9 ms·

Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

359 points by nirav 16y ago

yoyar 16y ago
Seems like the CRTC needs to find a way to remain relevant. This is central planning, socialist style. I hope everyone enjoys it.
- coryl 16y ago
  Uhh, not quite socialist, very much capitalist. This is poor regulation of a growing industry monopolized by the huge corps that own cable and phoneline infrastructure. They've somehow lobbied and convinced our government to allow them to charge us up the ass for 'overages'.
  - swaits 16y ago
    That still doesn't sound like a free market to me. Very much capitalist?
    - DougBTX 16y ago
      Free market capitalism is a subset of capitalism. You can be capitalist without being free market, for example when one company holds a monopoly.
      - swaits 16y ago
        Umm, whatev. Allowing the market to set prices is a core tenet of capitalism. This Canadian ISP thing is certainly not "very much capitalist". Not in any way. I'm not looking for a flamegasm here, so this is my final reply to this thread. Peace.
  - jt2190 16y ago
    Yes, this is lobbying out of control. It was this kind of thing that caused me to move to the United States... How was I supposed to build a career in high-tech when Canadian high-tech companies were at a terrible disadvantage compared to their U.S. competitors? The country is full of very bright, talented people with initiative and drive, and it's squandered.
  - yoyar 16y ago
    This is why I wrote the comment in the manner that I did. There is an ongoing confusion about what is the free market and what is corporatism/fascism. The free market provides for free competition between individuals where all transactions are voluntary and no force is used to interfere with any interactions between parties. In a corporatist/fascist environment the government uses force to interfere in nearly all aspects of the market. In fascism, corporations end up in bed with the government and the corps use that power to get what they want while the government sells the idea by using propaganda to fool people into thinking that "it's all for your own good". When the government is in charge of setting rates for internet access this is the farthest thing in the world from a free market. What it is, is soviet style socialist central planning. But there seems to be a strong desire to blame the free market for all woes, despite the obvious government interference in all aspects of these interactions. What is free about having the government set the policies for internet charges? In a free market the government wouldn't be involved at all, and the rates would be determined via competition. Take a look at markets that are relatively more free, such as the cell phone market and the market for computer chips. Quality and features improve while prices go down over time. When I admire my HTC Android phone I marvel at the quality and features and the amazing technology. This is the result of healthy competition. Take a look at markets where the government is involved such as health care. Quality and choice are reduced while prices go through the roof. (and no, that's not going to change with "obamacare") Please don't confuse markets that are highly regulated and controlled by the government with free markets. They are polar opposites.
    - uytrtyui 16y ago
      >such as the cell phone market Not in Canada - same two monopoly suppliers. Means you get the iPhone 18months after the US, kindle 2 years later, still can't get skypein etc.
      - yoyar 16y ago
        I was referring to the hardware. Not the set of supplier corporations that are intertwined with the state.
      - noarchy 16y ago
  - nirav 16y ago
    There's no "somehow", it is almost like telecom companies can force govt to form regulations in their interest.
    - hexis 16y ago
      Not "almost like", it's exactly that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- jaysoo 16y ago
  If this was socialism then either the government or the public would own Bell/Rogers/Telus. This is also not free-market capitalism. I'm not sure what you would call it.
  - ascuttlefish 16y ago
    Regulatory capture?
  - yoyar 16y ago
    Corporatism.
  - jmaygarden 16y ago
    Tyranny? ;)
  - nirav 16y ago
    This is called Oligopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly in half-assed capitalism. Note that this can be worse than monopoly because few competitors can essentially create informal cartels.
    - yoyar 16y ago
      If there is an Oligopoly, then how has this occurred? What entity is there providing the conditions for the Oligopoly to exist and persist? If there were not government interference via the CRTC we would have open competition. But we don't because the CRTC is there. And they have the power to make sure that no real competition can take hold. Where does this lead us? Straight back to corporatism (the government and corporations are in bed together) - Let's not use the term capitalism anywhere in this context.
    - shawnee_ 16y ago
      Yup. What frequently happens is that companies in an Oligopoly are able to collude to raise the barriers of entry, keeping out new competitors: sometimes with "help" of government regulations, sometimes because of lack of government regulation. As long as there are only a couple of them (< 4 controlling > 80 percent of the industry), they can keep prices artificially higher than they need to be. When there's no actual competition and little threat of new competitors entering the market, their incentive to innovate or become more efficient is diminished. Consumers end up paying too much for mediocre goods/services.
dholowiski 16y ago
Iv'e been following this debate, but it's been difficult to find actual facts. Right now with Telus (Canadian dsl ISP) i pay for 125gb transfer a month and $2/gb if I go over. Yes, the overage charge is insane but it's been like that for a long time. As far as I can tell, the issue is that the big ISPs (tells, Rogers, bell) all have caps/overage, but the smaller ISPs that piggyback on their network can offer unlimited data transfer. This new ruling seems to 'even the playing field'. I want the Internet to be free and unlimited as the next guy, but I have yet to understand what the big deal is here.
- teamonkey 16y ago
  The big ISPs didn't have to have caps. They did it because the markup is huge. Having no cap was a big reason that people chose smaller ISPs. Not only have caps been introduced but the wholesale discount is alarmingly small, so small ISPs aren't free to compete on features or price. Small ISPs can't go and find another backbone because they're all owned by this group of companies. Note that in Quebec the cap is higher (60GB/month instead of 25GB/month). In most of Canada Bell/Rogers/Shaw own the DSL and cable networks. In Quebec, Bell mostly own the DSL lines but Videotron (Quebecor) own the cable network, so it's almost like competition. Also Quebecor has unshakable ties to the provincial government.
- coryl 16y ago
  And now that the big ISPs can force smaller ISPs to pay for overage rates, small ISPs must increase their prices, giving them no competitive edge against brand giants. The end result: everyone gets overcharged for internet access as these companies try to make up lost sales in phonelines and television by killing everyone on internet.
- jaysoo 16y ago
  The big deal here is that instead of offering competitive plans the big ISPs are _decreasing_ the level of service and _increasing_ the prices of plans. Also, Bell/Rogers/Telus have the advantage of offering bundles if you use them for cable/satellite+cell phone+Internet, whereas a lot of smaller ISPs would not able to do such things. This screams anti-competition. FYI, I don't mind paying per usage as long a the rates are reasonable. How about charging us $10-15 for connection fees, and then $0.25/GB of transfer?
JeffJenkins 16y ago
This doesn't explaining what's going on very clearly. Small Canadian ISPs are allowed to use the infrastructure of Bell Canada at wholesale rates in order to foster competition. This has been reasonably successful. What has happened now is that the CRTC ruled that Bell is allowed to impose the same per-user bandwidth caps on its wholesale customers as it does on its own users. Since the smaller ISPs should simply be getting bandwidth from Bell, this is totally ridiculous. Their ability to compete with Bell on price or levels of service is almost totally eliminated. When my friends and family in Ontario were explaining this to me I kept having to ask them to repeat themselves because it boggled my mind how ISPs using bell's infrastructure could be subject to those sorts of restrictions.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  The Canadian government has a long history of propping up the monopolies operating inside its borders, especially when it has a stake in them. For additional entertainment read up on the LCBO and the Egg Board (no, that's not a joke).
  - cal5k 16y ago
    Not to mention the Canadian Wheat Board, perhaps the most egregious of all monopsonies (apparently it's not a "monopoly" because it is the only BUYER of wheat).
    - derefr 16y ago
      Monopsony.
      - cal5k 16y ago
        I... believe that's what I said?
  - falldowngoboom 16y ago
    And the dairy board. And the turkey board. And the beer store.
jacquesm 16y ago
The telecommunications situation in Canada is terrible. Typically, in rural areas the way to get broadband goes something like this: A bunch of people get a deal with a small ISP to finally provide them broadband because Bell says they won't be doing it. Then two weeks after all the gear gets installed and the small ISP starts signing up customers Bell will swoop in with an offer to undercut them and suddenly all the things that made it 'impossible' to get broadband before are mere chalk lines instead of the hurdles they were made out to be before. In Canada it is illegal (or was, this is 4 years ago, it may have changed) to have a satellite receiver that receives FTA programming and so on.
- ergo98 16y ago
