Cuz a few of our elected reps are really really into it.Two big-ticket news items I've been foolishly sitting on while the east absolutely exploded are from right here at home, and they both have two things in common:
1) The CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission) is behind them
2) They're both fucking terrifying.
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| so this is what the enemy looks like. |
The situation is this: while you were sleeping, going to work, and watching the game, major telecoms now have the right to charge you for -over-using the internet-. This makes per-byte billing for your home internet usage possible the same way we get gouged on smartphone data plans. It also makes any attempt at net neutrality (something that I think is as fundamental in this day and age as non-digital liberty, dag nabbit) basically unreachable.
Practically, this is what it looks like: loading data-intensive pages, streaming ANYTHING, listening to music, videos, or downloads of any kind, will get exorbitantly expensive. Because it's expensive, the internet will become more of the same sort of playing field as meatworld is now--where people with money get access to things that poor people can't.
You can't hear me, but I'm spitting in disgust by my shoes right now.
CRTC Nightmare the Second: Always At War with EastAsia.
While we were sleeping, watching the game and working like good polite little Canadians, the CRTC recently amended their broadcasting regulations to make it
What.
The Harper government for the great and glorious 52nd state is already prepping for Fox News North; this is really just the first logical step.I need to throw up now, but if this makes you angry/frightened/both, there's plenty you can do.
While I'm puking, feel free to make noise about this. Might be the last time we feel free in the media for a while.
60 GB a month ($45/month) is not enough especially when you have 5 people using the INTERNET. I have already paid over $50 in over use bandwidth. Damn Rogers..
ReplyDeleteStrongly agree: I have been hating the CRTC for a while now, and never more so when it made that data decision. The worst part: Bell and Rogers were getting their market-share asses chewed and handed back to them by Ont.-based Teksavvy's unlimited plan. So they got their CRTC buds to pass this anti-competitive gouging system to de-fang the competition -- which happens to support net neutrality. Coincidence? I think not.
ReplyDeleteI also think that since Al Jazeera English had to wait six years for the CRTC because of special interest lobbying, Fox North signals should have to share time with AJ's solid reporting (headed by Tony Burman, the former CBC editor-in-chief) so that they might get a few facts in their mix of, er, counter-intelligence. ~Brendan