[NEWEST UPDATE] Join us on May 27th for a Rally to Save The Open Internet

[NEW] In the most significant legal development yet in the effort to ensure Net Neutrality for all, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers has asked the CRTC to instruct the big telecoms to cease and desist in traffic-shaping that is throttling access to the Web. Please join your fellow Canadians in sending a letter to the CRTC to insist that it Stops The Throttlers!

Bell and Rogers are changing how the Internet works by dictating how Web users access content. Bell is limiting Sympatico subscribers from downloading content. Subscribers of Internet hosting companies that buy wholesale services from Bell have already been feeling the pinch since mid-March. This policy is more accurately referred to as ‘throttling’, and it fundamentally changes how the Internet works. Meanwhile, Rogers, in addition to its own traffic shaping activities, has announced it will charge subscribers more for Internet activities that use more bandwidth. Instead of users deciding how we use the Internet, ISPs are now trying "shape" our traffic.

The companies argue they are trying to limit activities that use up a lot of bandwidth in order to maintain speed for all users. But there is a dangerous reality hidden beneath the companies' apparent concern for subscribers.

Using the same "traffic shaping" principle, the companies can steer subscribers to their own content, or content produced by affiliated companies, and away from that offered by competitors - including the public broadcaster. For example, some Internet users who recently tried to download CBC's The Next Greatest Prime Minister on Bittorrent were told it would take hours to do so.

For more than a decade, the Internet was a neutral resource for people around the world to share information with each other.

Do we really want Bell and Rogers to be able to tell us what we can and cannot view and do on the Internet?

LEARN MORE about Net Neutrality

An insightful blog entry by Michael Geist on the matter

Charlie Angus Pressures Industry Minister On Net Neutrality (VIDEO)

Why a throttled Web is a Net loss, Wayne MacPhail

NUPGE resources on net neutrality campaign

CDM Media release: Campaign for Democratic Media launches “Stop the Throttler” campaign


Join the STOP THE THROTTLER facebook group.

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