CRTC Gives Rogers Communications Deadline on P2P Traffic Throttling Rebuttal

Canadian cable operator must rebut presumption or find a way to comply

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/26/2012 11:14:13 AM

Canada's version of the FCC has given Canadian cable operator/ISP Rogers Communications until the first week in February to respond to its tentative finding that the operator throttled P2P traffic.
 
In a Jan. 20 letter from the chief of the compliance and enforcement sector, the Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications Commission said that it had concluded, based on preliminary results, that Rogers was using Internet management practices that would throttle and degrade any time-sensitive applications that make use of P2P ports.
 
A Canadian operator has to get pre-approval from CRTC to "noticeably" degrade time-sensitive material or slow non-time-sensitive material to the point that it amounts to blocking access to content.
 
CRTC wants Rogers to either rebut that presumption or come up with a plan for compliance. Absent that, the chief said she would recommend a hearing.
 
Rogers reportedly conceded last spring to accidently throttling "World of Warcraft" play after a gamer complained to CRTC, but said it was working with the game manufacturer to resolve the issue.
 
Slowing P2P traffic by Comcast is what triggered the FCC's eventual adoption of network neutrality rules after a court threw out the FCC's enforcement action against Comcast for violating its network openness principles.