It's Now Bell Sympatico's Turn

Bell Throttles its Internet Competitors

So yesterday I made comment on Roger's Internet plan to charge overage and to 'encourage' people to go to higher bandwidth and costs.  As well, Rogers has been putting limits on such things as torrents.  This came to light when peole tried to download the material CBC has posted though BitTorrent.

Now it's time to turn the attention to Bell Canada, another one of Canada's highly despised telecommunication companies.  It seems that the CRTC has always had Bell make sure other Internet Providers could use Bell's lines to establish their business.  It only makes sense otherwise Bell would have a total monopoly on DSL service in the area. These rates were regulated and were probably one of the few times the CRTC decided to support the consumer rather then it's usual activity of making Canada safe for monopolies

Now this,Bell is going to throttle everything back.  They want to cut bandwidth to everyone.

This is called "customer service" in the eyes of Bell.  Make sure everyone gets screwed, equally.  If you are the Independent ISP, your customers will see things go slow.  If you are with Bell Sympatico, you will see things go slow. It's called being fair.  Although Bell claims it won't affect the independents, others disagree.

Michael Geist, the author of the Star article gives some warnings about this strategy.  He states: "

The third competition concern brings a cultural dimension to the issue. The major ISPs claim that throttling is needed to ensure better quality of service to all customers, yet it also has a significant impact on the video marketplace. Cable and satellite companies have begun to sell new video on demand services to consumers, which compete directly with video distributed over the Internet. "

The end has to be, the consumer will get it in the neck again.

With Bell under new ownership, expect a huge increase in costs.

To that end, the best way to express your displeasure is to find a teacher in Ontario and kick them in the shins.