CRTC To Allow Usage-Based Billing 282
Idiomatick writes "The CRTC ruled in favor this week for usage-based billing. Bell Canada was given a monopoly on lines in Canada, and in exchange they were made to resell to competitors at cost in order to have a functional market. The new CRTC ruling will allow Bell to charge their competitors more money based on individual customer usage. They are now able to implement a 60GB cap on a competitor's highest speed lines (charging $1.12/GB for overages). The effect on the market seems clear."
60GB is nothing (Score:2, Interesting)
So what I'm really say is why not make the cap reasonable and move it to 100GB, that will fit all users, past 100GB and your not being to legit on what your downloading.
that makes comcasts 250gb cap and higher business (Score:3, Insightful)
that makes comcasts 250gb cap and I think it's higher on business planes look real good.
But not as good as fios and att no caps.
Re: (Score:2)
Expect that 250 to drop as competition is bought out.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell, even for light users it's already a problem.
We have a family of 6, every one of us has our own computers. Factor in Steam games from me, netflix from everyone else plus every day usage and 60GB is nothing. We already have 2 connections for this exact reason.
Why they seem to think a 14mbps connection should have a 60GB limit is beyond me. That's Cogeco though, not Bell, but it's the same shit.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
For any Canadians reading today:
There are two petitions you should sign if you don't feel like this is right.
http://stopubb.ca/ [stopubb.ca] - A petition to stop forced usage based billing.
and if you dont like the fact that the CRTC appears to bend to the will of the telcos without regard for the consumer, there is a petition to dissolve the CRTC here - http://dissolvethecrtc.ca/ [dissolvethecrtc.ca]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Online petitions do nothing. Send letters to the CRTC, your local MPs and the Prime Ministers office.
Another idea would be for a lot of people to protest this by requesting your payroll people to stop deducting your income tax, setup an interest bearing account to deposit what you would normally have deducted for tax, sending a letter to the tax people indicating your reason for doing this (as a protest) and paying your taxes at the end of the year instead of every pay period.
It is legal to not pay your inc
Re: (Score:2)
The 'tax people' don't care about when they get their money or what it is spent on as long as you are in full compliance with the laws regarding tax. Paying tax at the end of the financial year is completely legal and the 'tax people' prefer it because it reduces the amount of administrivia they have to deal with.
I can assure you, the 'tax people' won't lose any sleep over the money they 'lost'.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Dissolving the CRTC is a really bad idea, and if you think just because they appear to bend to the telcos all the time that they're useless, you're a moron.
But you're advocating online petitions, so I'm being Captain Obvious.
Re:60GB is nothing (Score:5, Informative)
I'd say there should be a law that in all advertising they need to include the long-term connection rate as well. Toss in the up rate if it's different (and with those lying shits, it always is).
That 14mbps connection would have to be labelled: 14/0.5mbps, 22kbps sustained -- since 60GB monthly is just that.
Re: (Score:2)
Or 22kbps, burstable to 14mbit...
Most of these isps consider traffic in both directions to count towards your cap too.
Re: (Score:2)
I just bought a couple of days ago Frontlines Fuel of War from Steam.... paid about 2-3$ for it and the download size is 12 GB.
If you want to, I guess you can really reach the limit of those accounts, spending 10-15$ a month. And I'm paying 20$ a month for 25/4 unrestricted connection.
Re: (Score:2)
Why not make the cap reasonable, 60 GB is literally nothing for an average consumer... but start some servers... and you'll quickly get up and see 100GB/month.
Ahh yes, server hosting, well-known pastime for many the average consumer.
Re: (Score:2)
Play WoW? Congratulations, you're next-best-thing to running a server. And yes, playing WoW *is* a well-known pastime for the average consumer.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahh yes, server hosting, well-known pastime for many the average consumer.
Your comment makes sense until you think about why server hosting is not a standard pastime.
There are now lots of little router appliances that could easily be little servers for individual consumers. It makes complete sense since communication media is more or less symmetric and even if you use the cheapest possible components on the uplink you normally end up with plenty of spare capacity. File sharing software has shown that the consumers are able and willing to use this.
