Canada's telcoms regulator declares internet an "essential service"

[doctorow]

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/21/canadas-telcoms-regulator-de.html

…

[Deke]

What is this horrid “rune” thing that is now appearing on BoingBoing articles?

I have a tic which makes me double click words as I read paragraphs, as a kind of pacing mechanism. This completely screws that up and makes articles unreadable for me.

How do I block this?

[noahdjango]

Wtf is secret rune?

Is this malware that has infected my machine, or is it some intentional bs that’s now part of boingboing? Just in case it’s only me seeing it, It shows up as a little black and white icon on the side of the text of a boingboing post, and let’s you highlight sentences, and share with your friends. [image]

answers in the thread

[anon95548275]

This action by the CRTC is pretty typical for periods when the Liberals have control of government: Lip service for the plebians with blatant loopholes for businesses to stroll through. So it goes.

[pbasch]

From the article: "The commission’s approach to affordability has always been through
market forces — to make sure we have enough competitors, we have
informed consumers that are working in a dynamic marketplace,"
Blais said.
"If that step does not work, then we’ll intervene with a regulatory process."
So, if they DON’T set prices, it’s not yet universal, and if they DO set prices it’s foul socialism. Oh well. I like the incremental helpfulness, pushing the market inch by inch toward a worthy goal, and not worrying overmuch about whining from the telcom owners. After all, if they’re such self-starting ubermenschen, surely they can work it out.

[bobtato]

@pbasch

if they’re such self-starting ubermenschen, surely they can work it out.

Yeah, I often wonder whether the way some industries are regulated is strategically canny. I suspect that when a sector is particularly slimy, regulators just keep piling on regulations to try and close all the loopholes, and it becomes a contest to see who has more lawyers, plus the regulees get to say “look at all these volumes of regulations the government has imposed on us for no reason”. Whereas if there were just two pages of menacingly broad rules, companies would have to hew to a “reasonable person” interpretation, and the public would be able to clearly see how their interests are or aren’t protected.

[junglejammies]

@pbasch

From the article: “The commission’s approach to affordability has always been through market forces — to make sure we have enough competitors, we have informed consumers that are working in a dynamic marketplace,” Blais said. “If that step does not work, then we’ll intervene with a regulatory process.”

One only need to look at Canada’s cell phone market, the most expensive and predatory in the world and dominated by a three corporation oligopoly, to see how well the CRTC’s approach works in practice.

[endotoxin]

HAHA GET FUCKED ROGERS!

(Also was just chastised by the BBS software for not composing a complete sentence, which is nice, but sometimes you just wanna yell vindictives at a shady telecom, amirite?)