> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Bob Jonkman
> Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 12:00 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [crypto-canada] Fwd: Re: Might not be able to send outgoing
> SMTP via CRF !!!
> say. Where does it stop? At some point, they'll cross the threshold
> between providing a valuable service and interfering with your
> ability to send and receive the e-mail you want.
And then many of the 1 million paying customers of the Sympatico service
will come to the conclusion that the service is not providing any value and
switch services. Any ISP can tell you that it has one of the highest churn
rates (lots of new customers but also lots of quitting customers every
month) of any subscriber-based business. Consumers know there's another ISP
down the road.
Bob, obviously, shouldn't be using Sympatico and, by doing so, he's sending
them the most effective message he can.
But cypherpunks like Bob lose credibility by using this issue -- blocking
access to unauthorized SMTP servers -- as evidence of nefarious corporate
control by BCE. Next time there's really something to get steamed up over, a
lot of people will think Bob and others are just crying wolf again.
>
> I want to purchase Internet connectivity from my service provider. I
> want to decide, independently, where I get my mail service, news
> service, web proxy service, and anything else.
Competition in the high-speed arena is only going to improve but, it's true
that, right now, your options are limited. Still, I've seen a guy in
Morrisburg Ont. actually climb watertowers to install his own radio
transmitters so he could build his own wireless high-speed data network cuz
the only other way to connect the half-dozen or so offices of his insurance
business was to buy lines from Bell and, because he was in a part of rural
eastern Ontario, Bell wanted to charge him thousands of $ a month. This guy
is an insurance broker so fed up with bell he figured out how to build his
own wireless high-speed LAN (the largest privately owned wireless network in
the world, I am told.)
Similarly, others who are dissatisfied with Bell's high-speed service always
have other options even though some may be more expensive. Again it comes
down to a market issue: If you are paying $40/month for Bell's HSE and you
disagree with a policy, is it worth an extra $40 for ISDN from Sprint? Is it
worth an extra $50 a month for a short-wave wireless service? Is it worth an
extra $1100 for a fibre line?
> Yes it is.
>
> Analogies in this business abound, and the closest I can come up with
> is the CRTC forcing Canadians to watch only Cancon-branded cable
> channels, even though the technical means exist for Canadians to view
--you're over-reaching here Bob. The CRTC is a government and it made a
certain kind of behaviour illegal. In fact, the CRTC made a certain kind of
content illegal which means you could argue that the CRTC regulation is
anti-free-speech.
The Sympatico thing is one businesses policy that affects a very tiny subset
of users. And in this case, it's only a service that's being restricted, not
content. You're still free to say anything you want -- you just have to say
it through their SMTP servers or through a Web mail account. Nobody's speech
rights have been affected and there are still plenty of ways to anonymize
and encrypt even when you're forced through Sympatico's servers.
David Akin / Senior technology reporter
National Post / http://www.nationalpost.com
300-1450 Don Mills Road, Don Mills, Ontario
CANADA / M3B 3R5
VOX: 416.383.2372 FAX: 416.383.2443
[EMAIL PROTECTED] / AIM: DavidAkin
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