The thing which blocks thes
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
My cap is 20G per month and I never go near that amount. There are three of us using the connection including my wife's architectural practice and I regularly torrent and seed Linux and BSD ISO files.
Maybe if you do a lot of commercial video streaming you would transfer a lot of data but I don't see why people who do that should not pay for the resources they use.
I buy my fuel by the litre, do you pay a fixed monthly charge for unlimited supply?
Re: (Score:2)
30gig wasn't enough and all I do is watch youtube videos. I was using about a gig per day on average just watching youtube videos, occasionally downloading a patch or a demo game and 30gigs wasn't enough. 20gig is pitiful for the 50$ or so they charge you a month.
Re: (Score:2)
I hit 60gb in 15 days this last month because of WoW and all the "patches", a normal month in my household is nearly 60 as it is with 3 people. Really this whole change to UBB is arbitrary bullshit, especially since the CRTC just said you have to allow competition on the networks built by tax dollars(aka last mile). Then they pulled this. I'm seriously suspecting that the CRTC wants to find the best way to screw everyone over, then again for an entity which is supposed to exist for the consumer, it sure
Re: (Score:2)
My router says we average about 80 GB per month. Most of that is Netflix streaming and keeping large school files in sync. A single game full-game download hits about 10GB, and demos are about 4GB each.
Re: (Score:2)
I would if I was continually attached to one pump.
Re: (Score:2)
In both US and Europe, prices are as long as 1$ or 1euro per megabit for large commitments - meaning 1000mbs or more. Tier 1, premium bandwidth... anything between 3 and 10$ per megabit, depending on how smart you are and what account manager you discuss with. Even if we go the middle and say it's 5$ per megabit, that's 5$ for 330 GB of data flowing through the wires.
Re: (Score:2)
It makes sense (for the government) to keep the cap low. After all they WANT you to spend money because it's just another tax. Plus you'll get sales tax on top of that.
Re: (Score:2)
Bell's own numbers show that 99% of their userbase uses 2GB or less every month.
60GB is plenty for the average user. It's not a lot for a power user who does a lot of downloading, but it's more than enough for most of us.
Re: (Score:2)
Bell's cellular division is full of lying sacks of shit who will say anything to sell a phone and a contract. Why the fuck should I believe any part of the company about anything else they ever say?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think 60GB/month comes out to about 1.3MB/min, 24x7.
Sure. Leaving your computer on with a browser open day and night will get you 1.3MB every minute all day all month. I wonder if my iGoogle home page would do that. Maybe CNN. Maybe not Yahoo.
More BS. If they set their cap at 600GB, some of you (many I suspect) would still be claiming this is achievable by your average nitwit user. Just accept the fact that there is a limit that will satisfy 99% of all users, and the remaining 1% will be faced with
Haha. Bell (and Rogers) are not reasonable. (Score:2)
Canadian ISPs are not about facilitating access for consumers. They are all about how much money they can bleed out of their customers with data usage caps. And I know Rogers (maybe Bell too) does not allow home users to run servers across their internet connection.
Don't get me started on their iron fist strangle hold on our cellular networks.
Re: (Score:2)
"past 100GB and your not being to legit on what your downloading."
I can dump 1TB halfway through a month with a Camfrog server. That's just live streaming video chat ALONE, let me not get into my seeding linux distros, uploading tons of research data and photographs, plus receiving similar amounts that I sent out back from two other sources (about 250GB monthly,) Not including Skype calls, skype video chats, various free wallpaper sites, GrooveShark, etc.
Still using content-limited AOL, are we?
Re: (Score:2)
> Christ man, learn the word "you're."
I thought that "you're." was actually two words resulting from the contraction of "you" and "are".
Re:60GB is nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
You're confusing your contractions of yore.
Quick Canada Lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
- Previous governments gave a monopoly to friends who supported them. Where these monopolies have collided they don't compete.
