Sources advise that the company was regularly asked about its intentions and that it consistently assured ISPs that throttling would not apply to wholesale services. Now that the company has dropped that pretense, the business community is left to wonder whether it will soon target business VPN traffic or broadcasters like the CBC for their streamed traffic.  This represents a fundamental reshaping of the Internet in Canada as we pay (literally) for the dire lack of competition and independent ISPs gear up for likely legal challenges.  Regardless of those outcomes, it will become increasingly apparent that the regulators and politicians can no longer remain silent. Source: Michael Geist – The Bell Wake-Up Call

The specter of my ISP throttling back VPN traffic is pretty scary.  How can Canada expand and improve it’s tech industry when we have to worry about ISPs degrading the performance of one of the essential parts of our work?

Will politicians get involved now?  There is a Facebook group (I joined as a show of support) that has over 450 members and growing asking to prevent this kind of activity by Bell, Telus, Rogers, and others.

Ben Lucier has more commentary on this and it has hit the Globe and Mail as well so what can we really do?

Without real competition, as Michael points out, we’re quite stuck.  Couple this with the appallingly high cost of mobile data rates in Canada, we’re looking at Canada, once a tech leader, becoming a tech laggard.

There are statements from Rogers and Telus about traffic shaping, but nothing I’ve seen from Shaw as yet … as tech professionals we need to keep this issue alive and kicking, maybe the politicians will notice–eventually.

Post from: EveryJoe

Is the tide turning on Bell Canada and Net Neutrality in Canada? Hope so.

Okay, this isn’t great, but okay it’s their pipe, right?  Close, but there is a twist, Bell Canada sells access to the pipe to other ISPs (Telus does the same thing) and neglected to inform the resellers of this little detail:

Up in Canada, it appears that Bell Canada has decided to start implementing traffic shaping features without letting its resellers know. That means that customers are discovering that their traffic is being impeded at times and their own ISP has no clue about it. And it’s blocking perfectly legitimate activities. In fact, one person points out that he’s having trouble downloading the show that the CBC is purposely offering on BitTorrent. Source: Techdirt: Bell Canada Decides To Throttle Traffic Without Telling Resellers

Love that Bell Canada blocked the CBC.  Like the CBC doesn’t have enough trouble getting people to watch their shows!

This has been making the tech news rounds about the perils of an non-neutral net (some coverage):

• Alec Saunders
• Michael Geist
• Arstechnica

My question is, with really very few access providers here in Canada, if Telus and Shaw (for example where I live) started doing this, what is a net pro to do?  I can’t afford getting a T1 to my apartment (like I’d really need that much bandwidth).  The only game in town is Telus or Shaw.

Should it be legislated that ISPs can’t do this?  Or that consumers have an option to get an “unthrottled” account (of course we’d probably pay through the nose for that)?

I’m not seeing any solutions on the horizon and with Bell’s little stunt, it’s really only the consumer and the reseller who is going to get screwed.

Post from: EveryJoe

Ouch Bell Canada Throttles Bandwidth Without Telling Resellers: Customer Service nightmare