WASHINGTON - Net neutrality -- it's not the catchiest moniker for a pressing technological issue, but it aims to prevent abuses of power by Internet service providers and ensure anyone who spends time online has open and speedy access to everything found on the Web.
The notion that ISPs must give equal treatment to all uses of the Internet, and not slow down or prevent access in order to favour their own corporate interests, is a hot-button topic this week in both the United States and Canada.
In Washington, the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday on proposing new network neutrality rules that would limit the control ISPs can exert over Web content and traffic.
In Ottawa, the FCC's Canadian counterpart -- the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission -- is also set to announce this week the results of a network management hearing held over the summer. The ruling will determine the future of Net neutrality north of the border.
Consumer watchdogs in both the U.S. and Canada say that without strict rules ensuring Net neutrality, big telecommunications companies can interfere with the transmission of content, such as TV shows delivered over the Internet, that compete with services the ISPs offer, like cable television.
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has already said publicly his new rules will focus on preventing ISPs from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, and ensuring they're transparent about their network management practices. President Barack Obama has endorsed Genachowski's proposals.
One longtime observer of the issue in both the U.S. and Canada says the timing is pure coincidence, since the two countries are light years apart on the issue.
"The contrast between the U.S. and Canada is striking," Michael Geist, a law professor who specializes in tech issues at the University of Ottawa, said Tuesday.
"Net neutrality has clearly escalated as an important political issue in the U.S. with strong support from President Obama. The FCC is demonstrating a commitment to developing Net neutrality principles backed by law."
In Canada, Geist noted, that's hardly been the case.
"Canada increasingly finds itself trailing in that area," he said.
"The opposition parties have both spoken out on the issue but there has been silence from the government. If the CRTC doesn't adopt a strong position in favour of Net neutrality in its forthcoming decision, the issue will fall squarely onto the lap of the industry minister, Tony Clement."
Bell was at the centre of a dispute last year when it slowed down some uses of the Internet -- specifically peer-to-peer file-sharing applications -- to wholesale companies like TekSavvy and Eagle, which rent portions of the Bell network to provide their own services to customers.
In a nutshell, Bell degraded the quality of the bandwidth headed to its ISP partners, thereby making those competitors less of a threat. Several other major Canadian ISPs do the same thing in a practice known in the industry as "throttling."
Bell said it was necessary to throttle in order to ease network congestion, but the smaller ISPs accused Bell of trying to take away their ability to differentiate their services from the telecommunication giant's, and complained to the CRTC.
The CRTC ruled that Bell didn't violate its obligations to wholesalers, but also called for a review to examine the larger issues surrounding Net neutrality. The federal agency held extensive hearings this summer to determine how much control ISPs should have over their networks, and will release its findings this week.
Canadian service providers argue that existing laws already prevent abuses of power by ISPs, but both the NDP and Liberals are pushing for meatier legislation.
"The opposition parties are calling for Net neutrality and many Canadians and Canadian businesses are doing the same," Geist said.
"As international rankings continually demonstrate Canada's lagging performance on Internet issues, the country can ill-afford to neglect this issue. The FCC rules and political support show that the U.S. gets it and will leave many Canadians wondering why our leaders don't."
The FCC proposals would uphold a pledge Obama made during his run for president to support Net neutrality. They would prevent American ISPs like Verizon and Comcast from slowing down or blocking services and content flowing through their mammoth networks.
The FCC's existing Net neutrality principles have focused on high-speed Internet access delivered over wired systems. But Google and other big technology companies, as well as consumer advocacy groups, have called for rules that would require wireless networks to be similarly open to all devices and applications.
A number of Silicon Valley titans and early Web visionaries -- including the founders of Facebook, Twitter, Google and eBay -- urged the FCC earlier this week to move forward with the new rules.
"An open Internet fuels a competitive and efficient marketplace, where consumers make the ultimate choices about which products succeed and which fail," the executives said in a letter to the FCC.
"This allows businesses of all sizes, from the smallest startup to larger corporations, to compete, yielding maximum economic growth and opportunity ... America's leadership in the technology space has been due, in large part, to the open Internet."
