ISP filtering isn't new and it isn't relegated to the U.S. either. With the amount of attention being paid to Comcast recently, a lot of people around the world have begun to look at their ISPs and wonder exactly what happens to their traffic once it leaves. This is certainly true for Canada, where several Canadian ISPs have come under the scrutiny of the CRTC, the regulatory agency responsible for Canada. After investigation, it was determined that all large ISPs in Canada filter P2P traffic in some fashion.
Many of them responded to the discovery of the CRTC, claiming that slowing down P2P traffic is necessary as it impacts network performance. Bell, for instance, admitted they use deep packet inspection to slow down the traffic of both customers and wholesalers. What implications this will have on anyone is unclear as the CRTC hasn't decided yet what the best course of action is. This could be a sign of more regulation in Internet traffic, particular when it comes to what ISPs sell to customers versus what they actually deliver. Will the CRTC be influenced by the FCC and force these major ISPs to be more transparent about how they filter traffic?