BCE comments on the situation in a document submitted to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (crtc.gc.ca) and obtained by ITBusiness on Monday, in which the company maintains that "traffic shaping" is needed to keep service speed fast for all users.

"Managing bandwidth must remain an essential component of Bell Canada's Internet traffic management solution," the company stated in the document, noting that many as 790,000 customers could be negatively affected as by the end of first-quarter 2009 without traffic shaping.

BCE submitted this document as its final comment in the course of a CRTC investigation as the result of a petition from the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (caip.ca).

CATA Alliance president John Reid wrote a letter to the CRTC on July 3, explaining CATA's position that the regulatory commission need to act "to prevent anti-competitive behaviour and discriminatory practices in the management of core public telecommunications infrastructure."

Reid states that BCE's actions in limiting Sympatico and wholesale ISP customers is limiting the customer's ability to telecommute or work from a home office, and hindering CATA member businesses from accessing the speed they need for running their business.

"As the Internet is increasingly integral to our economy and personal lives, we believe that there are traffic management solutions that are more effective and far less discriminatory than Bell Canada's current solution," Reid stated in the letter.

Both BCE and market competitor, Rogers Communications, have admitted to limiting p2p traffic.