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open letterSFU OpenMedia Students CJuly 2010

their excitement quickly turnedto trepidation.

Sociology on the Brave New Media at UB

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the FCC is no longer allowed toimpose net neutrality regulationgiving the ISPs within the sectora free reign to throttle.

The Battle for Net Neutrality in the Upag

Upcoming Events and Projec

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Te student-run, non-prot

OpenMedia.ca group at

SFU is dedicated to increase

awareness of media issues in

Canada and in turn promot-

ing an open and democraticcommunications system.

Our main goal is to increase publicparticipation in Canadian mediaand telecommunication policyformation. We believe that an openmedia system is essential to ourdemocracy, and in order to do sowe need an open and innovativecommunications system with in-creased transparency of media with

broader and more representativepublic participation.

In order to do so, the OpenMedia.canetwork seeks to advance funda-mental democratic principles whichwould eectively guide media,communication and culturalpolicy making in Canada. TeOpenMedia.ca network is brought

together by the principles of access,choice, diversity, innovation andopenness in internet and commu-nication systems that we seek topromote.

OpenMedia.ca is the organiza-

tion that coordinates the ongoingSaveOurNet.ca coalition, promot-ing Net Neutrality and the rightfor all Canadians to have accessto an open internet. Tat is, it isnecessary to stop lobbyists andspecial interest groups from tak-ing control over Canadas internetsystem by discriminating againstcertain types of content and trac.OpenMedia.ca also runs the FreshMedia project, where the mainobjective is to support independentjournalism and innovative media.

Te SFU OpenMedia.ca studentgroup will be holding campusevents, fundraising programs,educational workshops, and pre-sentations to inform the universitycommunity about national mediaissues and our ongoing projects.

Get involved!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 ourprojects and get involved. We are also currently holding meetings everysecond Tursday where the group will get together and discuss event plan-ning and current media issues. Contact us at sfu@openmedia.ca if youwould like to get to know more about the OpenMedia.ca group at SFU.

What is OpenMedia.ca?Eriko Furukawa

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After losing an important legal battle the FCC is trying to quickly take steps in order to circumvent the threat

Network Neutrality in the United States. A third-way to regulate ISP was proposed, which is now facing mabarriers for implementation, one being the members of Congress who are forcing the FCC to abandon its plan

regulate Internet Service Providers.

On April 6th 2010 the federal court in WashingtonD.C. ruled that the FCC (Federal CommunicationsCommission, the regulatory body for Communica-tions in America) had no legal authority to impose netneutrality regulations on to Internet Service Providers.Te ruling was handed out in response to the FCCspunishment of Comcast, a major ISP in the United

State, when it was caught thrott ling Bitorrent trac.Te communications regulatory body under its ownmandate had no regulatory authority to penalize Com-cast, as the FCC has classied DSL broadband serviceunder itle I as an information service rather thanunder itle II telecommunication service. Whatthat essentially meant was that under the informationservice category the FCC is not allowed to physicallyregulate the workings of ISPs, so if an ISP was throt-

FCC VS ISPs:The Battle for Network Neutrality in the United State

tling the FCC was out its mandated jurisdiction tostop or punish the ISP.

Te ruling made by the court has threatened netneutrality in the United States as the FCC is no lonallowed to impose net neutrality regulations, givingthe ISPs within the sector a free reign to throttle. o

circumvent the threat to Net Neutrality, the FCCschairman Julius Genachowski proposed a third wayregulatory mandate, which would allow the FCCto monitor the transmission component of Internetaccess. Tis way the FCC controls issues regardingthrottling, but cannot and will not monitor information being transmitted over the lines. As stated by tFCC commissioner Julius Genachowski in a statemeMay 6th 2010: the approach is narrow. It will trea

Umair Amjad Riaz

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only the transmission component of broadband accessservice as a telecommunications service while preserv-ing the longstanding consensus that the FCC should

not regulate the Internet, including web-based servicesand applications, e-commerce sites, and online con-tent.

With the third way proposal, the FCC believes itwill have the authority to write and enforce rules thatwould protect consumers and Internet content provid-ers from restrictions imposed by broadband providers.As outlined in the above-mentioned statement thethird-way approach will:

Recognize the transmission component ofbroadband access service--and only this compo-nent--as a telecommunications service;

Apply only a handful of provisions of itle II(Sections 201, 202, 208, 222, 254, and 255)that, prior to the Comcast decision, were widelybelieved to be within the Commissions purviewfor 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 regulatoryoverreach.