  >The telecommunications situation in Canada is terrible. Your complaint is that some rural area has poor service. Is that not the case around the globe? I've had high-speed cable service since long before it was available in most urban centers in the US (much less the rest of the world), including when I lived in a mid-sized town. Here in a suburb of Toronto I've had top-notch, leading-the-bandwidth (15Mbps around the clock) high speed for a low cost for almost a decade. I think our situation is quite good, actually. Broadband penetration is very high, average caps are competitive with the world, and bandwidth numbers lean very high on the curve. There is so much misinformation about this whole situation (not helped by people making "incremental cost" calculations that assume that the infrastructure for infinite bandwidth is already in place): The best is the other post where someone talks about it being Soviet-style central control. The humorous aspect is that CRTC is essentially unwinding that central control, put in place back when Bell was the big, untouchable monopoly. It was then that many of the "unlimited cap" companies were basically given leave to leach off of Bell in the name of competition. Bell is far from alone in providing bulk bandwidth in Canada. If the economics are so straightforward, clearly Teksavvy and the like will just run a Cogent or the like to their distribution. If they don't, ask yourself why not. Ultimately this is a lot of people up in arms because they want their free lunch.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Bell owns the lines, it is (or rather, was, I've left Canada 4 years ago) illegal to put lines in by other entities. > Your complaint is that some rural area has poor service. Is that not the case around the globe? No. > I've had high-speed cable service since long before it was available in most urban centers in the US (much less the rest of the world), Good for you :) I had four bonded 28.8 modems and four landlines giving me crappy bandwidth where a simple baseband modem would have done the job but Bell simply refused to remove the chokes from the lines. > Here in a suburb of Toronto I've had top-notch, leading-the-bandwidth (15Mbps around the clock) high speed for a low cost for almost a decade. Toronto is but one very small part of Canada and one of the most populous areas at that. If you run a monopoly you should provide all your customers with equal access to the system, otherwise you should open up the market and get the hell out of the way. > I think our situation is quite good, actually. your situation is quite good. > The best is the other post where someone talks about it being Soviet-style central control. That was pretty poorly worded but the author makes a much better case further on. Also, state propped up monopolies were very much a feature of communist countries. > The humorous aspect is that CRTC is essentially unwinding that central control, put in place back when Bell was the big, untouchable monopoly. It was then that many of the "unlimited cap" companies were basically given leave to leach off of Bell in the name of competition. They'd gladly put their own infrastructure in to the ground, only they're not allowed to. Just like you're not allowed to hop across the border, buy a satellite receiver that receives 'free over the air' programming and operate it legally within Canadas borders (because that would deprive the government sanctioned operators of their subscription fees that they can charge you for that same content).
rafd 16y ago
I'm embarassed to be Canadian. I'm not opposed to usage based billing - users who use more should pay more, but the rate should be commensurate to actual costs. Regulation is meant to protect the public from potentially unfavorable actions by authorized natural monopolies. Perhaps the ISPs should be selling bandwidth on a market, like with electricity.
acangiano 16y ago
I'll provide one data point of how this affects Canadian internet users. I currently have no caps with TekSavvy and pay $39 a month. Starting from March 1st, I will pay $31.95/mo with a 25 GB cap. Any gigabyte over the limit will cost about 2 bucks. Now, you can buy a block at discounted prices. According to TekSavvy, based on my internet usage, I will need to buy at least a 275 GB extra block. Believe it or not, I don't torrent. I simply like to watch NetFlix, HD movies from iTunes, lots of educational videos online, and backup data in the cloud. That 275 GB block costs $55/mo. So I suddenly go from paying $39 for unlimited data to paying $86.95 per month, and having to be careful about what I download and what not. Oh, and the first thing I need to do is stop backing up my data, videos, and photos in the cloud. That's pretty much out of the question with the risk of paying $2 per extra GB. I'm buying an additional external hard drive instead. How is that for innovation?
- jacquesm 16y ago
  There is a reason why lots of technical people from Canada seek to find their fortune in the United States.
  - axod 16y ago
    Is the US really much better? As we saw earlier in the week from Netflix, slower average bandwidth than Canada... hardly any competition and so on. If you want decent internet connectivity, move to Europe or Japan or something. They're rolling out 100mbps broadband in the UK.
    - Swannie 16y ago
      "They're rolling out 100mbps broadband in the UK." Not quite yet. http://www.eclipse.net.uk/fibre-broadband/what-is-fttc- http://www.eclipse.net.uk/fibre-broadband/what-is-fttc-
      - axod 16y ago
        http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband/up-to-100mb.html http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband/up-to-100mb.html Some already have it. (My brother for one) Schedule of when areas will get it from Virgin: (Other providers may be different). http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf/100Mb-rollout-30111.pdf http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf/100Mb-r...
waterside81 16y ago
For those not familiar with Canadian bureaucracies, the CRTC governs telecom issues, similar to the FCC in the US. What may not be so obvious, even to Canadians, is that the members of the CRTC used to work for Bell, Rogers, Telus etc. Much like employees of the Treasury Department in the US, these people go from private sector to public sector and back continuously. A running joke at Rogers used to be that whenever they wanted some sort of legislation changed, the VPs would draw straws to see who had to quit and join the CRTC.
- rapind 16y ago
  This is very true, and the real root of the problem is abstraction and voter apathy. Of course it doesn't help any when Rogers and Bell own many of our major media outlets who might otherwise draw more attention to the issue. No, not a conspiracy theory. If you're a publicly traded company capable of creating more wealth for your shareholders by creating an agreeable political environment it would be practically unethical to your shareholders not to take advantage of it... Regardless of the long term impact to your customers. After all, it's pretty hard to convince your board that you shouldn't do something that may negatively impact your customer base in 20 years, and should instead settle for less profit today. So pretty much the same game as the states.
colindecarlo 16y ago
Didn't the Egyptians just have the Internet cut off? I'd say they're the biggest losers.
- va1en0k 16y ago
  they aren't on the internet anymore, so no, they aren't the biggest losers on the internet
ronnier 16y ago
This really disturbs me. I just moved to Seattle where I signed up for Comcast internet. A couple of days later, my connection stopped working until I activated my account on comcast.com. I did, and the first thing I saw was High-Speed Internet Data Usage: 17% 43GB of 250GB They sure hide that fact when you signup, not that I have any options, as Comcast is the only provider where I live. This is a horrible direction we are heading. And, if you go over the limit, they call and warn you. If you go over again, they cancel your account.
- citricsquid 16y ago
  Same here. I'm with BT in the UK and I'm on an unlimited* plan with a fair usage policy. This is fine by me, I held off downloading until night time (for both my own convenience and others) but because I had 2mb/s download and a Steam library of 200+ games, I figured I may as well DL my entire library at once. After a couple of days I'd downloaded over 300GB, one night I get an email saying blah blah fair usage cap has been hit. So now I'm capped at 1mbps between 5PM and midnight every day for 1 month (thankfully the cap is lifted tomorrow) because my "unlimited" plan has hard defined limits that aren't publicised. Try finding the limit for the unlimited plan I have and it doesn't exist, yet EVERYONE gets capped at 300GB/m. In a normal month I use ~150GB and would stick to that if I'd known about the defined limit, the misleading nature of it sucks. I don't mind limits, unlimited is impossible, but when the limit is the same for everyone regardless of how the service is used and then tout it as unlimited... it's ridiculous.
  - slavak 16y ago
    Wouldn't that be considered a breach of contract? I know that if this happened to me (Israel) the first thing I would do is call up my ISP and threaten a lawsuit unless they provide me the service I signed up for.
    - jarek 16y ago
      Some small print in a terms and conditions document probably says something like "we reserve the right to Manage Our Network (read: throttle you) as we see fit." Also "we reserve the right to terminate the contract at any time for any reason."
goombastic 16y ago
Ok, here is what is happening in India. It's even more sinister. The ISPs have made some sites free and everything else paid. So, facebook for instance is free while your "littlesite dot com" is charged. The regulators are sleeping.
- aristus 16y ago
  Can you elaborate? Users have to pay to visit littlesite.com, but access to facebook is free?
  - blntechie 16y ago
    Yes. But it's not happening with fixed line ISPs as i know. It only happens with mobile data usage in EDGE and 3G. Mostly facebook.com and twitter.com can be used unlimited for free or for a very low cost add-on plan. Other sites accessed are charged as per the normal plan. Even though it appears sinister, the mobile operators do this to attract young customers who use these sites the most on the move. Personally, i don't agree with this setup.
    - Swannie 16y ago
      I've seen that in Australia and the UK too. Good idea to attract the younger market.
MikeCapone 16y ago
I'm a Tesksavvy customer and I got a email about this yesterday. Until now I thought it was crazy that Austrlia was getting a censored internet and wondered how such a thing could happen in a pretty modern democracy. But now I feel like something worse has happened here... While new internet applications that use more and more data are coming out all the time and the cost of moving a byte on the net is going down rapidly, caps are getting smaller and smaller here just so the big telecoms can protect their on-demand TV businesses and keep internet service minimal without having to worry about competition. This is so anti-competitive that it sickens me.
JimmyL 16y ago
