Bell Canada: We have to screw up other ISPs' connections or our retail customers will suffer by comparison

Bell Canada has formally announced that its commercial customers -- other ISPs -- will henceforth have all their traffic throttled and filtered by Bell, who will be degrading some connections based on the protocol they use.

Bell's bizarre argument for this? We're screwing our retail customers with throttling. If we let our wholesale customers offer a better connection to their retail customers, our customers will be upset that they're not getting as good a deal.

"Granting CHIP's request would actually have the perverse effect of providing an unreasonable preference to wholesale ISP customers and their end users who will be able to continue to use a disproportionate amount of available bandwidth during peak periods, creating an unreasonable disadvantage for Sympatico retail and business customers," Bell writes in its response.
Link (Thanks, Nibor!)

See also: Bell Canada caught throttling ISPs' net connections

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Cory Doctorow

Upcoming appearances

* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference

Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)

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