Bell Canada Announces They Are Going To Stop Internet Throttling

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It looks like we have some good news for those up in Canada. Well, more specifically, some good news for those up in Canada who also happen to be customers of Bell. Or on the Bell Canada network through a third-party.

That being said, the details are coming by way of a letter that was recently sent from Bell to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). In short, beginning on March 1, 2012, Bell Canada and Bell Aliant will stop using equipment to slow down file sharing applications. In other words, those still using a file sharing application on the Bell network may see an increase in transfer speeds beginning in March.

Further details of this letter state that this change will affect customers of both companies as well as “the customers of independent internet service providers who rent wholesale access to Bell’s network in order to connect directly with customers’ homes.” In a letter signed by Denis E. Henry, who is Bell Aliant’s vice-president of regulatory, government affairs and public law and by Philippe Gauvin who is the counsel for Bell Canada on regulatory law and policy it was noted that;

“with the increasing popularity of streamed video and other traffic, P2P file-sharing, as a proportion of total traffic, has been diminishing,”

And just to give a little history on this topic, which went into effect back in 2008. Bell was “selectively” slowing down peer-to-peer file sharing applications between the hours of 4:30PM and 2:00AM. As to those times, that is when Internet traffic was said to be at its highest, and in turn, those using programs that were deemed to not be a priority were slowed. Bell had sated that the file-sharing programs were being slowed because the traffic coming as a result was not as time-sensitive as other programs such as voice calling and/or video.

Bottom line, while this looks to be good for anyone on the Bell network, it could also mean good things for customers of other providers as well. Granted, we are not expecting other carriers to switch their policy overnight, however now that Bell has made the move we may begin seeing pressure from customers for others to do the same.