open letter SFU OpenMedia Student’s Club

July 2010

What is OpenMedia.ca?
Eriko Furukawa

The student-run, non-profit together by the principles of access,

OpenMedia.ca group at
SFU is dedicated to increase
awareness of media issues in
Canada and in turn promot-
ing an open and democratic
communications system.
Our main goal is to increase public
participation in Canadian media
and telecommunication policy
formation. We believe that an open
media system is essential to our
democracy, and in order to do so
we need an open and innovative
communications system with in-
creased transparency of media with
broader and more representative
public participation.
choice, diversity, innovation and
openness in internet and commu-
nication systems that we seek to
promote.
OpenMedia.ca is the organiza-
tion that coordinates the ongoing
SaveOurNet.ca coalition, promot-
ing Net Neutrality and the right
for all Canadians to have access
to an open internet. That is, it is
necessary to stop lobbyists and
special interest groups from tak-
ing control over Canada’s internet
“the FCC is no longer allowed to
system by discriminating against impose net neutrality regulations,
certain types of content and traffic. giving the ISPs within the sector
OpenMedia.ca also runs the Fresh a free reign to throttle.”
Media project, where the main
objective is to support independent The Battle for Net Neutrality in the US
journalism and innovative media. page 2

In order to do so, the OpenMedia.ca The SFU OpenMedia.ca student

network seeks to advance funda- group will be holding campus
“their excitement quickly turned
mental democratic principles which events, fundraising programs, to trepidation.”
would effectively guide media, educational workshops, and pre-
communication and cultural Sociology on the Brave New Media at UBC
sentations to inform the university
policy making in Canada. The page 4
community about national media
OpenMedia.ca network is brought issues and our ongoing projects.
Upcoming Events and Projects
Get involved!
page 3
We will be tabling every second Wednesday, in the AQ near the art gal-
lery; make sure to come by if you would like to know more about our
projects and get involved. We are also currently holding meetings every
second Thursday where the group will get together and discuss event plan-
ning and current media issues. Contact us at sfu@openmedia.ca if you
would like to get to know more about the OpenMedia.ca group at SFU.
FCC VS ISPs:
The Battle for Network Neutrality in the United States
Umair Amjad Riaz

After losing an important legal battle the FCC is trying to quickly take steps in order to circumvent the threat to
Network Neutrality in the United States. A ‘third-way’ to regulate ISP was proposed, which is now facing many
barriers for implementation, one being the members of Congress who are forcing the FCC to abandon its plan to
regulate Internet Service Providers.

On April 6th 2010 the federal court in Washington
D.C. ruled that the FCC (Federal Communications
Commission, the regulatory body for Communica-
tions in America) had no legal authority to impose net
neutrality regulations on to Internet Service Providers.
The ruling was handed out in response to the FCC’s
punishment of Comcast, a major ISP in the United
State, when it was caught throttling BitTorrent traffic.
The communications regulatory body under its own
mandate had no regulatory authority to penalize Com-
cast, as the FCC has classified DSL broadband service
under Title I as an “information service” rather than
under Title II “telecommunication service.” What
that essentially meant was that under the information
service category the FCC is not allowed to physically
regulate the workings of ISPs, so if an ISP was throt-
tling the FCC was out its mandated jurisdiction to
stop or punish the ISP.
The ruling made by the court has threatened net
neutrality in the United States as the FCC is no longer
allowed to impose net neutrality regulations, giving
the ISPs within the sector a free reign to throttle. To
circumvent the threat to Net Neutrality, the FCC’s
chairman Julius Genachowski proposed a ‘third way’
regulatory mandate, which would allow the FCC
to monitor the transmission component of Internet
access. This way the FCC controls issues regarding
throttling, but cannot and will not monitor informa-
tion being transmitted over the lines. As stated by the
FCC commissioner Julius Genachowski in a statement
May 6th 2010: “ …the approach is narrow. It will treat