If you're curious about the regulatory history of this issue - and who isn't, really - then CRTC decisions 2010-255 (http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2010/2010-255.htm http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2010/2010-255.htm) and (http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-44.htm http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-44.htm) 2011-44 may be of interest to you. The former is the final in a series of decisions relating to Bell's request to allow them to move independent ISPs onto usage-based billing, and the latter is the recent decision on (effectively) an appeal of that decision. If you don't care to skim the whole thing, the bottom line is that Bell is now able to force usage-based billing onto third-party ISPs, but must offer them a discount of 15% under the retail price at which Bell sells those services directly to customers. Some other interesting tidbits found in there: Unsurprisingly, Bell was against the idea of any discount, saying that even without a discount it would still be possible for independent ISPs to differentiate their services on price and "other methods". It's not clear how they'd actually do this, however. Oh, and PS there's way to determine an acceptable discount rate even if those assertions weren't true, so we shouldn't have one. There's a nice note in there that "[the] Commission also received a large number of comments, mostly from individuals, that almost unanimously opposed the Bell companies' applications [to force usage-based billing]" - thanks for pointing that out, CRTC. Bell is only required to provide third-party access to their legacy ATM networks, and not their new fiber-optic networks. This makes sense - as I've never seen the service advertised - but I hadn't seen that in writing anywhere. If Bell ever does some form of promotion where they let people sign up on unlimited plans, they have to let third-party ISPs do this as well - although the mechanics are unstated ("[The] Commission finds that...to the extent that each company chooses not to charge UBB rates to any existing or new retail customer, it is required to treat GAS ISPs on an equivalent basis."). Bell was about ambitious as you can get in the list of things they requested from the CRTC in these decisions. I'm not saying that I like this decision (as of March 1st I'll be paying TekSavvy more for less), but the CRTC did OK for the little guy when you see what else Bell wanted. No one - not Bell, not the CRTC - says this is a technical issue. It's not that Bell can't handle all the bandwidth people use (which require a technical ITMP, in CRTC-ese), but that they see this as a way to increase profits by charging people who use more bandwidth more money (hence it's an economic ITMP).
- cal5k 16y ago
transition 16y ago
Would be interesting to see if companies like Google, who have a significant stake in a "free and open internet", could establish operations in Canada. Google wants users online as much as possible so they can continue to serve ads. It's too bad all that dark fiber they own doesn't extend into Canada.
- mthoms 16y ago
  Canadian telecom providers must (by law) be majority Canadian owned. So sadly no, Google could not do this.
- GrooveStomp 16y ago
  Google has three offices in Canada: http://www.google.com/corporate/address.html http://www.google.com/corporate/address.html
reedF211 16y ago
Socialism FTW! My province's government run ISP faught against the CRTC and is not implementing UBB. Bravo MTS!
cal5k 16y ago
Here's another reason why this is bullshit... this is an excerpt from an article I'm working on: The biggest problem with these caps is that they are, plain and simply, anticompetitive. Probably illegally so. Let’s take Bell’s internet service as an example. Bell recently rolled out their “Fibe” offerings, both for internet and IPTV. Their most accommodating plan, Fibe 25, has a ludicrously low cap of 75GB. It would be pretty easy to exceed that with HD content from iTunes, Netflix, YouTube, etc. Fibe TV, however, delivers TV over the same network. Bell even treats the IPTV traffic preferentially, as you can in this gushing review: http://www.benlucier.ca/work/tech/bell-entertainment-service-the-results-are-impressive/ http://www.benlucier.ca/work/tech/bell-entertainment-service... There’s only one minor difference: Fibe TV is not subject to the same usage caps. You can stream as many movies as you like over Fibe TV, watch as much TV as you like, and never get charged extra for the bandwidth. Well now, that’s funny. Didn’t Bell’s regulatory spokesperson say something to the contrary just the other day? Oh yeah! “A bit is a bit is a bit. If you’re a heavy user, regardless of what’s causing the heavy use, you will pay more. That’s the concept,” said Mirko Bibic, Bell Canada’s senior vice-president for regulatory affairs. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/netflix-confronting-canadian-challenges/article1866312/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/net... Yes, Mr. Bibic, it appears that all bits are equal – but some bits are more equal than others. This is a textbook case of anticompetitive behaviour, one of a long litany of recent sleazy undertakings by major Canadian telecoms (e.g. Rogers’ suspiciously well-timed lowering of caps on their most popular plans when Netflix entered the Canadian market). It is also a textbook method for successfully stifling innovation, a problem Canadians are all-too-familiar with. The Internet is now an essential service. While smart countries like South Korea, Australia, and Japan are making (or have made) large public investments in fast, ubiquitous, and unlimited Internet for all citizens, Canada continues to lurch backwards courtesy of myopic regulators, oligopolistic telecoms and a government that is unwilling to intervene for the good of all Canadians.
- Swannie 16y ago
  But FibeTV is bits over their private infrastructure... they can choose how to charge that, no? The other bits that they are charging for are ones that go "outside" of their network. Usage based charging will become the norm, just like with electricity, water, oil/natural gas, food. Some supermarkets carry loss leaders, why should Bell.ca not be allowed to too?
Swannie 16y ago
A much better article explaining the same issue: http://www.zeropaid.com/news/91228/crtc-ruling-could-mean-data-caps-for-all/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/91228/crtc-ruling-could-mean-da... (2010 Nov 3) Sounds like the regulator really dropped the ball on this one, giving small ISP's only 90 days to investigate possible alternatives, plan for them, and implement. 90 days?! That's insanely short. 9-12 months would have been reasonable. 90days? I'm stunned.
GrooveStomp 16y ago
I wonder how this will affect companies like Mobilicity who offer unlimited cell phone data usage for an additional $10/month. I have no idea how Mobilicity operates and whether they're dependent on Bell's infrastructure or not, and whether the infrastructure is the same for cell phones as it is for internet. A systematic breakdown on how this affects all ISPs and phone providers across all of Canada would really clarify the issue!
sheldonnbbaker 16y ago
From the CRTC website (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/INFO_SHT/t1003.htm http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/INFO_SHT/t1003.htm): "The CRTC does not regulate rates, quality of service issues or business practices of Internet service providers as they relate to retail customers. This is because there is enough competition in the market that retail customers can shop around for service packages." Yet they've completely paved the way for competition to be swallowed into oblivion. They're standing aside saying "it wasn't us - it's not our fault" and yet snickering behind our backs while they rake in the dough. Disgraceful.
itistoday 16y ago
If this actually passes, any sentiments I had about moving to Canada would evaporate. Good job guys, you're keeping the techies out.
- rapind 16y ago
  They also throttle our bandwidth and our taxes are ridiculously high. You'll generally have a constant feeling of being ripped off, but you get used to it eventually, and it gives you something to commiserate and bond over with fellow canadians ;)
ashchristopher 16y ago
The real kick in the junk is that the infrastructure Bell owns was paid for by the Canadian taxpayers when Bell operated as a crown corporation. Not sure if the Rogers infrastructure was publicly funded (I suspect it was in part).
hekar 16y ago
I'm really lucky to live in Waterloo, Ontario. There's a provider called Yak that offers unlimited bandwidth, non-throttled DSL up to 10MB for $60 a month (comes with non-voip phone line and 5 calling features). They have their own DSL centers and hence aren't going to be affected by this new proposition. I think we might see more companies starting their own DSL centers.
- jarek 16y ago
  To confirm - does Yak own their own last mile? I'm under the impression this is the crux of the issue.
fleitz 16y ago
It's not a matter of regulations, it's a matter of markets. Some companies such as Bell treat their customers like crap and just want to lock them into a long term contract. So what? There are lots of competitors who will not be doing UBB such as Telus / Shaw / Rogers. Customers on Bell just became the world's biggest internet losers. If people don't like UBB they can always switch carriers unless they were dumb enough to take Bell's crappy long term contract.
- napierzaza 16y ago
  You're ignorant. Everyone has to apply the UBB and no one has contracts, even Bell.
  - fleitz 16y ago
    Actually I'm not. http://www.channelcanada.com/Article5436.html http://www.channelcanada.com/Article5436.html Some ISPs are not using UBB, nor have plans to implement it. http://internet.bell.ca/index.cfm?method=content.view&content_id=12184 http://internet.bell.ca/index.cfm?method=content.view&co... oh and here's an article talking about people being on 1 2 or 3 year contracts for bell internet. How could they be on contracts if no one has them?
Createideas 16y ago
Well honestly this does kind of make sense.I'll explain 1.Verizon owns the pipes an charges companies or.Facebook or NEtflix a set fee for bundled usage fee. 2.Netflix and Facebook in turn would have to charge customers basic membership or usage fees to recoup the cost of there bundled usage fees they pay Verizon. 3.Customer would pay membership fees for services that we in theory and utilize alot more because there free. In retrospect though based on the amount of members or customers of both these companies would there usage growth take that much of a hit and would those two companies still be able to operate if they were forced to change there business models and chage people just to access there content. In the case of Facebook how many members would thy have if people were required to pay say $9.99 a month to access Facebook. In the case of the Internet as a whole clearly it costs money for companies like Verizon to expand and lay new lines to meet the demands of usage.Why then would it not be right to charge the data hogs for overuse of bandwith? Society has become addicted to free and believe that content in itself should have no cost associated with it.However people don't realize the manpower,creativity and cost associated just to have that content produced. It makes sense now as to why Rupert Murdoch is against the freemium models for news via the web. I mean just think about it on a small scale just for me to write this comment.I'm paying for Internet service,heating bill,electric and other costs also.So why shoudnt I be able to pas that cost to the end user?
commanda 16y ago
Literally, I think Egyptians just became the world's biggest internet losers.
sedachv 16y ago
Canadians can sign a petition that also purports to send email on your behalf to the CRTC: http://openmedia.ca/meter http://openmedia.ca/meter I've been considering not getting Internet at my new place when I move (which is coincidentally the end of the month, when this regulation takes effect) for productivity reasons, and this cements the decision. I've been pretty happy as a Teksavvy customer otherwise.
