Canadian regulator gives MSO two weeks to rebut charges that it's violating net neutrality guidelines or put forth a compliance plan UPDATED 5:30 PM

Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor

January 25, 2012

2 Min Read
Rogers Faces P2P Throttling Charge

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission claims to have evidence that Rogers Communications Inc. (Toronto: RCI) is violating its network neutrality guidelines by throttling peer-to-peer traffic, and has given the MSO a chance to rebut the study or explain how it intends to fix its bandwidth management methods.

In a letter issued Jan. 20, the CRTC alleges that Rogers is slowing down P2P traffic amid earlier complaints from gamers that their cable modem connections were being hamstrung during online multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft.

The CRTC has given the MSO until midday Feb. 3 to disprove the agency's findings or provide a compliance plan. Failure to do so "will result in my recommendation to Commissioners to hold a show-cause hearing," wrote Andrea Rosen, the CRTC's chief compliance and enforcing officer.

Rogers wasn't immediately available to comment on Wednesday morning, but did tell The Globe and Mail that it will review the CRTC's data. "We do our own testing constantly and this is not anything that our testing results have shown," the company said.

Update: Rogers confirmed Wednesday that it will indeed respond to the CRTC by the deadline it has set. "Our network engineers are looking at the test results from the CRTC. Our only goal in network management is to deliver a good experience for customers and we believe we are in compliance with CRTC regulations," the company added.

Why this matters
Depending on the outcome, Rogers could volunteer or be forced to migrate to the sort of "protocol agnostic" traffic management system that Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) now uses following its big dust-up with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over that MSO's treatment of some P2P traffic.

The CRTC's move may also cause Rogers, which has been using a consumption-based billing policy for Internet services with the agency's blessing, to challenge the CRTC's network usage guidelines much as the FCC's network neutrality rules have been taken to task in the U.S.

For more
Read more about network neutrality north and south of the U.S. border.

  • Net Neutrality Rules Dodge a Bullet

  • Verizon Appeals Net Neutrality Rules (Again)

  • O, Canada! Netflix Streaming Gets a Reprieve

  • Cox Boots Up Its Bandwidth Meter

  • Rogers Takes Internet Meter to the Masses

  • Net Neutrality Ruling: FCC Loses, Comcast Wins

  • Comcast Caves In to P2P Pressure

  • Comcast Goes 'Protocol Agnostic' Everywhere



— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable

About the Author(s)

Jeff Baumgartner

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Jeff Baumgartner is a Senior Editor for Light Reading and is responsible for the day-to-day news coverage and analysis of the cable and video sectors. Follow him on X and LinkedIn.

Baumgartner also served as Site Editor for Light Reading Cable from 2007-2013. In between his two stints at Light Reading, he led tech coverage for Multichannel News and was a regular contributor to Broadcasting + Cable. Baumgartner was named to the 2018 class of the Cable TV Pioneers.

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like