Here is an excerpt from CBC.ca":

Canadian broadband blasted by Harvard study
Last Updated: Thursday, October 15, 2009 | 5:38 PM ET Comments212Recommend363
By Peter Nowak, CBC News
Canada rates poorly in a Harvard study that measures adoption, capacity and prices. (IStock)
Canada has some of the poorest high-speed internet service in the developed world and is an example of what not to do from a policy perspective, according to a study by Harvard University.

The 232-page study, commissioned by American regulators and released Wednesday evening, found that Canada rates poorly compared to peer countries when measures such as national broadband adoption, network capacity and prices are taken into account.

Canada was 22nd overall out of 30 countries surveyed by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Canada ranked 16th on broadband adoption, 20th on speed and capacity, and 25th on price. Japan, Sweden and South Korea headed up Harvard's rankings, while the United States placed above Canada at 13th overall.

The practice of traffic shaping hinders the development of the internet. Practices like this, do not help the ISPs maintain a stable network, they help an ISP run a minimal network instead of a robust one.

Traffic Shaping is generally applied to peer-to-peer file sharing systems. These peer-to-peer file sharing systems should not be considered as a threat to network statistics, but as a tool. Currently, it is possible to use applications such as BitTorrent to download legal files, such as the Linux operating system, from peers rather than a deidcated server. This enables the network load to be distributed throughout the internet rather than on a single system. In the case of Linux, I have used this for work purposes. In other cases, the PlayStation 3 from Sony, using a Peer-to-peer sharing system for downloadable content and upgrades. This enables users of the system to recieve their downloads quicker, by not relying on one source.

Overall, if ISPs continue to shape traffic, the internet will fail to be the tool it could be for Canadians. Innovations are abundant on the internet, some will use higher bandwidth than others, we should not hinder these innovations by applying traffic shaping, we should be keeping up with them.