Ever since Bell Canada decided to throttle wholesale competitors without telling them last March, independent Canadian ISPs have been trying to get Bell regulators to take action. While Bell Canada insists network congestion makes such throttling necessary, data doesn't support those claims. Independent ISPs, under the banner of CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers), claim the real goal was to prevent competing wholesalers from offering DSL service that's superior to their own, throttled Sympatico service.

While the CRTC denied immediate relief to indie operators from Bell throttling last May, a full ruling on whether Bell is being anti-competitive is expected this September. In their final filing with Canadian regulators, CAIP takes one last stab at deconstructing Bell claims. They also request that the CRTC declare Bell broke the law, and immediately act to stop the throttling.

"Bell has offered no documentary evidence that supports its oft-repeated claim that its traffic shaping practices are justified because they improve the experience of all users on its network," says CAIP. "In fact, Bell’s traffic shaping practices have diminished the experience for a large proportion of users, just so that Bell can free up bandwidth for its Bellvideostore.ca service and its 7 Mbps and 16 Mbps retail Internet access services."

Will the CRTC agree? "I think we've done well in representing the both the problem and inaccuracies in this submission, so, unless the decision makers have been bought, something good should come of this," Teksavvy CEO Rocky Gaudrault tells me. "The old way of doing business, where ethics and profits are at odds, must cease to exist," opines Gaudrault. "Being fair, truthful and transparent is the only way to go going forward."