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After a long period of talking about making the jump to an independent ISP, I finally made the jump this morning and moved to TekSavvy. I've got a close friend using their service currently and he's happy. They've got good reviews on CanadianISP as well, so I'm fairly comfortable making the leap-of-faith. What drove me to make the jump from Rogers is my first encounter with their content modification. Saturday morning I saw my first cap warning pop up when I was browsing through various reddit stories. Rogers has always had the threat of caps looming over subscribers collective heads, but hasn't made a major issue of enforcing it in the past.

Rogers current cap crackdown seems to follow what has been years of development and implementation of content filtering. It started with degrading the speed of sharing services, then transitioned over to generally degrading all encrypted connections when tracker seeds began using secure connections. Finally enforcing the cap is just the next logical step for them as they continue to develop and implement traffic shaping.

But as Rogers likes logical steps, the current method of informing customers who near the cap via including content in pages is just the first logical step to actual content filtering of web pages. There have been rumblings of Rogers injecting it's own advertising in specific pages, overselling advertising, or simply removing undesirable content.

I was willing to live with the traffic shaping of torrents. Really, even if my traffic is close to 60G monthly, I don't share that much. I download open-source and share torrents, do some movies and music, and download the occasional game. In particular, I don't consider myself a heavy user. That same TekSavvy friend blows through 10G a day in seeding torrents. I'm sure there are others who can make even that look basic with home connections.

What finally made me switch as a customer is the thought that Rogers has a right to try and punish me into determining what I do with my connection. Phone companies don't monitor calls for illegal content, then pass that information on or try to degrade the service to encourage users into compliance. But phone service isn't a really good likeness for internet providers. Because of the nature of the technology, particularly over cable, forces people to use the same resource pool as their neighbors. As everyone has to swim in the same connection, those taking up a larger share of the same space should have some kind of different plan. If Rogers wanted an additional fee from me to provide a truely open connection, I'd be willing to pay it. It's reasonable that if I take up a larger share of the service, I should be required to compensate them accordingly.

What isn't reasonable is to try to push me into conforming with the habits of my neighbors. Hell, if I could, I'd dump my home cable entirely to just use internet. File sharing between individuals isn't illegal in Canada, and with any luck will remain so. Big service providers like Rogers and Bell are attempting to take the same heavy handed approach to controlling traffic load as the music industry did with file sharing. Instead of coming up with a product which will appeal to users desiring that particular service, they try to fight and punish like ignorant parents.

Bell, which had performed traffic shaping in the past with it's own service, now also traffic shapes the connected lines of those companies it leases the lines too. So even if you do sign up with an indy ISP, there is a very strong chance you'll have some form of traffic shaping. The positive is that those indy ISPs are fighting back with a class action suit aimed at removal of Bell's traffic modification.

Just as Apple with iTunes finally managed to convince the music industry of change through profit. Canadian ISPs need to be convinced that customers value having an filter free network connection through customers changing to providers which seek to provide such a service.

It costs a bit to make the switch, but most providers offer service which is cheaper than the big media alternative. So set up fees end up paying for themselves in the long run. Next time you're looking for an ISP or know someone in the process of moving, send them over to CanadianISP and find a good local provider Or become a reseller yourself for a service you use and make a little money while doing the right thing.

Capitalism can be positive and profitable.

Oh and if you'd like to read more about internet and media freedoms in Canada, check out Michael Geist.