Videotron to launch new IPTV service

This week Videotron revealed that it will be launching a new IPTV service this fall that will compete with Bell's Fibe TV. While this new service may provide competition that has a beneficial impact on content and programming, we continue to have concerns about the nature of IPTV.

This week Videotron revealed that it will be launching a new IPTV service this fall that will compete with Bell's Fibe TV. While this new service may provide competition that has a beneficial impact on content and programming, we continue to have concerns about the nature of IPTV.

IPTV, or Internet protocol television, broadcasts TV through the Internet rather than cable and makes other Internet applications available on television. In May, it was revealed that IPTV services use the same infrastructure to broadcast that we use for Internet access.

This puts television content in direct competition with other Internet content, with potentially negative impacts on our freedom to communicate and access content online. With a greater amount of Internet traffic traveling through these managed channels, Internet users' range of choice and access to other services and content decreases.

ISPs have shown that they are quick to find ways to limit people's Internet use, through throttling bandwidth-heavy services and imposing usage-based billing to punish users who they have decided use too much. At the same time, ISPs such as Rogers, exempt their own Video On Demand and Pay Per View services from these traffic management measures, putting competing services at a disadvantage.

How then are new services to reach their users? When ISPs provide both the content and the access, they become gatekeepers. The discriminatory nature of ISPs' traffic management practices goes against the open-access spirit of the Internet, stifling innovation and consumer choice.

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Read more:
TV versus the Internet

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