By now, you’ve probably heard something of the network neutrality debate. To sum it up, until a few months ago the flow of data on the internet was unrestricted and free. Then companies like Bell and Rogers realized that they could save money be restricting the flow of information over their networks. Both those companies now throttle bittorrent traffic, claiming that by restricting the use of bittorrent on their networks, they allow every user to have a steady, fast internet connection.

Bell uses this exact argument to justify throttling bittorrent traffic, forcing all bittorrent downloads and uploads to a crawl regardless of their legality. Back in March, the CBC released an episode of a show called Canada’s Next Prime Minister via bittorrent on the mininova tracker. This is just one of the many legitimate and legal uses of bittorent today.

Alarmingly, users reported download times of up to 11 hours due to “traffic shaping” policies employed by Canadian ISPs. In the name of keeping their network “available to all users,” Bell and Rogers are successfully blocking those same users from receiving the download speeds which they pay for.

Yesterday, Bell launched a new video streaming service, offering television and movie rentals and downloads over internet streams. Just like bittorrent downloading, this type of distribution utilizes large amounts of bandwidth. Unsurprisingly, Bell has not seen fit to throttle its own television service.

This is a perfect example of what network neutrality advocates fear. Bell is using its position as one of the few ISPs in Canada to promote its own services by hindering the competition. These practices are abusive and should not be allowed to continue. As a paying customer of Bell, I should be able to use my internet connection for whatever I wish, not whatever Bell profits most from.

For more information about network neutrality, visit savetheinternet.com

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• Torrentfreak.com: Bell opens Video Download Store but Continues to Throttle Bittorrent
• CBC.com: ISPs Limit Access to CBC Download, Users Say
• Globeandmail.com: Bell’s Small-Screen Debut