Dramatize 16y ago
Welcome to Australia
gregsadetsky 16y ago
How expensive would it be to start a number of small independent Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs)? I'm thinking of a decentralized "movement" of geeks organizing what's required to get neighborhoods and villages online: an omnidirectional antenna high enough that Line of Sight can be provided to most residents, a high bandwidth fiber optics connection at the center, and subscriber antennas at the residences. I've tried to find more information on Motorola Canopy technology in the past days -- look at this example deployment in Nova Scotia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_for_Rural_Nova_Scotia_initiative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_for_Rural_Nova_Scotia... From what I'm gathering, Canopy can be deployed over unlicensed frequencies (2.4 and 5 Ghz), allows for hundreds of subscribers connecting to a single Access Point, can provide up bandwidth in the 5-10 Mbps range, etc. Are there particular advantages to Canopy over 802.11x? Could it become viable, with infrastructure costs spread over some years, to run a small local WISP? I'm thinking of a "Real Internet" designation/"certification" that could be given out to any ISP that follows a basic code of conduct: offers at least one unlimited transfer connection plan and does not throttle traffic. Is starting an ISP, regardless of the physical layer, overly regulated by CRTC? The Wikipedia page says "The CRTC does not regulate rates, quality of service issues, or business practices for Internet service providers" -- is that in effect true? How can anyone manage with 25 GB per month? Are Netflix or the NFB going to do something about this? If not, can "we"?
- a_m0d 16y ago
  Could be quite expensive. Where I live (40kms from Perth, WA, in a semi-rural area) we use this Motorola wireless technology, and the prices are astronomical - $80 for 3GB on peak and 5GB off peak. When we first signed up, we also had major stability issues (connection constantly dropping out, connection hijacked by a hacker for a few months, etc.), although things are looking better now.
  - gregsadetsky 16y ago
    Thanks a lot -- do you know if you're using a 900Mhz, 2.4 or 5Ghz subscriber unit? Also, what's the distance from the ISP to you?
SaintSal 16y ago
This reminds me of when the Canadian RIAA (CRIA) successfully campaigned the Canadian government for a "levy" on all blank data media in 2002. They wanted to charge an extra $21 per GB on CDs, DVDs and hard drives in digital media player - ostensibly to cover the costs of piracy. Sound silly? Canadian legislators obliged (though it was overturned in court years later.) http://news.dmusic.com/article/4580 http://news.dmusic.com/article/4580 As I recall, this backfired since the levy eventually meant that they couldn't sue people for pirating content - they had already paid for it via the levy. Like double jeopardy. Anyway, it proved that levies like this don't actually change behaviour much. Canadians drove to the US to buy their MP3 players. Telcos benefitted by online media consumption and competed heavily for broadband subscribers. Digital lifestyles in Canada flourished. Ironically, it's now the telcos that are complaining for the same reason. The key difference now is that big telcos can use this decision to squeeze their competitors (who they also supply.) Though I can see ways that this will backfire too. The good thing about the Canadian government is that they have a history of continually watching, listening, adjusting and even backtracking if they feel they made the wrong move. I hope this keeps the telcos from abusing their new rights, and from stifling digital innovation in Canada, which hurts them too in the long run.
nl 16y ago
We have this in Australia. Here at least the situation isn't too bad, because we have competitive resellers at the ISP level[1]. The ISPs compete on service, bandwidth, data limits and inclusions. For example, many (most?) ISPs arrange peering with video providers like Tivo so video streamed on their services don't count towards the data cap. [1] There are laws to ensure that any ISP can install their equipment in the exchanges, or get access to the dominate telco's equipment at close-to-cost. Most of the time, these laws work, if slower than ideal.
- jay_kyburz 16y ago
  It might also be interesting to some that in Australia, where we have always had metered plans and where people have come to accept it, natural competition has seen our first unlimited plans emerge. For $60 a month TPG offers uncapped internet and phone line bundle. Even thought this may now be legal to do, Canadians may find that some ISPs still offer unlimited plans just to get ahead.
- lukevdp 16y ago
  Yeah, I saw this thread and thought "Wow, internet isn't billed on metered usage everywhere else in the world?"
napierzaza 16y ago
Working at a Canadian university I hear my boss say that bandwidth doubles every year for the same price. But Bell has been selling the same service (DSL) for less and less bandwidth... for a higher price every year.
DrStalker 16y ago
It's not that bad. Really. Australia has had data caps since broadband first came out; for the vast majority of of users a basic plan provides all the data they need, techy users with heavy usage patterns get higher plans, and people with the compulsion to torrent every TV in existence get plans with unmetered periods (a few ISPs don't meter traffic during the quiet periods at night) The usual behavior once you're over your data cap is to drop the internet speed down to ~64kbs for the rest of the month so even if you kill your data cap you can still access email and other low bandwidth services, you're not off completely.
- westajay 16y ago
  It is bad. We never started with caps in Canada so we're losing a lot. In australia you get ripped so badly for broadband it is not funny. This affects not only consumers, but also the whole tech ecosystem.. For example business models that rely on unmetered internet (think netflix, or offsite backup). It also affects people like me who have to host services in Canada (for regulatory and/or data security reasons). If I get nailed on wholesale bandwidth, I have to pass that cost onto my customers. This ruling appeared out of the blue.. Without much time to prepare contigencies.
- snowwindwaves 16y ago
  it is bad. australians and new zealanders get ripped on their telecommunications.
napierzaza 16y ago
I'm surprised as to how many regular people I've talked to who don't torrent and who have gone over bandwidth (with Bell). The caps are super low, even for regular users and not just the techies.
westajay 16y ago
This could snowball with a nasty public backlash. Can anyone tell me if this is specific to bell? If so, how would this affect us out west where our wholesale provider might be telus, shaw or allstream?
westajay 16y ago
This is really about conflict of interest. Perhaps it is time for regulation mandating the split of telecom from media content ownership. In Canada, the telecoms own most of the major media assets (Shaw, rogers, bell).
benregenspan 16y ago
Doesn't that title still belong to Sierra Leone? Or perhaps Liberia? http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm
mkramlich 16y ago
Selling Internet access could become something like the next oil. Almost everyone in the US has to buy oil/gas, whether directly or indirectly. Therefore, that's a good business to be in. Internet usage, both in terms of breadth and frequency and data volume, will likely keep increasing. Therefore, getting into the business of selling access to it -- especially if you can sell metered usage -- could be increasingly lucrative. And it's a growing pie. Furthermore, since so many mediums and industries are seeing their traditional cash flow streams go away due to the easy availability of free alternatives on the Internet, it makes sense that if you can't beat em, join em, and then just charge for the pipe to it all. So-called "pirates" can avoid paying for the official e-versions of digitizable media (songs, movies, images, encyclopedic info, sound effects, games, books, news, etc.) but it's much harder for them to avoid paying for the physical connection.
switch 16y ago
what an overreaction. I`m in Canada and calling Canadians the biggest Internet losers is nonsense. People who use 300 GB of data per month cost the ISP more than people who use a few GB a month. That`s just a fact of life. Should they have flexibility to charge more - Yes.
chad_oliver 16y ago
You mean that most countries don't pay per gigabyte? I live in New Zealand, and there's only one company with an unlimited broadband package, and that's only with a two-year contract. The norm in New Zealand is to pay for say, 20GB per month, and if you exceed that then you drop down to dial-up speed (or pay for more). With all due respect to the Canadians here, it's not really that bad at all. Life goes on, and it actually seems to be a pretty good life too.
- forensic 16y ago
  >With all due respect to the Canadians here, it's not really that bad at all. Life goes on, and it actually seems to be a pretty good life too. You do realize you are being horribly ripped off? It's true that life goes on, even for slaves.
dhughes 16y ago
This is going to suck, software gets bloated far faster than network hardware can be developed and certainly faster than network hardware can be installed. New services such as Netflix and who knows what else is coming down the line (3D Netflix movies?) are going to use up your overpriced bandwidth faster than your ISP can evolve, they'll just charge more for the same service. This will be like when video became popular when everyone was still on 56kbps modems, the web developed faster than the hardware meant to use it and it will stall development. Why develop when there isn't anyone using it or able to use it? In the end people will do what they have to when they only have a limited amount of disposable income, ISPs will see people spend $50 for 10Mbps service and when the ISPs increase the monthly bill by a $1 here and a $1 there (to serve us better) consumers will get the 5Mbps service for $50.
thangalin 16y ago
while true; do wget http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/publications/reports/policymonitoring/2010/cmr2010.pdf; rm cmr2010.pdf; done Signed, Japan ($9/month unlimited Internet access)
efsavage 16y ago
The most dangerous problem isn't the markup or extra cost, it's that as soon as UBB is old news, the media companies that are now also the internet companies (comcast/nbc) will offer discounts on "in network" bandwidth, so an NBC show will cost you the regular 1.99, but a movie from another network, or an independent production will cost you extra. I'd be all in favor of this kind of pricing if it was anything resembling an open market, like how the cell phone industry had/has major downward price pressure, but there are far fewer choices when it comes to wires into your house, so the local monopoly effects are very strong.

