Bell Canada Launches Its Own Online Video Store

rsax writes "Bell Canada recently announced that it is launching a downloadable video store just as it is caught up in a government inquiry into its traffic-shaping practices. Some consider this a conflict of interest since several content providers were in the process of distributing TV shows using P2P technology before the Bell throttling issue started getting media coverage. Bell's FAQ states that it is not available for Mac users right now (and not Linux either of course) because they are using Windows Media DRM. They do, however, invite feedback on their site."

Comments

can traffic shaping be proved in court?

[crazybit]

How can we prove a provider is shaping our traffic?

they will probably allege the slow download is because of net traffic, spam, etc.

transparent bridges for traffic shaping are very hard to detect

Re:can traffic shaping be proved in court?

[crazybit]

A provider can also choose to use a Linux bridge + htb, which won't sent any strange packets, it will just make p2p connections slower.

Two issues with Bell Canada

[suck_burners_rice]

I see a two issues with Bell Canada. First, this so-called Traffic Shaping is really a way to artificially screw up what would otherwise be a nicely working system. Who are they to dictate what traffic gets priority? Secondly, on the issue of using DRM, I think Steve Jobs put it nicely in his open paper about DRM-less music being sold on iTunes. Turns out that all this hoopla about piracy that caused the invention of DRM is over-exaggerated and some big businesses are agreeing with him. After all, if piracy were as large a problem as many would like us to believe, then how come iTunes is making Apple boatloads of money? I think Bell Canada would be wise to stop the traffic shaping and do something to support Linux and Mac. Otherwise they are really limiting themselves to that portion of the market that doesn't care about P2P and doesn't use Macs or Linux. Just my two cents on the whole matter.

this can't be legal?

[v1]

Let me see if I understand this right... they're getting ready to open up their own video store, at the same time they are starting to deliberately degrade the performance of other content providers their customers are using which are using P2P to distribute?

That's gotta be covered under some anticompetitive law somewhere? "We're going to start selling you a product, while at the same time sabotaging our competition's product, to make sure you buy ours instead."