This controversial Internet policy has divided Americans for years. Now Canada’s just adopted it.

Let's play a game. What if any company could go to Verizon and say, "I want to sell Internet service using your FiOS network, but under my own brand"? Under today's rules, Verizon could say no -- and with good reason. After all, allowing rivals to piggyback off of pipes you built and paid for simply gives them an advantage. But under a recent change in Canadian policy, a company like Verizon would have to say yes. It sounds like a small difference. But Canada hopes it will have a big impact, ranging from lowering the cost of Internet access to consumers to generating more market competition. And how it plays out will offer some important lessons for the United States, where the idea has been hugely controversial.

Forcing Internet providers to offer their pipes to competitors is a practice known as "unbundling," and proponents believe it addresses many of the problems that consumers often complain about when it comes to their Internet service. So, should you be for unbundling, or against it? Although the United States once flirted with unbundling Internet services, the idea got dropped. Large Internet providers argued that if they're undercut by upstarts that don't have to invest in infrastructure, then nobody will build new infrastructure and connection technologies anymore. "We now have an interesting experiment between the Canadian and American markets," said Blair Levin, a Brookings Institution scholar who helped author a federal broadband plan for the Federal Communications Commission. "I would take the American side of the bet, but it will be interesting to study."