Canada: 'Throttling' Net Neutrality

Home

The Writers

Gorilla Radio

Atlantic Free Press

Empire Burlesque

Your Profile

You are here:

Wed

May

2008

Canada: 'Throttling' Net Neutrality

written by Press Release

Stop The Throttler!
by StopTheThrottler.ca
Bell and Rogers are changing how the Internet works by dictating how Web users access content. Bell is limiting Sympatico subscribers from downloading content. Subscribers of Internet hosting companies that buy wholesale services from Bell have already been feeling the pinch since mid-March.

This policy is more accurately referred to as â€˜throttlingâ€™, and it fundamentally changes how the Internet works.

Meanwhile, Rogers, in addition to its own traffic shaping activities, has announced it will charge subscribers more for Internet activities that use more bandwidth. Instead of users deciding how we use the Internet, ISPs are now trying "shape" our traffic.

The companies argue they are trying to limit activities that use up a lot of bandwidth in order to maintain speed for all users. But there is a dangerous reality hidden beneath the companies' apparent concern for subscribers.

Using the same "traffic shaping" principle, the companies can steer subscribers to their own content, or content produced by affiliated companies, and away from that offered by competitors - including the public broadcaster.

For example, some Internet users who recently tried to download CBC's The Next Greatest Prime Minister on Bittorrent were told it would take hours to do so.

For more than a decade, the Internet was a neutral resource for people around the world to share information with each other.

Do we really want Bell and Rogers to be able to tell us what we can and cannot view and do on the Internet?