[Info-vax] Itanium and the NY antitrust suit against Intel

[JF Mezei]

Neil Rieck wrote:
>
> In the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years there was a commonly held belief by
> all citizens (in all western countries) that government should get out
> of the way of business. 

Canada's current government, the reform party headed by George W Harper
has the same mentality, especially when it comes to mr Rieck's employer:
Its policies are to let market forces work their magic, and the
government conveniently forgets that Bell Canada is still, to a large
extent, a monopoly and its actions of recent have been focused on
preventing competition in the ISP business. In fact, the GW Harper
cabinet is about to rule within the next 10 days  to overturn one of the
few CRTC decisions that was on the consumer's side and allow Bell Canada
to restrict competitors to slow DSL speeds and prevent them access to
streetside pedestals (forcing very long copper loops to the CO where
ADSL speeds will be even slower).

So you use of "all citizens" should be changed to "some citizens".

Customers of ISPs who purchase  access from the Bell canada monopoly are
very aware that we are being screwed by a monopoly while the government
 claims there is healthy competition. On 3 occasions, the CRTC condoned
throttling of certain applications 10 hour per day to less than 240kbps,
ignoring the Telecom Act which prohibits discrimination and prohibits
the changing of the purpose of a telecommunications. (Bell's argument is
that those transfers being crippled are not important and can take
longer to accomplish, that is akin to saying that a voice conversation
isn't important unless you use a red telephone at both ends :-)

At least the FCC forced Comcast to manage its network and service speeds
in a non discriminatory way.

The CRTC is fully aware that bell is breaking the Telecom Act, but their
"Policy directive" set by the political arm of the government (GW
Harper) is forcing their hand to write decisions that somehow twist the
meaning of the Telecom Act to justify/support Bell Canada's actions.

And this from a governmnet that supposedly passed laws to prevent
corporate donations to political parties.  Perhaps Bell is giving that
party free long distance, free use of the Bell corporate jet for an
afternoon game of golf in the bermuda or florida or whatever other type
of "help" Bell might give to the government in exchange for the
government interpreting the law in Bell's favour.