Watchdog asks BCE to justify Web traffic shaping

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's top telecom watchdog wants BCE Inc to explain exactly how and why it decided to slow down certain file-sharing traffic on wholesale networks it leases to smaller independent Internet service providers.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission mailed out a set of questions to BCE's Bell Canada phone company unit on Thursday, after it ruled that the phone giant can continue "shaping" traffic for the time being.

A final decision on the matter is due later this year. The CRTC's letter comes following a complaint from the Canadian Association of Internet Providers against Bell Canada.

Bell and other large telecom companies engage in a practice called "traffic shaping," which basically involves slowing down some Web activity like peer-to-peer, or P2P, file sharing. P2P file swappers usually exchange large, bandwidth-intensive music or movie files.

Bell and others like it argue such file swappers choke its network at the detriment of other users.

One of the CRTC's questions to Bell asks: "Provide full rationale and evidence in support of Bell Canada's view that 95 percent of its customers were being negatively affected."

CAIP also has claimed that aside from file sharing, audio and video streaming services like Internet radio and YouTube have been affected by traffic shaping.

The CRTC also wants to know why slowing down Internet access speed was chosen by Bell as the best way to deal with a gummed up network.

"Describe all other approaches, if any, considered by Bell Canada as an alternative to shaping P2P traffic to address the network congestion it described, and explain why each approach was rejected," the CRTC states in its letter.