Bell Canada says it is downgrading the Internet services of bandwidth hogs, and is asking the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to toss out a landmark complaint by competitors. Reports the Vancouver Sun, “The Canadian Association of Internet Providers has asked the federal regulator to issue an immediate cease and desist order to stop the telecom giant from “throttling” the web traffic on its networks. Bell … says it has no choice but to slow down the services of Internet customers who use up a lot of bandwidth to share files during peak hours.” A story in the Northumberland Today puts it another way: Bell Canada’s newly introduced “traffic shaping” procedures are lengthening the time it takes people to transfer music, video, software and other large files via the Internet, says Cobourg businessman Tom Copeland, the head of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP).

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