- We have no working anti-monopoly laws in Canada preventing collusion and other anti-competitive behavior. Technically we do but please tell me the last time a company was fined and how little they might have been fined.
- The CRTC (our FCC) is the tool that previous governments used to give their friends these monopolies and thus the CRTC will enforce the monopolies behavior not prevent it.
- Any competition that poses an actual threat will be bought out.
- The present government is a minority government and thus is focused on other fish that need frying such as keeping power and maybe finagling a majority. How many bytes people can download is not on their radar for now.
- Many of the telco monopolies also are media giants thus they control what the pubic thinks about this stuff.
Re:Quick Canada Lesson (Score:5, Interesting)
You can run through the current bandwidth limits pretty quickly watching HD content.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You'd have to be using Netflix as a replacement for CATV to have to worry about going over your cap.
Something I and many others would like to do but *shock* all avenues of attempting to access competition to the majors results in finding out no one is particularly better than another, no matter what metric you use.
Cable TV is getting very hard to justify these days when, day after day, you keep noticing "500 channels and nothing's on." I would love to have an alternative but there's no competition.
Re: (Score:2)
Cable TV is getting very hard to justify these days when, day after day, you keep noticing "500 channels and nothing's on." I would love to have an alternative but there's no competition.
Sure there is: Bittorrent and Hulu for TV shows and Netflix for movies. I'm still waiting for networks to "get it" and start offering TV shows from their own bittorrent servers, with a few commercials already embedded in the video, but public (illegal) servers exist now and TV shows are always easy to get. Of course, the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been saying this for years -- would you rather download the known-good episode at high quality directly from the virus-free source immediately when the episode is broadcast via traditional channels, with a few commercials, or download a possibly fake, possible virus-ridden, unknown-quality/language/subtitles copy 2-12 hours later without commercials?
I'm sure some people would still pirate things, but if you gave people an "ABC.com downloader" app that did bittorrent from your own commercial-filled seed
Re: (Score:2)
would you rather download the known-good episode at high quality directly from the virus-free source immediately when the episode is broadcast via traditional channels, with a few commercials, or download a possibly fake, possible virus-ridden, unknown-quality/language/subtitles copy 2-12 hours later without commercials?
huh? when i download shows via bittorrent, they are available immediately after airing. maybe a bit longer for HD stuff, but i just grab SD releases. also, if you're worrying about fakes/viruses, you need to find a new tracker.
Re: (Score:2)
First, some of use consider "SD" to be similar to the web from 1996 -- if that's all you an do I guess it's okay, but it's not the preferred format.
Second, while it's possible to get many show from reliable trackers/release groups it's not possible to get *all* shows from those sorts or sources. Pretending that fakes/viruses/low-quality/missing-subtitles/etc. aren't a problem with the general torrent population is like pretending that the problems don't exist on the web at large -- yes, they can be avoided,
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure some people would still pirate things, but if you gave people an "ABC.com downloader" app that did bittorrent from your own commercial-filled seeds 90% of users would never try anything else.
forgot to mention it, but i'd be more worried about spyware in an "abc.com downloader" app than anything from a reputable release group.
Re: (Score:2)
Spyware, maybe, depending on your definition. They'd definitely track your downloads and/or viewing depending what you do in the program. Most people would consider that fairly reasonable tracking. It's possible they'd try to track other things, but I'd be surprised that if that was greater risk than spyware/virus/etc. from the average torrent source.
And if they were running torrents you wouldn't be required to use their program to grab the files, it would just be an option that 90% of the population would
Re: (Score:2)
Torrents are usually available immediately after the first airing of the show, so if you live in a region that doesn't get the show immediately then you actually get it *before* it would be shown on tv where you are.
I have never received a virus by downloading a tv show from a torrent, just how would you embed a virus into a video file anyway? And aside from that, i use a linux box to download and an embedded linux box attached to the tv to play the files.
If there was an abc.com downloader app, you can guar
Re: (Score:2)
"Immediately after first airing" assumes near real-time encoding and 0 download time. In my experience neither of those are true. If you want and SD rip it might pop up shortly after the episode airs, but HD rips are rarely that fast. And even if it's available 30 seconds after the episode airs it's still likely an hour or better before you can actually watch it since at the end of airing there are exactly 0 bytes on the network for that torrent.
