A few years ago, you'd be hard pressed to find a Canadian who knew what network neutrality was, despite the fact we've been debating about the idea here in the States since around 2005. The only reason Canadians hadn't been made aware of the issue is they weren't being shown clear examples of potential violations, like when AT&T CEO "Big Ed" Whitacre began mumbling about "free rides," Clearwire blocked VoIP traffic completely on their network, or Comcast began throttling upstream P2P services for all users regardless of congestion.

But everything in Canada changed last year, when Bell Canada decided to start throttling the traffic of wholesale competitors without telling them in order to prevent them from offering broadband service that was superior to Bell's own throttled DSL services. With the announcement by the FCC that they're beefing up network neutrality rules, Canadian regulatory agency the CRTC is facing increased pressure to create rules for Canadians as well:Of course with the CRTC stocked with former Bell and Rogers executives, they've consistently ruled against small business and consumer interests -- so the likelihood of any real rules seems slim for now. But they will be watching their neighbors to the south with great interest if it means increased political pressure. So will the independent ISPs and consumers who've been pushing for reform (and in some instances well, complete obliteration) at the CRTC.