359 points by nirav 16y ago

yoyar 16y ago

Seems like the CRTC needs to find a way to remain relevant. This is central planning, socialist style. I hope everyone enjoys it.

coryl 16y ago
Uhh, not quite socialist, very much capitalist. This is poor regulation of a growing industry monopolized by the huge corps that own cable and phoneline infrastructure. They've somehow lobbied and convinced our government to allow them to charge us up the ass for 'overages'.
- swaits 16y ago
  That still doesn't sound like a free market to me. Very much capitalist?
  - DougBTX 16y ago
    Free market capitalism is a subset of capitalism. You can be capitalist without being free market, for example when one company holds a monopoly.
    - swaits 16y ago
      Umm, whatev. Allowing the market to set prices is a core tenet of capitalism. This Canadian ISP thing is certainly not "very much capitalist". Not in any way. I'm not looking for a flamegasm here, so this is my final reply to this thread. Peace.
- jt2190 16y ago
  Yes, this is lobbying out of control. It was this kind of thing that caused me to move to the United States... How was I supposed to build a career in high-tech when Canadian high-tech companies were at a terrible disadvantage compared to their U.S. competitors? The country is full of very bright, talented people with initiative and drive, and it's squandered.
- yoyar 16y ago
  This is why I wrote the comment in the manner that I did. There is an ongoing confusion about what is the free market and what is corporatism/fascism. The free market provides for free competition between individuals where all transactions are voluntary and no force is used to interfere with any interactions between parties. In a corporatist/fascist environment the government uses force to interfere in nearly all aspects of the market. In fascism, corporations end up in bed with the government and the corps use that power to get what they want while the government sells the idea by using propaganda to fool people into thinking that "it's all for your own good". When the government is in charge of setting rates for internet access this is the farthest thing in the world from a free market. What it is, is soviet style socialist central planning. But there seems to be a strong desire to blame the free market for all woes, despite the obvious government interference in all aspects of these interactions. What is free about having the government set the policies for internet charges? In a free market the government wouldn't be involved at all, and the rates would be determined via competition. Take a look at markets that are relatively more free, such as the cell phone market and the market for computer chips. Quality and features improve while prices go down over time. When I admire my HTC Android phone I marvel at the quality and features and the amazing technology. This is the result of healthy competition. Take a look at markets where the government is involved such as health care. Quality and choice are reduced while prices go through the roof. (and no, that's not going to change with "obamacare") Please don't confuse markets that are highly regulated and controlled by the government with free markets. They are polar opposites.
  - uytrtyui 16y ago
    >such as the cell phone market Not in Canada - same two monopoly suppliers. Means you get the iPhone 18months after the US, kindle 2 years later, still can't get skypein etc.
    - yoyar 16y ago
      I was referring to the hardware. Not the set of supplier corporations that are intertwined with the state.
    - noarchy 16y ago
- nirav 16y ago
  There's no "somehow", it is almost like telecom companies can force govt to form regulations in their interest.
  - hexis 16y ago
    Not "almost like", it's exactly that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
jaysoo 16y ago
If this was socialism then either the government or the public would own Bell/Rogers/Telus. This is also not free-market capitalism. I'm not sure what you would call it.
- ascuttlefish 16y ago
  Regulatory capture?
- yoyar 16y ago
  Corporatism.
- jmaygarden 16y ago
  Tyranny? ;)
- nirav 16y ago
  This is called Oligopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly in half-assed capitalism. Note that this can be worse than monopoly because few competitors can essentially create informal cartels.
  - yoyar 16y ago
    If there is an Oligopoly, then how has this occurred? What entity is there providing the conditions for the Oligopoly to exist and persist? If there were not government interference via the CRTC we would have open competition. But we don't because the CRTC is there. And they have the power to make sure that no real competition can take hold. Where does this lead us? Straight back to corporatism (the government and corporations are in bed together) - Let's not use the term capitalism anywhere in this context.
  - shawnee_ 16y ago
    Yup. What frequently happens is that companies in an Oligopoly are able to collude to raise the barriers of entry, keeping out new competitors: sometimes with "help" of government regulations, sometimes because of lack of government regulation. As long as there are only a couple of them (< 4 controlling > 80 percent of the industry), they can keep prices artificially higher than they need to be. When there's no actual competition and little threat of new competitors entering the market, their incentive to innovate or become more efficient is diminished. Consumers end up paying too much for mediocre goods/services.