The fact that networks broadcast at different times in differe
Re: (Score:2)
Depending on the broadcast method (eg digital satellite), it might already be encoded and you can upload on the fly.
Also if you download the first segments first, you can start watching before the download has completed.
Re: (Score:2)
Even assuming that release groups are capturing an east-coast feed and encoding in near real time and release a high-def rip as the first available version, you'd be hard-pressed to get a copy downloaded less than an hour after it aired. The fact the you live on the west coast might be handy in that respect, but it's hardly the rule -- the people who live on the east coast are still waiting at least a couple of hours to get their show, and they won't know if it's a decent copy until they've downloaded a sig
Re: (Score:2)
Just FYI, there's no such thing as Hulu in Canada.
Re: (Score:2)
Hulu doesn't allow access outside the US, this decision pretty much slaughters the ability to use Netflix (10 HD movies at 6 GB uses up ALL your bandwidth), and so that just leaves the illegal method that's still going to burn through your bandwidth. How is this an alternative to cable, again?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Quick Canada Lesson (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Australia may have a lower population density than Canada, but Australia has a much higher urban population percentage.
That is, about 8% of Australians are said to live in rural areas, while 19% of Canadians do.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We're an ISP with at least twice as many customers. It'd be wonderful if what your friend said was true, but it definitely isn't. Just to hook a cable onto a telephone pole costs a substantial rental fee, per post. Never mind underground fibres.
It's okay if your 1000 customers are all in the same 3-4 square kilometres but we span about 200km. Bandwidth itself is cheap, we could afford to give them a fair bit more than they get now if they all were able to move within a few kilometres of our main links.
This is going to be hellish in 5 years (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I calculated what a Canadian friend's new bill is going to be. Currently he pays the base rate of $40, P2P is throttled, both upload and download count towards the new cap, and three people in the house do routine netflix streaming. They use about 350 GB a month. Under the new billing it's going to be $100 (per GB charges start up again at the 300 GB mark). Likely anyone that does any streaming at all will hit the intermediate price cap and thus their bills will go directly from $40 to $62.50. (We looked up
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Conflict of interest. The CRTC has been hand picked for the last 15 years by the liberal party as a place to reward their friends. Not to forget that the liberal party and Chretien were involved in a massive scandal where the primeminister's 'agency' was handing out money, and covering up for people when they got caught. Only cost us several billion dollars.
Re: (Score:2)
Useful tip to liberals in Canada. Just because someone points out that your party is mired in corruption so deep that they gave away a diplomat posting in order to try and hide it, doesn't mean it's not true.
Frustrated (Score:2)
To be honest, I am so frustrated. What can we do. What can I do.
I have tried writing to my MP to no avail.
How can we tackle this absurd rulings coming out of CRTC. To be honest I am tired of the whole conservative bunch.
I almost long for the corrupt liberals. Not sure whats better, conservatives stealing money by making it look legit in forms of these rulings or liberals who are just good old thieves.
I signed up for netflix, content is limited, but I am already at at 60+GB mark, but then I am with teksavvy
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I can think of about 300,000 with Teksavvy that will be affected not including the multitude of other GAS companies.
"$22.50 is lunch money at Harvey's for a couple of days, or one hour of pay for a halfway-decent engineer"
And for those making minimum wage, barely able to pay for the necessities let alone take-out? $22.50 represents a 50% increase in my bill - it puts it at the same level as a week of food for 2 people. Total for a cell plan + internet it will be over $150. At minimum wage that's 25% of t
Re:This is going to be hellish in 5 years (Score:4, Informative)
Uhh, you might want to check your math.
300GB / 30 days/mon / 24 hours/day / 3600 seconds/hour = 115KB/second, only around 20% of a 5Mbit DSL line..
