Popular: Bell Canada Throttling Story in Canada's Biggest Newspaper

This article was for a bit the most popular on thestar.com, the online edition of Canada's largest newspaper, and is still number 5 on most emailed as I type:

The Toronto Star has learned that John Sweeney, Bell's senior vice-president of carrier services, sent a letter to the independent ISPs last Friday acknowledging that Bell has implemented bandwidth management from 4:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. for its wholesale customers. Sweeney admitted that peer-to-peer applications will not work as fast during this period, but argued that "a majority of end users will experience an increased level of satisfaction."

While much of the initial commentary has focused on the implications for consumer rights, that discussion misses the more important aspect of this story, namely that Bell's plans undermine the Internet's competitive landscape by raising three concerns.

— Bell throttles its Internet competitors, Michael Geist, The Star, Apr 01, 2008 04:30 AM

It seems Bell Canada has handed net neutrality advocates proof of their concerns , and that the public is watching. This article isn't some emotional scare piece, either.

It's a thoughtful, reasoned, point-by-point consideration of the issues by an eminent law professor. The public gets the points:

1. "wholesale level throttling lessens the ability for independent ISPs to differentiate their services and therefore compete in the marketplace."
2. "the effect on ISP services such as the secure virtual private networks used by companies and video streaming employed by many broadcasters."
3. "For example, last week the CBC used BitTorrent to distribute one of its programs, yet some subscribers reported that the episode took hours to download. The slow speeds were no accident. Rather, they were a direct result of ISPs limiting available bandwidth, something they do not do for their own video services."

So CBC uses BitTorrent to fulfill its mandate of wide distribution and Bell Canada sabotages it. With enemies like these, the need for Internet freedom should become clear enough that the public will demand it and get it.

-jsq