Customers of the Canadian broadband cable company Shaw have been complaining that their Bit Torrent downloads have grown increasingly sluggish. One self-proclaimed company insider claims the carrier has started using Packet Shaping technology to throttle the bandwidth of the ISP's Bit Torrent users.

"This came about due to customer complaints about High-Speed Internet being... well... not high-speed," the self-professed insider proclaims. "Turns out there was a lot (A LOT) in BT traffic in Vancouver, so much so that it was causing congestion in the RF/Fiber cable plant, or so I've been told. Cost to fix: $2 to $3 million".

Instead of spending the big bucks to upgrade capacity, the company allegedly green-lighted the use of an Ellacoya switch to limit Bit Torrent traffic at various hubs on the Shaw network. While the idea started in the Cordova area of Vancouver, the source claims, it has now been applied to the entire Shaw network in order to regain some of their "lost" bandwidth.

Such bandwidth managers are most frequently used at Universities looking to keep bandwidth available for more legitimate activities. There's a significant number of ISP's exploring and already using the option (companies like Ellacoya are part of a $200 million market), but it's not something they quickly publicize, in order to avoid user complaints and bad PR.

The decision to focus on limiting Bit Torrent traffic specifically is a big deal however, since, as Reuters reiterated yesterday, 35% of all web traffic is now Bit Torrent. Not all of that traffic is illegal; users use Bit Torrent to distribute all matter of files and it's used in a number of new applications, from spam-blockers to system backup. Of course plenty of it is illegal, and Torrent is estimated to contribute to 55% of all p2p pirate activity.

Of course once you take the route of throttling applications, users - when not giving you a verbal black eye - begin their quest to get around the bandwidth blockade. Shaw users are already eyeing open-source pre-alpha workarounds (like Rodi), waiting for them to evolve in order to beat the efforts of the ISP's.