You can check my math here:
http://www.google.com/search?q=300000000000+%2F+30+%2F+24+%2F+3600 [google.com]
Next Election (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Why? ~15 years of the liberal party raping you in the face at every turn wasn't enough?
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, because Harper's doing so much better. Oh wait, he's not. And yeah, I voted Conservative. Unfortunately, there's a couple issues I chose to hold in slightly higher priority that lined up more with them than with the Liberal party. Too bad they haven't done shit about those issues, either. Maybe I'll just vote Labour.
Re: (Score:2)
You might have noticed that minorities generally get nothing done. As it stands, this could become the new 'norm' in Canadian politics. Minority, followed by minority, and nothing getting done, while we get screwed over.
Attn : Canadian Politicians (Score:2, Insightful)
I could care less about most of the other issues and debate topics.
State publicly that your party is against usage based billing and you've got my vote.
It's that simple.
(For the record, I'm in the 30-35 year old male demograph, with above-median income.)
Slight correction of the summary (Score:2)
Bell Canada was given a monopoly on lines in Canada,
Bell Canada does not have a monopoly on lines in all of Canada.
They do not even operate a wireline business in the west. Here they are a reseller only.
However, this ruling probably does cause the same benefit to the ILECs in all provinces.
How? (Score:2)
Between being able to throttle down wholesale DSL rates below what Sympatico can sell and this it really doesn't make a lot of sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bell will destroy small business competitors (Score:5, Interesting)
Bell is doing this purely to maximize their profit and put the wholesalers who are trying to compete with them out of business.
The rates Bell has given to wholesalers of their GAS network are the exact same as their RETAIL rates for bandwidth. That means wholesalers have ZERO margins, and would have to actually incur costs to collect this usage charge on behalf of Bell. If there’s any errors, I'm sure it comes out of the wholesaler's pocket as well.
Wholesalers used to be able to compete against the big guys by having better bandwidth caps, better technical support, more flexable plans -- Bell has used UBB to level the playing field to where only they can win.
Why are the first 20 gigabytes after 60 so valuable ($1.12 per gig), then from 81 to 300 gigs are zero-cost? Because Bell has structured the system to screw over as many people as possible. They did an analysis of where the sweet spot is to collect as much money as possible from wholesale subscribers, then structured their rates to match.
Protest this as a tax payer. (Score:2)
Stop giving the government an interest free loan and instead pay only what you owe in taxes at tax time instead of giving them free money and then collecting a refund. Not only will you earn money in interest but you can send a message to the government by hitting them where it hurts.
Low rate codecs and torrents (Score:2)
You know what? This is Canada. (Score:5, Interesting)
We're a left-leaning country. I have a great fucking idea. Nationalize bell. I was never a fan of this privatization shit. Let's get this socialist bit working again, and have the government own the lines, and then companies like Teksaavy (or however it's spelled) just pay the government maintenance rates for access, then anyone can compete, since it's a government entity without an interest in the market AND NOT DIRECTLY OFFERING SERVICES that everyone's going to. Bell charging companies for access while still selling access to individuals is pretty fucking anti-competitive. That way, if an area wants better internet, you just talk to your MP and they put it on the list of infrastructure to be improved in the area.
I mean, fuck, taxpayers already paid for all the lines, so fuck Bell. Yes, I'm just a wee bit angry at this.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a great fucking idea. Nationalize bell.
We don't need to nationalize Bell. We just need to nationalize Bell's lines. We can even contract out servicing, and perhaps even upgrading those lines, but then lease usage to whoever needs it (i.e., the ISP you contract with). This gets rid of the natural monopoly being used against competitors, and puts everyone on a level playing field.
To be properly done, the cable companies and cell towers should be nationalized, as well, with the same rules.
For all Americans (Score:4, Informative)
For all Americans who think this will never happen to them, you should read this article from Reuters [reuters.com] just this past Wednesday. Looks like the Canadian telecom industry is the role model our boys are looking to follow. But unlike what the article says, Canadians are not accepting this situation lying down. They are actively seeking out and subscribing to the new disruptive competition like Wind Mobile and Mobilicity.
