Still fighting against telco's limiting other ISP

[Mike Kallies]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 3:13 PM, Colin McGregor <colin.mc151-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
...
> But if I were in your shoes I would be inclined to write something
> that started like:
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Dear David J. Broadfoot, MP
>
> I am a resident of your ridding of Kicking Horse Pass. I would like to
> share with you my serious concerns regarding the CRTC decision to ....
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> Honest, polite, and non-confrontational. Just one of the people in the
> MP's ridding noting a real concern with a public policy question. The
> fact that you are not a citizen quite yet to MY mind is not
> material...
>
> Colin McGregor


I swear I recall reading an article back around December 1995 or
December 1996, I think in the Toronto Star, which talked about the
creation of Sympatico and the fear that the CRTC had of Bell competing
with internet service providers.  In the article, it was decided that
Sympatico should be separate enough so as to allow for competition in
the industry.  Even the combining of the Sympatico billing with the
Bell phone billing was considered problematic because other internet
providers could not offer similar conveniences.

It's in *strong* contrast with what is happening now, which is
Sympatico is so overwhelmingly associated with Bell, that nobody can
figure out what the difference is anymore.

Does anyone else remember this controversy?  Contributing the article
to letters sent into MPs might re-open old arguments instead of
starting new ones.   Should Bell (and Rogers?) be forced to expunge
their Internet business because they control the lines and have
demonstrated that they *will* and *have* abused their powers?

I guess I should dig through microfilm...  this is just barely before
stuff started getting archived reasonably well on the Internet.


-Mike
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