet. Please sign the petition to stop things in their tracks now, but this is barely the start. AT&T's reach will have over 50% of the US market capped in one stroke, many without alternatives. We'll have an article outlining use cases on the serious effects that this can have on social and economic behaviour in the following weeks as evidenced by other countries that have implemented caps already, including further restrictions and degradation of service once the door to capping and other means are opened. The US economy is already hurting and this will affect productivity and innovation even moreso. Americans for the large part have been free to build whatever they've envisioned without the uncertainty and stress layer that caps can bring and this has unleashed many world-leading companies you take for granted today like Google, Youtube etc. Other countries with these caps in place have struggled to compete, or much less generate even a single champion of their own. There is much at stake. http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-data-capping UPDATE (1/20/2012) We are working with the Stop AT&T From Bandwidth Capping group to expand this into a broader feature on US competitiveness, how caps have held back local tech industries in affected countries around the world as well as a call for collaborators for a deeper investigation into exactly which areas of the US this already affects to this date and which ones are under threat. UPDATE (2/22/2012) Wow, this thing too longer than expected ,but here's a finally completed draft of what should be close to final text for review. http://www.worldbroadbandfoundation.org/content/special-report-atts-national-data-cap-farce-petition-included UPDATE(2/25/2012) This is the final link for the article. http://www.worldbroadbandfoundation.org/content/special-report-att-led-data-capping-trend-its-not-too-late