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't fuck all matter when Bell owns the lines and can charge other providers the extortion rates.
You're a bunch of pussies (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, Americans and Canadians are the biggest bunch of pussies in the world. Everyday we get to read stories like this and listen to everyone complain how unfair it is and how the government is doing whatever big business wants, yet YOU DO NOTHING!
Oh, sign this online petition. Are you kidding me? Get a fucking backbone and do something about it!
Do you watch the news?
France is the perfect example. The government does something the people don't want and they take to the streets in mass to force change. Meanwhile, your media skews the stories to ensure you side with the French government so as you don't get the same idea. Like always, you lap it up like good little lemmings.
Seriously, what must happen before you stand up for yourselves?
**disclaimer, I was arrested twice during peaceful protests, but at least I didn't sit on my ass while my government took my rights like you lazy fucks.
Pass the Buck (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:You WANT usage based billing(MARKUP SUCKS!) (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's not really true. The markup is several orders above that, if not really approaching infinity.
The truth, as I understand it, is that your cellphone receives literally thousands upon thousands of text messages each day. That 160 character limit was not arbitrary you know. Apparently there are communications that need to occur between the cell phone and the cell tower on a regular basis, similar to polling devices. That 160 characters is the space that is wasted in those messages. An engineer got t
Re:You WANT usage based billing (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Not Unlimited (& Cake) (Score:2)
It also brings to light the simple fact that you cannot give away unlimited amounts of something for a fixed price forever, eventually any system that tries will come crashing down.
Unlimited plans are not giving unlimited amounts of data. The data limit is fixed by the bandwidth speed. Additionally, you can give away "unlimited" amounts of something for a fixed price forever. Have you never been to an all you can eat buffet?
All you do is make a statistical analysis of the cost you have to charge for all typical users, both light users and heavy users together, to make a profit. It works the same way as an all you can eat buffet, well except of course if they tried to charge fa
Re:You WANT usage based billing (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you a shill, or some sort of moron? I live in Canada. I am directly affected by this. In France [arstechnica.com] for the price I pay monthly, I could get a line which is 10 times faster than mine is along with unlimited phone calls to a bunch of places and HDTV. The speed of my internet line, 3 Mbps, has not increased in the past 7 years I have lived in downtown Montreal, which is about as urban as it gets in Canada. The price I pay for that same service, though, has increased quite significantly (at least 20%). Why was Bell able to offer unlimited access plans 5 years ago, and now they can't? Should they not have upgraded their lines since then? Everyone I know that uses the services of Bell hates their guts because they are complete scumbags.
Have you bothered checking the pricing schemes Bell offers? Check their lowest offering. It says it's 20$/month in Quebec, but it's 25 if you don't have a phone or satellite service deal with them already. Oh, and the speed is 500 kbps with a 1G data cap. They were able to offer unlimited at 3 Mbps 6 or 7 years ago for 30$ a month. I guess poor people don't do much but change their status on Facebook.
Please go back under the rock you came from. For same money that I pay, people in Europe and Asia are getting unlimited data plans with speeds that approach the speed of my LAN.
Re:You WANT usage based billing (Score:5, Informative)
In short, Canadians have been hosed severely over the last 10 years when it comes to internet services -- and we just got more hosed.
Re: (Score:2)
Interestingly enough, I have a friend that just moved to England, just outside of London. His connection is 512K up / 6M down, and he has an 8GB/month cap. He didn't mention what it costs, just that he missed his 5/15 FIOS connection a lot. It was the only broadband option he could get.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> If bandwidth there was so amazingly cheap every
> hotel would have amazing service.
Hotels don't have the same deals because
* customer and business market show a big price difference. Hotels are seen as ISP when they resell access.
* hotels don't see it necessary to have free/cheap internet to be attractive
* they outsource the infrastructure/service and the pricing is thus made by the third parties. Think telecom companies. And Telecom companies suck.