dholowiski 16y ago

Iv'e been following this debate, but it's been difficult to find actual facts. Right now with Telus (Canadian dsl ISP) i pay for 125gb transfer a month and $2/gb if I go over. Yes, the overage charge is insane but it's been like that for a long time. As far as I can tell, the issue is that the big ISPs (tells, Rogers, bell) all have caps/overage, but the smaller ISPs that piggyback on their network can offer unlimited data transfer. This new ruling seems to 'even the playing field'. I want the Internet to be free and unlimited as the next guy, but I have yet to understand what the big deal is here.

teamonkey 16y ago
The big ISPs didn't have to have caps. They did it because the markup is huge. Having no cap was a big reason that people chose smaller ISPs. Not only have caps been introduced but the wholesale discount is alarmingly small, so small ISPs aren't free to compete on features or price. Small ISPs can't go and find another backbone because they're all owned by this group of companies. Note that in Quebec the cap is higher (60GB/month instead of 25GB/month). In most of Canada Bell/Rogers/Shaw own the DSL and cable networks. In Quebec, Bell mostly own the DSL lines but Videotron (Quebecor) own the cable network, so it's almost like competition. Also Quebecor has unshakable ties to the provincial government.
coryl 16y ago
And now that the big ISPs can force smaller ISPs to pay for overage rates, small ISPs must increase their prices, giving them no competitive edge against brand giants. The end result: everyone gets overcharged for internet access as these companies try to make up lost sales in phonelines and television by killing everyone on internet.
jaysoo 16y ago
The big deal here is that instead of offering competitive plans the big ISPs are _decreasing_ the level of service and _increasing_ the prices of plans. Also, Bell/Rogers/Telus have the advantage of offering bundles if you use them for cable/satellite+cell phone+Internet, whereas a lot of smaller ISPs would not able to do such things. This screams anti-competition. FYI, I don't mind paying per usage as long a the rates are reasonable. How about charging us $10-15 for connection fees, and then $0.25/GB of transfer?

JeffJenkins 16y ago

This doesn't explaining what's going on very clearly. Small Canadian ISPs are allowed to use the infrastructure of Bell Canada at wholesale rates in order to foster competition. This has been reasonably successful. What has happened now is that the CRTC ruled that Bell is allowed to impose the same per-user bandwidth caps on its wholesale customers as it does on its own users. Since the smaller ISPs should simply be getting bandwidth from Bell, this is totally ridiculous. Their ability to compete with Bell on price or levels of service is almost totally eliminated. When my friends and family in Ontario were explaining this to me I kept having to ask them to repeat themselves because it boggled my mind how ISPs using bell's infrastructure could be subject to those sorts of restrictions.

jacquesm 16y ago
The Canadian government has a long history of propping up the monopolies operating inside its borders, especially when it has a stake in them. For additional entertainment read up on the LCBO and the Egg Board (no, that's not a joke).
- cal5k 16y ago
  Not to mention the Canadian Wheat Board, perhaps the most egregious of all monopsonies (apparently it's not a "monopoly" because it is the only BUYER of wheat).
  - derefr 16y ago
    Monopsony.
    - cal5k 16y ago
      I... believe that's what I said?
- falldowngoboom 16y ago
  And the dairy board. And the turkey board. And the beer store.

jacquesm 16y ago

The telecommunications situation in Canada is terrible. Typically, in rural areas the way to get broadband goes something like this: A bunch of people get a deal with a small ISP to finally provide them broadband because Bell says they won't be doing it. Then two weeks after all the gear gets installed and the small ISP starts signing up customers Bell will swoop in with an offer to undercut them and suddenly all the things that made it 'impossible' to get broadband before are mere chalk lines instead of the hurdles they were made out to be before. In Canada it is illegal (or was, this is 4 years ago, it may have changed) to have a satellite receiver that receives FTA programming and so on.

ergo98 16y ago
>The telecommunications situation in Canada is terrible. Your complaint is that some rural area has poor service. Is that not the case around the globe? I've had high-speed cable service since long before it was available in most urban centers in the US (much less the rest of the world), including when I lived in a mid-sized town. Here in a suburb of Toronto I've had top-notch, leading-the-bandwidth (15Mbps around the clock) high speed for a low cost for almost a decade. I think our situation is quite good, actually. Broadband penetration is very high, average caps are competitive with the world, and bandwidth numbers lean very high on the curve. There is so much misinformation about this whole situation (not helped by people making "incremental cost" calculations that assume that the infrastructure for infinite bandwidth is already in place): The best is the other post where someone talks about it being Soviet-style central control. The humorous aspect is that CRTC is essentially unwinding that central control, put in place back when Bell was the big, untouchable monopoly. It was then that many of the "unlimited cap" companies were basically given leave to leach off of Bell in the name of competition. Bell is far from alone in providing bulk bandwidth in Canada. If the economics are so straightforward, clearly Teksavvy and the like will just run a Cogent or the like to their distribution. If they don't, ask yourself why not. Ultimately this is a lot of people up in arms because they want their free lunch.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Bell owns the lines, it is (or rather, was, I've left Canada 4 years ago) illegal to put lines in by other entities. > Your complaint is that some rural area has poor service. Is that not the case around the globe? No. > I've had high-speed cable service since long before it was available in most urban centers in the US (much less the rest of the world), Good for you :) I had four bonded 28.8 modems and four landlines giving me crappy bandwidth where a simple baseband modem would have done the job but Bell simply refused to remove the chokes from the lines. > Here in a suburb of Toronto I've had top-notch, leading-the-bandwidth (15Mbps around the clock) high speed for a low cost for almost a decade. Toronto is but one very small part of Canada and one of the most populous areas at that. If you run a monopoly you should provide all your customers with equal access to the system, otherwise you should open up the market and get the hell out of the way. > I think our situation is quite good, actually. your situation is quite good. > The best is the other post where someone talks about it being Soviet-style central control. That was pretty poorly worded but the author makes a much better case further on. Also, state propped up monopolies were very much a feature of communist countries. > The humorous aspect is that CRTC is essentially unwinding that central control, put in place back when Bell was the big, untouchable monopoly. It was then that many of the "unlimited cap" companies were basically given leave to leach off of Bell in the name of competition. They'd gladly put their own infrastructure in to the ground, only they're not allowed to. Just like you're not allowed to hop across the border, buy a satellite receiver that receives 'free over the air' programming and operate it legally within Canadas borders (because that would deprive the government sanctioned operators of their subscription fees that they can charge you for that same content).

