Net Neutrality In Canada Essay

In recent years net neutrality has become a hotly debated topic. Canadian consumers have favored legislation protecting net neutrality and Canadian telecoms have sought to change the legislation. In this case, Canadian consumers have it wrong. Canada should strike down its legislation regulating how internet service providers behave and move to a more open market. The current legislation forces all Canadian internet service providers to treat all traffic equally. This stifles competition and reduces consumer options.

Arguing in favor of net neutrality does seem sensible as net neutrality rules are designed to protect consumers and prevent internet service providers (ISP’s) from becoming media gatekeepers. Treating all internet traffic the

Protecting innovation is important and governments should be working to create an environment that fosters innovation. However, the current legislation in Canada goes past what is necessary and impedes its own function.

The United States only recently introduced net neutrality legislation. Prior to these regulations, the internet functioned in a healthy and fair manner. The rules put in place in 2015 by the Obama administration were attempting to fix a problem that didn’t exist. These rules have limited consumers options rather than protecting them. The FCC under the Obama administration used legislation from the 1930’s and the 1990’s to regulate modern telecom companies. These rules are outdated and ill fitted to regulating modern telecom companies.

The monopolistic nature of the internet service industry is often cited as a reason for net neutrality. Current internet technology tends to limit consumer options when choosing an ISP. To gain access to high speed internet services, consumers need to be directly connected to the ISP’s network through some variety of cable technology. This discourages ISP’s from building multiple overlapping networks and creates barriers for new entrants to the market. Building a network that can service a large group of consumers requires large amounts of capital and the incumbent service providers can lower their prices which makes

While high-speed internet access is currently limited to a physical connection, our wireless technology is rapidly progressing. Most consumers also have an internet connect via their cell phone. This limits an ISP’s ability to abuse their power and filter or censor content from consumers. All of the telecom companies would need to work together in order to successfully filter content and this would run afoul of consumer protections laws. The coming 5G networks will further dilute ISP’s monopoly as it will be much easier for companies to provide internet access to consumers. As preciously mentioned, the United States internet was left unregulated for years and there exists very little evidence that the companies attempted to filter content or censor consumers media