Michael Geist (via Steven) recently revealed that Bell Canada has been secretly throttling the wholesale bandwidth it sells to small ISPs. These small companies are supposed to be Bell’s competitors, but with their service limited, they are essentially playing by Bell’s rules. A map of reported slowdowns is being updated.

Now Bell is admitting that it limits all encrypted or P2P traffic in the afternoon and evening. Not only illegal P2P content will be slowed down, but legitimate access to secure sites and even CBC’s Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister, or VPN remote access to an office after hours “will simply not work as fast” according to a spokesperson.

Meanwhile, US internet service provider Comcast has been legally obliged to stop throttling their customers. It’s Canada’s hour to step up and fight for the right to fair competition in our telecom industry, and fair access to the means of communication.

The NDP’s Charlie Angus has issued a statement calling on Industry Minister Jim Prentice to establish clear rules to limit interference by big companies like Bell. I’ll be writing to my MP about this – or you can file a complaint with the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services if your ISP is being throttled.