rafd 16y ago

I'm embarassed to be Canadian. I'm not opposed to usage based billing - users who use more should pay more, but the rate should be commensurate to actual costs. Regulation is meant to protect the public from potentially unfavorable actions by authorized natural monopolies. Perhaps the ISPs should be selling bandwidth on a market, like with electricity.

acangiano 16y ago

I'll provide one data point of how this affects Canadian internet users. I currently have no caps with TekSavvy and pay $39 a month. Starting from March 1st, I will pay $31.95/mo with a 25 GB cap. Any gigabyte over the limit will cost about 2 bucks. Now, you can buy a block at discounted prices. According to TekSavvy, based on my internet usage, I will need to buy at least a 275 GB extra block. Believe it or not, I don't torrent. I simply like to watch NetFlix, HD movies from iTunes, lots of educational videos online, and backup data in the cloud. That 275 GB block costs $55/mo. So I suddenly go from paying $39 for unlimited data to paying $86.95 per month, and having to be careful about what I download and what not. Oh, and the first thing I need to do is stop backing up my data, videos, and photos in the cloud. That's pretty much out of the question with the risk of paying $2 per extra GB. I'm buying an additional external hard drive instead. How is that for innovation?

jacquesm 16y ago
There is a reason why lots of technical people from Canada seek to find their fortune in the United States.
- axod 16y ago
  Is the US really much better? As we saw earlier in the week from Netflix, slower average bandwidth than Canada... hardly any competition and so on. If you want decent internet connectivity, move to Europe or Japan or something. They're rolling out 100mbps broadband in the UK.
  - Swannie 16y ago
    "They're rolling out 100mbps broadband in the UK." Not quite yet. http://www.eclipse.net.uk/fibre-broadband/what-is-fttc- http://www.eclipse.net.uk/fibre-broadband/what-is-fttc-
    - axod 16y ago
      http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband/up-to-100mb.html http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband/up-to-100mb.html Some already have it. (My brother for one) Schedule of when areas will get it from Virgin: (Other providers may be different). http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf/100Mb-rollout-30111.pdf http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf/100Mb-r...

waterside81 16y ago

For those not familiar with Canadian bureaucracies, the CRTC governs telecom issues, similar to the FCC in the US. What may not be so obvious, even to Canadians, is that the members of the CRTC used to work for Bell, Rogers, Telus etc. Much like employees of the Treasury Department in the US, these people go from private sector to public sector and back continuously. A running joke at Rogers used to be that whenever they wanted some sort of legislation changed, the VPs would draw straws to see who had to quit and join the CRTC.

rapind 16y ago
This is very true, and the real root of the problem is abstraction and voter apathy. Of course it doesn't help any when Rogers and Bell own many of our major media outlets who might otherwise draw more attention to the issue. No, not a conspiracy theory. If you're a publicly traded company capable of creating more wealth for your shareholders by creating an agreeable political environment it would be practically unethical to your shareholders not to take advantage of it... Regardless of the long term impact to your customers. After all, it's pretty hard to convince your board that you shouldn't do something that may negatively impact your customer base in 20 years, and should instead settle for less profit today. So pretty much the same game as the states.

colindecarlo 16y ago

Didn't the Egyptians just have the Internet cut off? I'd say they're the biggest losers.

va1en0k 16y ago
they aren't on the internet anymore, so no, they aren't the biggest losers on the internet

ronnier 16y ago

This really disturbs me. I just moved to Seattle where I signed up for Comcast internet. A couple of days later, my connection stopped working until I activated my account on comcast.com. I did, and the first thing I saw was High-Speed Internet Data Usage: 17% 43GB of 250GB They sure hide that fact when you signup, not that I have any options, as Comcast is the only provider where I live. This is a horrible direction we are heading. And, if you go over the limit, they call and warn you. If you go over again, they cancel your account.

citricsquid 16y ago
Same here. I'm with BT in the UK and I'm on an unlimited* plan with a fair usage policy. This is fine by me, I held off downloading until night time (for both my own convenience and others) but because I had 2mb/s download and a Steam library of 200+ games, I figured I may as well DL my entire library at once. After a couple of days I'd downloaded over 300GB, one night I get an email saying blah blah fair usage cap has been hit. So now I'm capped at 1mbps between 5PM and midnight every day for 1 month (thankfully the cap is lifted tomorrow) because my "unlimited" plan has hard defined limits that aren't publicised. Try finding the limit for the unlimited plan I have and it doesn't exist, yet EVERYONE gets capped at 300GB/m. In a normal month I use ~150GB and would stick to that if I'd known about the defined limit, the misleading nature of it sucks. I don't mind limits, unlimited is impossible, but when the limit is the same for everyone regardless of how the service is used and then tout it as unlimited... it's ridiculous.
- slavak 16y ago
  Wouldn't that be considered a breach of contract? I know that if this happened to me (Israel) the first thing I would do is call up my ISP and threaten a lawsuit unless they provide me the service I signed up for.
  - jarek 16y ago
    Some small print in a terms and conditions document probably says something like "we reserve the right to Manage Our Network (read: throttle you) as we see fit." Also "we reserve the right to terminate the contract at any time for any reason."

goombastic 16y ago

Ok, here is what is happening in India. It's even more sinister. The ISPs have made some sites free and everything else paid. So, facebook for instance is free while your "littlesite dot com" is charged. The regulators are sleeping.

aristus 16y ago
Can you elaborate? Users have to pay to visit littlesite.com, but access to facebook is free?
- blntechie 16y ago
  Yes. But it's not happening with fixed line ISPs as i know. It only happens with mobile data usage in EDGE and 3G. Mostly facebook.com and twitter.com can be used unlimited for free or for a very low cost add-on plan. Other sites accessed are charged as per the normal plan. Even though it appears sinister, the mobile operators do this to attract young customers who use these sites the most on the move. Personally, i don't agree with this setup.
  - Swannie 16y ago
    I've seen that in Australia and the UK too. Good idea to attract the younger market.

MikeCapone 16y ago

I'm a Tesksavvy customer and I got a email about this yesterday. Until now I thought it was crazy that Austrlia was getting a censored internet and wondered how such a thing could happen in a pretty modern democracy. But now I feel like something worse has happened here... While new internet applications that use more and more data are coming out all the time and the cost of moving a byte on the net is going down rapidly, caps are getting smaller and smaller here just so the big telecoms can protect their on-demand TV businesses and keep internet service minimal without having to worry about competition. This is so anti-competitive that it sickens me.

