The role of technology and policy in transforming online culture – chronicled by David Ellis
consumer complaints
Why is the CRTC auditing the gamers instead of Rogers? (4)
139 days
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Welcome to the CRTC’s Office of Consumer Complaints. Please be seated.
The CRTC is now doing everything in its power to prove that its phony-balony complaints system will harm – not help – consumers. As I’ll explain below, its handling of the CGO complaints (plural) against Rogers for breaking legitimate online applications (esp World of Warcraft) has become theatre of the absurd. But first, some catching up. (more…)
Playing games: CRTC’s non-questions, Rogers non-answers (3)
145 days
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You can have any answer you want except the one you’re looking for
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[Update... OMG. I just finished this post and boom! - I got the CRTC's letter to Jason and the CGO, released late this afternoon. After all the blood, sweat and tears, the Commission has the nerve to ask the CGO to provide "more specific information" relating to their recent complaint - whereas the Rogers reply says absolutely nothing about any of the technical details. And just to rub a fistful of salt into the wound, the Commission is insisting on getting the CGO reply on Thanksgiving - because 10 days is now the required response time! See below for the many problems with the Rogers letter. And stay tuned.]
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Let’s review the bidding.
On Sept 16, i.e. before the new complaints guidelines were released, the Commission sent a kind of warning letter to Rogers. This letter (pdf) may look like the regulator’s getting tough – except that we’re now less than three weeks shy of the 2nd anniversary of Canada’s network neutrality rules (Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-657 – pdf). And a lot of consumer-unfriendly things have happened in the interim (notwithstanding the updates to the guidelines issued by the Commission under the heading “How to make a complaint about Internet service”).
Games, throttled: complain about Rogers, blame the CRTC (2)
148 days
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Complaints resolution flowchart, as appended to Rogers’ Sept 27 letter to the CRTC
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[Includes correction to the "plot" timeline]
As the news breaks (see petition link below)
I was just finishing this post (#2) when Jason Koblovsky sent me the much-anticipated response from Rogers to last week’s “warning” letter from the CRTC. 
The letter, which runs about 1200 words, was addressed to the CRTC’s Joanne Baldassi over the signature of Ken Thompson, Rogers’ Director of Copyright and Broadband Law. Get your red-hot pdf here.
The Rogers letter is an exquisite piece of evasion, obfuscation and self-congratulations. It indicates to me that when you put together the Commission’s ass-backwards approach (consumer complaints are first and foremost the consumer’s problem), along with Rogers’ business philosophy (the customer is always wrong), then the use of end-user complaints as a policy tool under the new guidelines won’t change a damn thing. The plot so far:
CGO fights Rogers, CRTC over WoW for 2+ yrs > CRTC issues warning to Rogers (Sept 16) > CRTC issues new complaints guidelines (Sept 22) > Guidelines get tepid reception (esp from CGO) > Rogers responds to CRTC warning (Sept 27) > CGO issues statement (“something doesn’t smell right”) > Petition launched at OpenMedia.ca (here).
Jason K sends the following correction: “The World of Warcraft case is almost a year old. It’s been ten months since the complaint was handed into the CRTC in January 2011. The CAIP and myself brought up the issue of misclassification prior to the WoW complaint in 2008. The CRTC has known about this misclassification problem now for over 3 years.”
I’ll parse the Rogers’ letter in the followup post, along with any early reactions from the blogosphere. Meanwhile, please have a look at the following comments from some of the usual suspects (including me) on what the new guidelines do and don’t do for consumers.
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Subscriber, heal thyself
The CRTC’s new “guidelines” on the handling of ISP complaints landed last week to decidedly mixed reactions among those who care about consumers (Telecom Information Bulletin CRTC 2011-609). PIAC counsel John Lawford dropped me a comment (see prior post) in which he expressed satisfaction with the general direction:
“Not a model of total clarity but a start. CCTS-like procedure, some transparency requirements and some threats of sanctions. I am concerned the actual online complaints form is not prepopulated with the requirements for this type of specialized complaint – nor the requirements the CRTC will be looking at to judge the complaint (see paras. 13-14 of the Information Bulletin).” (more…)
Game throttled? Complain about Rogers, but blame the CRTC
154 days
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“Rogers is not aware of any problems with online games.”
– Rogers’ spokeswoman Carly Suppa, September 2011
“We are not a consumer-protection agency.”
– CRTC spokesman Denis Carmel, July 2011
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(A few minor edits and corrections added in this version)
Jason Koblovsky is a gamer, independent journalist and activist. He’s also the co-founder of the Canadian Gaming Organization, which at first glance seems to be little more than a Facebook page with a couple of hundred supporters.
In the last few weeks, however, Jason and his cohorts have been all over the news for their David-and-Goliath battle with Rogers Internet. Their complaint is that Rogers has been disrupting otherwise legitimate online gameplay, ostensibly in the course of managing traffic on its network – by throttling packets that might have any association with a peer-to-peer network.
In doing so Rogers may be in violation of both s.36 of the Telecommunications Act and the ITMP framework lashed together by the CRTC in 2009 (Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-657). In case you’d forgotten, s.36 captures the age-old principle of common carrier neutrality: “Except where the Commission approves otherwise, a Canadian carrier shall not control the content or influence the meaning or purpose of telecommunications carried by it for the public.” Good luck with that provision now that we’ve blurred the content-carriage distinction beyond all recognition. But that’s another story.
(more…)
