Shared Community WiFi Networking Blog From A Toronto Co-op ISP

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

From Michael Geist: Parties' Digital Policy Scorecard

Nobody will ever win or lose an election on copyright or internet policy, but these are important issues and it's good to know where each party stands. Of note from the Wireless Nomad point of view is the Green platform, which actually is in favour of real net neutrality and supports open source software. There's more to government than tech policies (or environmental policies!), but I would argue tech policy has significant and long-term effects on our society and economy, and deserves whatever attention we can spare.

From Prof. Geist's website:

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Parties' Digital Policy Scorecard Heading Into Election Day

As the national election campaign launched five weeks ago, I wrote that "the election presents an exceptional opportunity to raise the profile of digital issues." While the economy unsurprisingly dominated much of the political discourse, each of the national parties unveiled platforms and positions that included some discussion of digital policy. With Canadians headed to the polls today, this column offers a scorecard on each party's digital policy positions...

...While the Green party is associated primarily with environmental issues, the party presented a fairly robust digital policy position. It rejected copyright legislation based on providing legal protection for digital locks, called for an end to crown copyright, and provided the most explicit support for net neutrality, noting in its platform that it would prohibit "Internet Service Providers from discriminating due to content while freeing them from liability for content transmitted through their systems."

The party was also the only one to focus on the emergence of open source software. Its platform says that the party will "ensure that all new software developed for or by government is based on open standards" and that it would encourage and support transitions to open source software in government and education.
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LINK

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

More Conservatives = More Bad Copyright Changes

From the CBC:

"The Conservatives are promising to reintroduce controversial copyright-reform legislation if they are re-elected, according to the party's official platform released on Tuesday.

"A re-elected Conservative government led by Stephen Harper will reintroduce federal copyright legislation that strikes the appropriate balance among the rights of musicians, artists, programmers and other creators and brings Canada's intellectual property protection in line with that of other industrialized countries, but also protects consumers who want to access copyright works for their personal use," the platform document says."

While I don't speak for Wireless Nomad or our members on this point, I, for one, hope that Stephen "Noah" Harper is tossed overboard next Tuesday with his terrible copyright proposals. (As an aside, it seems to me that Dion is more like Noah, with an idealistic, grandiose rescue plan... while Harper is more like one of the guys insisting that we ignore the crazy ark-builders and "stay the course", even as the storm clouds gather and the unicorns play... BTW, does the Bible even mention the unicorns? Now you see why I do wireless, not preaching. ;-))


LINK

Wholesale Internet Bandwidth Prices Keep Falling

Om Malik at gigaom.com reports:
"...Prices on Internet bandwidth continue to fall ...however, there’s a good chance you’re wondering what I’m talking about — after all, broadband service providers like Comcast and Time Warner are talking about putting the meter on the bandwidth they serve up to residential subscribers. What I’m talking about is wholesale Internet bandwidth that is sold to Internet services providers (ISPs) and content companies like Yahoo and Google. This is called IP Transit and it is sold at a rate of “per megabit per second per month” and often requires a monthly bandwidth commitment. Today research firm Telegeography came out with a report that shows the price of wholesale Internet access (IP transit), while varied around the globe, are still in decline. Here are some facts."
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Bell and Rogers complain about their lack of network capacity, but 1) there is no internet network capacity shortage; and 2) bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper... so why does cable internet now cost about $50 a month, with a 60GB cap, and only about 4x dial-up speed (rather than the advertised 40x) for modern applications like P2P sharing?


LINK

Monday, October 06, 2008

New Website supporting open and innovative Canadian internet

While Bell and Rogers continue to throttle everyone's internet connections, a new website called InternetforEveryone.ca had been launched to advocate for open internet access, universal internet service, and the freedom to innovate online.

Universal service has always been questionable to me, but that's another issue for another day. For now, check out the link below.


LINK

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Net Neutrality Report released

It's been quiet on the Net neutrality front since the harsh new copyright proposals came to light a few months ago ( and we're killed -at least temporarily- by the fall of Parliament). Now saveournet.ca has released a short report called "Fact vs. Fiction".

"Today members of the SaveOurNet.ca Coalition released a “Fact vs. Fiction” report that dispels the myths put forward by the dominant Internet Service Providers and demonstrates that an open Internet is the way forward if we want social, cultural and economic innovation in Canada."


LINK to PDF of the Report