But there is much to standing in their way, the thirdway proposal has to go through congress, where manyits members are asking the FCC to reevaluate its plans.

As the FCC looks for clarication from congress, itwill be seeking comments from the public till July 15th2010 at broadband.gov.

Tis matter raises issues as to how Canada should dealwith its network neutrality issues, are there lessonsthat the Canadian regulatory body CRC can learnfrom this case? Right now the onus of reporting ISPthrottling to the CRC is on the consumer, as theregulatory body does not directly monitor throttling.Shouldnt CRC become more proactive regardingmonitoring and making sure that throttling does not

take place in order to protect the Canadian consumer.Should the CRC become more hands-on regardingnetwork neutrality? Whatever happens next regardingthe FCCs mandate, the outcome will have a majorimpact on future net neutrality issues, not only in theUS but in other countries as well.

A link to see an interview with the FCC chairmanexplaining the third-way approach: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20001825-38.html?tag=mncol;txt

Te OpenMedia.ca club has been busy with planninga variety of projects and events! Here is an update ofwhat were currently working on, and some futureevents coming up.

We will be starting to do University Presentations!Tese will be 5 minute presentations where OpenMe-dia.ca club members will go into classrooms, informstudents about media issues in Canada and whatOpenMedia.ca/the club does.

In September, we plan on going doing 60-75 minuteHigh School workshops, these will be on the topic ofInternet, democracy and Net Neutrality. Tere will be

a training session in end of July/beginning of August.If you are interested in getting involved, please let usknow!

Were also planning OpenMedia.ca club social/net-

working events that we want to put on this summer.Te details are still being worked out, so stay tuned forour next Newsletter for details on these events!

Week of Welcome! We have signed up to be part ofSFUs Week of Welcome. Tis is a welcome party fornew and returning community members during therst week of classes in the fall term. Well be planningsoon what kind of fun events we want to host.

Upcoming Events and Projects

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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 UBCs alumni

of contemporary media issues?

Tese were the questions on my mind when I ven-

tured deep into the heart of UBCs ANSO buildingto attend the Sociology Mini-Conference on Monday,June 21. If any academic group were to comprehendthreats to net neutrality, independent journalism, andthe state of Canadas media-environment, it would bethe sociologists. After all, inequality is at the heart oftheir studies and, of all the disciplines oered at UBC,Sociology would be most in-touch with modern socialissues, right?

Among those in attendance were a handful of grad-

students, each presenting their papers in a dry-run, tobe critiqued by their peers, a few out-of-town sociologyProfs, and UBCs Associate Professor of Environmen-tal Sociology, David indall. Tere was a ten-minutebreak mid-conference, and some brief socializationafterwards, during which I managed to stop three ofthe grad-students, and Dr.indall himself, for a fewquestions. I was the only non-sociologist there, stick-ing out like a sore thumb with my OpenMedia vestand binder, and am very thankful for their time andcourteous nature.

Having rst asked if independent media was impor-tant for Canadas democracy, I was encouraged by allfour respondents enthusiasm for alternative journals,Al Jazeera, etc. However, when I popped the questionin a local context, asking whether UBC would benetfrom alternatives to mainstream campus papers likethe AMS Insider or the Ubyssey, their excitementquickly turned to trepidation. Each faculty memberassured me that mainstream journals were all that was

needed at UBC, that only thesewould provide quality information,and Dr. indall even admitted thatUBC is fairly removed fromjournalism and that he was

out of touch with undergraduatepublications.

My condence continued to fadeas I discovered that only one of thegrad students was aware of websitethrottling and that nobody hadheard of OpenMedia, let aloneSave-Our-Net, all this even whentwo of the ve studies presented atthe conference had relied exclu-

sively on the internet for data-gathering! Tese are frighteningfacts for someone wanting to startan Openmedia Club at UBC, andwho had just spent the last weekplastering the University campuswith yers about Net Neutrality.

Sociology on BraveNew Media at UBCBen Pierce

OpenMedia at UBC

However discouraging, the opinions of the Sociology Conferencehave but emphasized the need foOpenmedia at UBC. Te academcommunity must be informed

about media issues; about theneed for independent journalismin Canada. My interviewees fearthat independent media on-campwill undermine the academic community must be replaced with anassurance of true media-democraon campus! After all, how can twAMS-run university papers ac-count for all 40 000 views of thecommunity?

Check out the UBC Openmediaforum and mailing list at: http://groups.google.ca/group/openmedaubc or email me at ben@openmdia.ca for the latest on Openmedat UBC!

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Photo(cc)Jas

onRowe