One reason Internet is cheap in France is that there
Re:You WANT usage based billing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You WANT usage based billing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You WANT usage based billing (Score:5, Insightful)
That's absolutely right, if the market determines the going rate for bandwidth. Bandwidth is, after all, a finite resource; however, there is no competition and hence there are no market forces at play in this situation. That's where this whole can of worms came from in the first place. The whole industry is regulated because of the excessively high barriers to entry for new competitors. It's not going to be an ideal situation but it would be less bad if it was regulated well instead of being regulated by the CRTC.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The whole industry is regulated because of the excessively high barriers to entry for new competitors.
More importantly, the industry is regulated in order to create such excessively high barriers.
Re: (Score:2)
If you thing usage based billing will bring down prices you are simply an idiot
It already has for mobile, my iPhone bill is $5/month cheaper than it was and potentially could be $15/month cheaper if I went with the lower plan (my usage is right at the cusp).
It might (MIGHT) not bring down prices right away in Canada's case, but more than likely it will eventually.
The internet isn't like electricity. It doesn't cost anything to make bits and bits what costs are the wires on which they travel.
I'd be careful
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No you are an idiot and this has absolutely nothing to do with costs associated with bandwidth.
This ruling means now that companies like Teksavvy, that have purchased a specific amount of bandwidth, can no longer divide it among their customers as they see fit.
This ruling means that if any individual uses more bandwidth than what Bell's package provides, they have to be charged extra fees. It doesn't matter that 6 other Teksavvy customers use very little and their aggregate bandwidth is lower than the amoun
Re:You WANT usage based billing (Score:4, Informative)
There is a simple problem you run into. Usage based billing only works in the following idea.
--------
-company charges $x for unlimited plans because their network costs are high due to a few people using a LOT of bandwidth.
-company switches to usage based billing. Charges less as high bandwidth users now pay what they owe vs low bandwidth uses paying the difference.
-------
However, this is not the reason for usage based billing in this instance.
Instead Bell, the backbone company was forced to charge ISPs on it's backbone an "at cost" rate, meaning they couldn't charge more than it cost them to run the line. This allows the ISP to determine what pricing plan they want, including usage based to reduce overall costs.
During this time, an ISP going to usage based billing can potentially have lower costs for other clients.
Now, Bell is charging it's original rate, along with an extra $1.12/GB over a low 60GB limit. This artificially raises the rates of the smaller ISPs that are on Bell's backbone as they were paying all of Bell's costs for those lines to begin with, and now have to pay even more. Meaning that the ISPs were likely already at the lowest amount they could charge, and have to now pay a gigantic extra fee for simply moderate usage.
I am short on time right now, but the quick and simple is this. Usage based billing only works when it's the company that deals directly with the customer that determines it, not the backbone. The backbone company getting to charge extra only raises rates for it's competitors.
Re: (Score:2)
# someone who takes advantage of the generosity of others
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
There's no generosity to take advantage of. Our "freeloader" is a paying customer among others.
# Freeloader is a game published by Cheapass Games. The object of the game is to mooch as much free stuff as possible off of your friends and neighbours.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeloader_(game)
Still a paying customer.
# One who does not contribute or pay appropri
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Depends on where you live. If you live in Toronto, then it affects all of Canada because as far as you're concerned, Toronto = Canada.
Joking aside, Bell dominates the market in most of Ontario and Quebec. Most of the other providers in Quebec and Ontario are reselling Bell's bandwidth which means that this impacts a large portion of the internet business in Canada. Moreover, I'm sure it sets a precedent that would be relevant to resellers of Shaw or Tellus bandwidth in the West.
Shaw tends to be quite good c
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Any unregulated use is going to have strict power limits, and if they start to interfere with licensed services we'll hear about it in the news. If there are truly unregulated frequencies I would love to hear about it; it was my understanding that everything under 200GHz was accounted for. Above that is almost exclusively and explicitly designated as Amateur spectrum, so the same rules apply.
The laws aren't created with any particular malintent, just cognizant of the fact that if anybody could transmit a
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's high time YOU stepped up and put these people in their place, because it's quite obvious the Canadian government isn't going to do jack shit, and you need to grow some backbone.