Telecom tensions : internet service providers and public policy in Canada / Mike Zajko.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zajko, Mike, 1983- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Internet service providers.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 232 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Montreal, Quebec : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2021]

Summary:

Today's internet service providers mediate communication, control data flow, and influence everyday online interactions. In other words, they have become ideal agents of public policy and instruments of governance. In Telecom Tensions Mike Zajko considers the tensions inherent to this role – between private profits and the public good, competition and cooperation, neutrality and discrimination, surveillance and security – and asks what consequences arise from them.Many understand the internet as a technology that cuts out traditional gatekeepers, but as the importance of internet access has grown, the intermediaries connecting us to it have come to play an increasingly vital role in our lives. Zajko shows how the individuals and organizations that keep these networks running must satisfy a growing number of public policy objectives and contradictory expectations. Analyzing conflicts in Canadian policy since the commercialization of the internet in the 1990s, this book unearths the roots of contemporary debates by foregrounding the central role of internet service providers. From downtown data centres to publicly funded rural networks, Telecom Tensions explores the material infrastructure, power relations, and political aspirations at play.Theoretically informed but grounded in the material realities of people and places, Telecom Tensions is a fresh look at the political economy of telecommunications in Canada, updating conversations about liberalization and public access with contemporary debates over privacy, copyright, network neutrality, and cyber security.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Figures

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Scenes from Canada’s Internet

The History and Political Economy of Canadian Intermediaries

Connectivity for the Public Good

Chasing Competition

Common Carriage, Net Neutrality, and Bad Traffic

Internet Service Providers as Privacy Custodians

Internet Service Providers as Security Partners

Conclusion

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780228007937

0228007933

9780228007920

0228007925

OCLC:

1223028986