Net Neutrality

Reports have indicated that the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is holding meetings to settle their long-winded journey toward establishing net neutrality rules. Seeking an alternative to implementing rules that the industry is in opposition to, the agency hopes to still gain some authoritative control over the actions of Internet service providers (ISPs), possibly by partially reclassifying them as telecommunications common carriers. Unfortunately, it appears that corporate interests will be a the top of the agenda. Read more »

CACTUS has recently reviewed several CRTC audits of community television stations from 2002-2005. The findings show a shocking lack of concern for local programming. During each auditing period, several systems could not be audited due to shoddy record keeping or missing tapes. Furthermore, community stations throughout the country listed several programs as "access programming", which did not in fact meet the requirements to be considered as such.

For a more detailed look at the CRTC's findings click here.

There still remains a massive gap in the price and quality of internet access for rural Canadians when compared to the access granted to city dwellers. Read more »

The CRTC made a decision on Monday that attempted to appease both local broadcasters and cable companies. The ruling was an attempt to end the disputes between the two powers and ended with "broadcasters welcoming the prospect of negotiating fees for their local signals [and] broadcast distributors warning of increased costs" (Geist). However, fee negotiation can lead to problems, for instance, if broadcasters are unable to reach an agreement with cable companies then they may block scheduled programming. Read more »

Rabble has found a winner for their Not Rex Murphy Contest! The contest was proposed at the beginning of January and was set up as a scathing critique of the political direction the CBC has been going. The contest set out to find individuals willing to engage in alternative commentary regarding Canadian events that would compete with Murphy's broadcasts on the CBC. The winner of the contest was Humberto DaSilva, who will provide an "antidote" to Rex Murphy, by providing video commentary via rabble.ca for three Thursdays starting on March 18th. Read more »