Net-neutrality advocates cry foul over Videotron music service

MONTREAL — Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron is giving itself an undue preference with a new service that allows its mobile customers to listen to music streaming without it counting against their data caps, net neutrality advocates say. “The issue is known colloquially now as zero rating, where you treat certain packets from certain sources as not charged under your telecom billing plan,” John Lawford, executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), said in a phone interview. “The idea behind net neutrality is that that kind of favouritism isn’t allowed.” Videotron introduced the service, called Unlimited Music, at a press conference in Montreal Thursday. It allows mobile customers to listen to music streaming offered by Stingray Digital Group Inc., Google Inc.’s Google Play, Deezer and Spotify AB without incurring data charges. The company said in a press release that it would add other streaming services to that list in “the coming weeks and months.” The service was available as of Thursday to customers who subscribe to Videotron’s Canada-wide plans with at least 2 GB of data, or to packages that include both Internet and mobile service with at least 1 GB of data, it said. Videotron launched the service because “music streaming is not only growing, but we believe it’s here to stay,” Myrianne Collin, Videotron’s senior vice-president of strategy and marketing, said in an interview. “For us, there was no way we could let that go. There was a huge opportunity … to provide value to our customers and develop this innovative service and offer that as a value-add to the Videotron mobile customer base,” she said. Collin said that someone streaming music for an hour a day can end up using their 2 GB of data by the end of the month just through audio streaming. When asked about net-neutrality concerns, Collin said this case is different from the ongoing dispute over BCE Inc.’s exemption of its mobile-TV service from regular data caps. She said that in the mobile-TV case, Bell was favouring its own platform over others, while Videotron isn’t favouring a specific platform because it’s partnering with various services. “We are not favouring one platform over the other. All the platforms are welcome, and as a matter of fact, all the big players are already partnering with us in this offer. So I don’t see any regulatory issue with it,” she said. In the mobile-TV case, the CRTC ruled that Bell and Videotron, by allowing content from their mobile-TV services to be watched without incurring data charges, had given an undue preference to their own customers and their own content, and ordered them both to cease the practice. The CRTC said at the time that such practices are contrary to the Telecommunications Act, which bans "unjust discrimination and undue preference issues with respect to the provision of mobile wireless data services by Canadian carriers.” Videotron said at that time that it was already in the process of switching over to a model in which all of its customers' mobile usage counts towards the data cap, while Bell chose to challenge the decision in court. Collin said Videotron is confident that the CRTC will view the launch of its new music service “as one of the numerous advantages of competition in mobile,” and that the regulator will see the service as being in line with its own customer-focused approach. When asked whether Videotron was prepared to defend its music service in court, as Bell has done with its mobile-TV service, Jean Péladeau, analyst for regulatory affairs in telecom for Quebecor, was non-committal. “We could make a different call if we go that far,” he said in an interview. CRTC spokeswoman Patricia Valladao said in an email the regulator is not in a position to comment on the case at this time. PIAC’s Lawford said the set up of Videotron’s new service “is exactly the same as Bell Mobile TV, the only difference being that they’re favouring themselves and a bunch of other services they’ve selected.” He said there are many other audio streaming services, such FM radio stations that stream online for free, that Videotron didn’t announce were part of service. “They’d have to ball up the entire Internet, at least the audio portion, and exempt that from their data cap if they want to make any kind of argument that this was not discriminatory,” he said. “Let’s say I’m a Videotron subscriber and I listen to a local FM station that isn’t part of one of these services or I listen to a genre-specific music I like which has no ads and is user-supported on the Internet and comes from Romania,” he said. “And I’m going to blow over the cap and my friend who listens to just as much music on his or her Videotron phone on the go, but it’s Spotify or Rdio… they don’t get charged for it. That is exactly the same as mobile TV.” Lawford added: “We probably will be considering what we did in Bell mobile TV and thinking what to do next week.” PIAC intervened in the mobile-TV case when it was before the CRTC. Telecom researcher Ben Klass, who started the mobile-TV case against Bell when he filed a complaint with the CRTC, said in a phone interview Thursday that the facts around the two services are “strikingly similar.” “It’s surprising, and frankly shocking, that Videotron, who was party to that case, who was ordered to stop doing a similar practice for its mobile-TV service, has turned around so quickly and is sort of flouting the CRTC’s ruling,” Klass said. “They’re flagrantly thumbing their nose at the CRTC’s decision.” He added: “I would be very surprised if someone didn’t challenge this decision, in short order, with the CRTC.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca and Shruti Shekar at sshekar@thewirereport.ca

Net-neutrality advocates cry foul over Videotron music service

Broadcast | August 27, 2015

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Net-neutrality advocates cry foul over Videotron music service

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