If a car ties up a whole lane on a busy highway for an entire day, it will create a problem for the other cars. That is exactly what bandwidth-hungry peer-to-peer files do, so the traffic must be managed.

At least that’s the analogy Rogers Communications used at the CRTC’s net neutrality hearings last month to illustrate its point that it needs to slow down P2P applications to ensure the network doesn’t lose its quality of service for others. Both Rogers and Shaw Communications executives said they used deep-packet inspection to slow down P2P files, but only on the ‘upstream’ – that is, data being uploaded to the Internet – not the downstream. Rogers throttles traffic 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while Shaw only does it when the network is busy.

Rogers SVP of regulatory affairs Ken Engelhart stated the company’s traffic management does not control the content of P2P traffic – which can include movies and music – but it ‘might mean that it takes longer for the download to take place.’

Even though Shaw is introducing faster internets by the end of year, ‘it will still experience congestion,’ added SVP of corporate and regulatory affairs Ken Stein, ‘especially as a result of P2P traffic which, if left unmanaged, would consume all the available capacity.’

Both Shaw and Rogers also said their traffic management did not infringe on the privacy of Internet users, as alleged by critics. Groups including the CFTPA last month called on the CRTC to limit the extent to which Internet service providers can throttle traffic. But the two cablecos, along with Quebecor’s Videotron, told the CRTC that any regulation of traffic management would hamper innovation and market growth.

‘If there is one message that should be retained from our intervention, it is that the Internet is a dynamic network,’ said Dennis Béland, Quebecor’s telecommunications head of regulatory affairs.

Videotron doesn’t throttle P2P traffic on the upstream or downstream. It uses an economic, not technological, solution by charging customers more money for more gigabytes on the upstream. Rogers and Shaw don’t.

‘The Internet is too new and is changing too quickly to establish ITMP [Internet traffic management practices] guidelines at this time,’ Rogers CSO Mike Lee told the CRTC.

That’s in sharp contrast to the creators’ call for P2P to be treated like any other online application. They said they use P2P to distribute films and other multimedia productions cheaply around the world.