openletter page 2
only the transmission component of broadband access
service as a telecommunications service while preserv-
ing the longstanding consensus that the FCC should
not regulate the Internet, including web-based services
and applications, e-commerce sites, and online con-
tent.”
With the “third way” proposal, the FCC believes it
will have the authority to write and enforce rules that
would protect consumers and Internet content provid-
ers from restrictions imposed by broadband providers.
As outlined in the above-mentioned statement the
third-way approach will:
• Recognize the transmission component of
broadband access service--and only this compo-
nent--as a telecommunications service;”
• Apply only a handful of provisions of Title II
(Sections 201, 202, 208, 222, 254, and 255)
that, prior to the Comcast decision, were widely
believed to be within the Commission’s purview
for broadband;
• Simultaneously renounce--that is, forbear from--
application of the many sections of the Commu-
nications Act that are unnecessary and inappro-
priate for broadband access service; and
• Put in place up-front forbearance and mean-
ingful boundaries to guard against regulatory
overreach.
Upcoming Events and Projects
The OpenMedia.ca club has been busy with planning
a variety of projects and events! Here is an update of
what we’re currently working on, and some future
events coming up.
We will be starting to do University Presentations!
These will be 5 minute presentations where OpenMe-
dia.ca club members will go into classrooms, inform
students about media issues in Canada and what
OpenMedia.ca/the club does.
In September, we plan on going doing 60-75 minute
High School workshops, these will be on the topic of
Internet, democracy and Net Neutrality. There will be
But there is much to standing in their way, the “third
way” proposal has to go through congress, where many
its members are asking the FCC to reevaluate its plans.
As the FCC looks for clarification from congress, it
will be seeking comments from the public till July 15th
2010 at broadband.gov.
This matter raises issues as to how Canada should deal
with its network neutrality issues, are there lessons
that the Canadian regulatory body CRTC can learn
from this case? Right now the onus of reporting ISP
throttling to the CRTC is on the consumer, as the
regulatory body does not directly monitor throttling.
Shouldn’t CRTC become more proactive regarding
monitoring and making sure that throttling does not
take place in order to protect the Canadian consumer.
Should the CRTC become more hands-on regarding
network neutrality? Whatever happens next regarding
the FCC’s mandate, the outcome will have a major
impact on future net neutrality issues, not only in the
US but in other countries as well.
A link to see an interview with the FCC chairman
explaining the “third-way” approach: http://news.cnet.
com/8301-13578_3-20001825-38.html?tag=mncol;txt
a training session in end of July/beginning of August.
If you are interested in getting involved, please let us
know!
We’re also planning OpenMedia.ca club social/net-
working events that we want to put on this summer.
The details are still being worked out, so stay tuned for
our next Newsletter for details on these events!
Week of Welcome! We have signed up to be part of
SFU’s Week of Welcome. This is a welcome party for
new and returning community members during the
first week of classes in the fall term. We’ll be planning
soon what kind of fun events we want to host.
openletter page 3
OpenMedia at UBC

Sociology on Brave
New Media at UBC
Ben Pierce

Why is the UBC community so sterile?

Where are all the independent voices; the con-
troversial ideas; the underground media? Is the
academic community out of touch with inde-
pendent media? How aware are UBC’s alumni
of contemporary media issues?

Photo (cc) Jason Rowe

These were the questions on my mind when I ven-
tured deep into the heart of UBC’s ANSO building
to attend the Sociology Mini-Conference on Monday,
June 21. If any academic group were to comprehend
threats to net neutrality, independent journalism, and
the state of Canada’s media-environment, it would be
the sociologists. After all, inequality is at the heart of
their studies and, of all the disciplines offered at UBC,
Sociology would be most in-touch with modern social
issues, right?
Among those in attendance were a handful of grad-
students, each presenting their papers in a dry-run, to
be critiqued by their peers, a few out-of-town sociology
Profs, and UBC’s Associate Professor of Environmen-
tal Sociology, David Tindall. There was a ten-minute
break mid-conference, and some brief socialization
afterwards, during which I managed to stop three of
the grad-students, and Dr.Tindall himself, for a few
questions. I was the only non-sociologist there, stick-
ing out like a sore thumb with my OpenMedia vest
and binder, and am very thankful for their time and
courteous nature.
Having first asked if independent media was impor-
tant for Canada’s democracy, I was encouraged by all
four respondents’ enthusiasm for alternative journals,
Al Jazeera, etc. However, when I popped the question
in a local context, asking whether UBC would benefit
from alternatives to mainstream campus papers like
the AMS Insider or the Ubyssey, their excitement
quickly turned to trepidation. Each faculty member
assured me that mainstream journals were all that was
needed at UBC, that only these
would provide quality information,
and Dr. Tindall even admitted that
“…UBC is fairly removed from
journalism…” and that he was “…
out of touch with undergraduate
publications.”
My confidence continued to fade
as I discovered that only one of the
grad students was aware of website
throttling and that nobody had
heard of OpenMedia, let alone
Save-Our-Net, all this even when
two of the five studies presented at
the conference had relied exclu-
sively on the internet for data-
gathering! These are frightening
facts for someone wanting to start
an Openmedia Club at UBC, and
who had just spent the last week
plastering the University campus
with flyers about Net Neutrality.
However discouraging, the opin-
ions of the Sociology Conference
have but emphasized the need for
Openmedia at UBC. The academic
community must be informed
about media issues; about the
need for independent journalism
in Canada. My interviewees’ fears
that independent media on-campus
will undermine the academic com-
munity must be replaced with an
assurance of true media-democracy
on campus! After all, how can two
AMS-run university papers ac-
count for all 40 000 views of the
community?
Check out the UBC Openmedia
forum and mailing list at: http://
groups.google.ca/group/openmedi-
aubc or email me at ben@openme-
dia.ca for the latest on Openmedia
at UBC!

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