Vonage says Shaw breaching net neutrality

A shift from broader bandwidth to higher quality of service for voice over the Internet is being watched closely by the Canadian telecom industry, with most analysts expressing concern that the move may jeopardize advances in technology.

Calgary-based Shaw Communications Inc. recommends its high-speed Internet users pay an additional $10 monthly fee to ensure voice packets travel first-class on its network, giving priority to VoIP software ahead of other Web-enabled applications.

Vonage Canada has asked for a full investigation by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), calling the fee a VoIP tax and accusing the telco of limiting net neutrality.

Shaw says the fee will pay for network multimedia management technology — traffic shaping tools such as PacketCable 2.0, DOCSIS and Ellacoya’s IP Service Control — that will ensure quality of service for common VoIP software such as Skype, Vonage and MSN Messenger.

Asking for a QoS enhancement fee is one way of changing the model from offering faster and faster speeds, says Brian Sharwood, a principal analyst at SeaBoard Group Inc. in Toronto. “I’m not sure there’s anything particularly inherently wrong with that,” he says.

Sharwood says market forces in Western Canada allow Shaw to operate off a different model for quality of service on its Internet network. Toronto-based Rogers Communications Inc., for example, has gone the other way, he says.

“Rogers feels it’s important that Vonage works on its Internet connections at an acceptable quality level. But the market dynamics are different: Rogers has 50 per cent of the high-speed market and want to win more, whereas Shaw has about 80 per cent of the market out West.”

Sharwood stresses the Internet should not be prioritized for the owner of the pipe and says Shaw’s QoS fee does present some questions. “The customer is buying something that’s quite ethereal. There’s no visibility and there’s no way the end-user can measure QoS.”

Shaw’s concerns about voice quality are quite valid, but a lot depends on how the company implements the services associated with the $10 fee, says George Goodall, a research analyst with London, Ont.-based Info-Tech Research Group Inc.

Goodall says Shaw is justified in levelling the QoS fee. “These are genuine concerns around prioritization for voice packets, and it makes a lot of sense because they’re looking at differentiating network traffic. On a commercial level, these issues are top of mind and businesses pay extra in hardware and service to ensure voice quality,” he says.

But Goodall cautions: “We haven’t yet seen what this fee involves in terms of the technology and service levels.”