[darkpuppet]

This is just Bell's response to the growing bandwidth issues caused by their own last mile connections.

Unfortunately, no matter which way you slice it, all internet infrastructure is owned by one of 2 monopolies. The monopolies are obligated to share their services, and they have no inclination to allow their competitors to provide better service than they themselves can.

There's also other motivations in throttling bandwidth, such as directly attacking P2P users, but the last mile argument is a strong enough argument to stand on it's own.

So until door-to-door fibre or dedicated coax comes to every household, the throttling is needed.

In most cases, the average end user won't notice the difference. P2P users and tech geeks may, but for the majority, throttling isn't entirely a bad thing.

Now, of course, the monopolies won't have any motivation to upgrade their infrastructure -- maybe a good thing in tough economic times, but sucky for progression.