All Major Canadian ISPs Slow Down P2P Traffic | TorrentFreak... Bell was more open about its practices, and admits using deep packet inspection (DPI) to throttle its individual customers and wholesalers. On Bell Wireline, P2P traffic is slowed down between 4.30 PM and 2 AM. To cope with the increasing bandwidth demands of its customers, they further plan to disconnect heavy users and introduce metered plans where customers pay for the bandwidth they use.
... Rogers claims it has to throttle P2P users to prevent their network
from becoming “the world’s buffet,” as they like to call it. Not only
does this affect their network, their bandwidth bills also increased
due to the growing popularity of BitTorrent and other filesharing
networks. Similar to Bell and Cogeco, Rogers is also known to use DPI.
Upstream P2P traffic is slowed down across their entire network,
regardless of congestion.
In summary, we can conclude that there is no such thing as net
neutrality in Canada. All of the larger ISPs slow down their customers,
with most of them specifically targeting P2P traffic through deep
packet inspection. Because of this, P2P users can’t enjoy the speeds
they were promised, and several legitimate businesses whose income
depends on delivering content through BitTorrent or other filesharing
networks are unable to compete with those who don’t. It’s now up to the
CRTC to draw the right conclusions.
Another Point of View: Reloaded: Death Of Free Internet In Canada? < read me!
The great value of the open Internet is that it allows us to envision and, in fact, produce a more democratic media system.
But the open Internet is under threat by the very companies that bring it into our homes and workplaces, Internet Service Providers (ISPs). These big telecommunication companies want to become the gatekeepers of the Internet, charging hefty fees to reach large audiences, as they do with other mediums.
Big telecom companies are trying to do away with the governing guidelines of the Internet called "net neutrality" (or "common carriage"). Net neutrality requires that Internet service providers not discriminate - including speeding up or slowing down web content - based on its source, ownership or destination. Net neutrality protects our ability to direct our own online activities, and also maintains a level playing field for online innovation and social change.
The activity of limiting or slowing access to specific content and services is referred to as "traffic shaping" or "throttling," and it fundamentally changes how the Internet works. According to Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, ISPs already have a "history of blocking access to contentious content (Telus), limiting bandwidth for alternative content delivery channels (Rogers), and raising the prospect of levying fees for priority content delivery (Bell)."
If we let big ISPs have their way, media producers, online entrepreneurs and social change makers will need to ask Bell, Rogers and other big ISPs for permission and pay large sums of cash to effectively distribute content or innovate.
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