At BCE Inc.'s annual analyst event, the sticky issue of net neutrality was raised during a Q&A. Kevin Crull, who heads up Bell Canada's residential business, made it pretty clear that Bell like many carriers in North American struggling to deal with the loss of loss phone service is exploring the idea of downstream fees and/or QoS charges. Crull's explanation, which sounds much like what many telecom executives are pitching, is that Bell will "pursue ways to monetize its massive investment that we are making" in its high-speed network. The counter-argument is that consumers are the ones who have paid to build the network over the years, and Bell already monetizes its investment by charging high-speed access fees, which by the way it's raising by $2 a month to $46.95. (By the way, Bell had a booth at the conference promoting 12Mbps residential service for all you gamers out there). While there are no regulations to prevent Bell from hitting service providers with downstream tollgate fees, Bell COO George Cope (who has become the Canadian telecom industry's champion of disciplined, profitable growth) made it clear demand for high-speed is growing and Bell is very well  positioned given it owns one of the two big pipes to the home. One would think that would give Bell enough of an economic rush without attacking net neutrality. That said, it could easily happen if Bell can convince Rogers, Telus and Shaw to go along with the idea. If they present a united front, it will be an easier sell from a political,business and consumer perspective. All you really need is a savvy marketer and some connections in Ottawa to convince everyone that net neutrality isn't disappearing, it's just evolving.

I got a nice surprise from Internet Explorer 7 this morning when I restarted my laptop - an error message about missing DLLs, which is preventing Windows from starting up properly. So I'm at a conference this morning with a useless laptop because I jumped at a beta at the urging of Microsoft's public relations agency. I wonder if Microsoft will peel a few bucks of its $35 billion war chest to get my technician to get Windows going again? My advice to anyone thinking about trying IE7 beta 2 is wait for the upgrade to be released. You could also use Firefox or Opera.
Update: I should have read CNet's Ina Fried's post before I downloaded the IE7 beta.

In announcing a broad "business review", Manitoba Tel has conceded that its troubled Allstream division needs some serious attention, which could mean even more cost-cutting or scaling back operations or a sale, although the last option seems remote unless Allstream is literally given away. I hate to say I told you so but the decision to buy Allstream last year for $1.7-billion was a bad strategic move that made absolutely no sense at the time. If ex-CEO Bill Fraser was really intent on transforming MTS into a national player, he should have acquired Microcell before Rogers got its hand on the fourth-largest wireless carrier and quickly shrank the competitive landscape to three players. MTS may have been forced to over-pay for Microcell but at least it would have acquired a company operating in a fast-growing marketplace with a strong brand name, rather than a second-tier player in an ultra-competitive business. MTS would have also picked up Microcell's stake in Inukshuk, which has a license to launch a Wi-Max network across the country. Not only did MTS make this move, but it sold its stake in Inukshuk to Rogers, which means the possiblity of a third broadband service provider in many markets disappeared. If anything, MTS CEO Pierre Blouin may find himself into a no-win situation. No matter what he does to try to fix Allstream, there may not be a way to stop the Titantic from sinking.