JimmyL 16y ago

If you're curious about the regulatory history of this issue - and who isn't, really - then CRTC decisions 2010-255 (http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2010/2010-255.htm http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2010/2010-255.htm) and (http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-44.htm http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-44.htm) 2011-44 may be of interest to you. The former is the final in a series of decisions relating to Bell's request to allow them to move independent ISPs onto usage-based billing, and the latter is the recent decision on (effectively) an appeal of that decision. If you don't care to skim the whole thing, the bottom line is that Bell is now able to force usage-based billing onto third-party ISPs, but must offer them a discount of 15% under the retail price at which Bell sells those services directly to customers. Some other interesting tidbits found in there: Unsurprisingly, Bell was against the idea of any discount, saying that even without a discount it would still be possible for independent ISPs to differentiate their services on price and "other methods". It's not clear how they'd actually do this, however. Oh, and PS there's way to determine an acceptable discount rate even if those assertions weren't true, so we shouldn't have one. There's a nice note in there that "[the] Commission also received a large number of comments, mostly from individuals, that almost unanimously opposed the Bell companies' applications [to force usage-based billing]" - thanks for pointing that out, CRTC. Bell is only required to provide third-party access to their legacy ATM networks, and not their new fiber-optic networks. This makes sense - as I've never seen the service advertised - but I hadn't seen that in writing anywhere. If Bell ever does some form of promotion where they let people sign up on unlimited plans, they have to let third-party ISPs do this as well - although the mechanics are unstated ("[The] Commission finds that...to the extent that each company chooses not to charge UBB rates to any existing or new retail customer, it is required to treat GAS ISPs on an equivalent basis."). Bell was about ambitious as you can get in the list of things they requested from the CRTC in these decisions. I'm not saying that I like this decision (as of March 1st I'll be paying TekSavvy more for less), but the CRTC did OK for the little guy when you see what else Bell wanted. No one - not Bell, not the CRTC - says this is a technical issue. It's not that Bell can't handle all the bandwidth people use (which require a technical ITMP, in CRTC-ese), but that they see this as a way to increase profits by charging people who use more bandwidth more money (hence it's an economic ITMP).

cal5k 16y ago

transition 16y ago

Would be interesting to see if companies like Google, who have a significant stake in a "free and open internet", could establish operations in Canada. Google wants users online as much as possible so they can continue to serve ads. It's too bad all that dark fiber they own doesn't extend into Canada.

mthoms 16y ago
Canadian telecom providers must (by law) be majority Canadian owned. So sadly no, Google could not do this.
GrooveStomp 16y ago
Google has three offices in Canada: http://www.google.com/corporate/address.html http://www.google.com/corporate/address.html

reedF211 16y ago

Socialism FTW! My province's government run ISP faught against the CRTC and is not implementing UBB. Bravo MTS!

cal5k 16y ago

Here's another reason why this is bullshit... this is an excerpt from an article I'm working on: The biggest problem with these caps is that they are, plain and simply, anticompetitive. Probably illegally so. Let’s take Bell’s internet service as an example. Bell recently rolled out their “Fibe” offerings, both for internet and IPTV. Their most accommodating plan, Fibe 25, has a ludicrously low cap of 75GB. It would be pretty easy to exceed that with HD content from iTunes, Netflix, YouTube, etc. Fibe TV, however, delivers TV over the same network. Bell even treats the IPTV traffic preferentially, as you can in this gushing review: http://www.benlucier.ca/work/tech/bell-entertainment-service-the-results-are-impressive/ http://www.benlucier.ca/work/tech/bell-entertainment-service... There’s only one minor difference: Fibe TV is not subject to the same usage caps. You can stream as many movies as you like over Fibe TV, watch as much TV as you like, and never get charged extra for the bandwidth. Well now, that’s funny. Didn’t Bell’s regulatory spokesperson say something to the contrary just the other day? Oh yeah! “A bit is a bit is a bit. If you’re a heavy user, regardless of what’s causing the heavy use, you will pay more. That’s the concept,” said Mirko Bibic, Bell Canada’s senior vice-president for regulatory affairs. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/netflix-confronting-canadian-challenges/article1866312/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/net... Yes, Mr. Bibic, it appears that all bits are equal – but some bits are more equal than others. This is a textbook case of anticompetitive behaviour, one of a long litany of recent sleazy undertakings by major Canadian telecoms (e.g. Rogers’ suspiciously well-timed lowering of caps on their most popular plans when Netflix entered the Canadian market). It is also a textbook method for successfully stifling innovation, a problem Canadians are all-too-familiar with. The Internet is now an essential service. While smart countries like South Korea, Australia, and Japan are making (or have made) large public investments in fast, ubiquitous, and unlimited Internet for all citizens, Canada continues to lurch backwards courtesy of myopic regulators, oligopolistic telecoms and a government that is unwilling to intervene for the good of all Canadians.

Swannie 16y ago
But FibeTV is bits over their private infrastructure... they can choose how to charge that, no? The other bits that they are charging for are ones that go "outside" of their network. Usage based charging will become the norm, just like with electricity, water, oil/natural gas, food. Some supermarkets carry loss leaders, why should Bell.ca not be allowed to too?

Swannie 16y ago

A much better article explaining the same issue: http://www.zeropaid.com/news/91228/crtc-ruling-could-mean-data-caps-for-all/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/91228/crtc-ruling-could-mean-da... (2010 Nov 3) Sounds like the regulator really dropped the ball on this one, giving small ISP's only 90 days to investigate possible alternatives, plan for them, and implement. 90 days?! That's insanely short. 9-12 months would have been reasonable. 90days? I'm stunned.

GrooveStomp 16y ago

I wonder how this will affect companies like Mobilicity who offer unlimited cell phone data usage for an additional $10/month. I have no idea how Mobilicity operates and whether they're dependent on Bell's infrastructure or not, and whether the infrastructure is the same for cell phones as it is for internet. A systematic breakdown on how this affects all ISPs and phone providers across all of Canada would really clarify the issue!

sheldonnbbaker 16y ago

From the CRTC website (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/INFO_SHT/t1003.htm http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/INFO_SHT/t1003.htm): "The CRTC does not regulate rates, quality of service issues or business practices of Internet service providers as they relate to retail customers. This is because there is enough competition in the market that retail customers can shop around for service packages." Yet they've completely paved the way for competition to be swallowed into oblivion. They're standing aside saying "it wasn't us - it's not our fault" and yet snickering behind our backs while they rake in the dough. Disgraceful.

itistoday 16y ago

If this actually passes, any sentiments I had about moving to Canada would evaporate. Good job guys, you're keeping the techies out.

rapind 16y ago
They also throttle our bandwidth and our taxes are ridiculously high. You'll generally have a constant feeling of being ripped off, but you get used to it eventually, and it gives you something to commiserate and bond over with fellow canadians ;)

ashchristopher 16y ago

The real kick in the junk is that the infrastructure Bell owns was paid for by the Canadian taxpayers when Bell operated as a crown corporation. Not sure if the Rogers infrastructure was publicly funded (I suspect it was in part).

hekar 16y ago

I'm really lucky to live in Waterloo, Ontario. There's a provider called Yak that offers unlimited bandwidth, non-throttled DSL up to 10MB for $60 a month (comes with non-voip phone line and 5 calling features). They have their own DSL centers and hence aren't going to be affected by this new proposition. I think we might see more companies starting their own DSL centers.

jarek 16y ago
To confirm - does Yak own their own last mile? I'm under the impression this is the crux of the issue.

fleitz 16y ago

It's not a matter of regulations, it's a matter of markets. Some companies such as Bell treat their customers like crap and just want to lock them into a long term contract. So what? There are lots of competitors who will not be doing UBB such as Telus / Shaw / Rogers. Customers on Bell just became the world's biggest internet losers. If people don't like UBB they can always switch carriers unless they were dumb enough to take Bell's crappy long term contract.

napierzaza 16y ago
You're ignorant. Everyone has to apply the UBB and no one has contracts, even Bell.
- fleitz 16y ago
  Actually I'm not. http://www.channelcanada.com/Article5436.html http://www.channelcanada.com/Article5436.html Some ISPs are not using UBB, nor have plans to implement it. http://internet.bell.ca/index.cfm?method=content.view&content_id=12184 http://internet.bell.ca/index.cfm?method=content.view&co... oh and here's an article talking about people being on 1 2 or 3 year contracts for bell internet. How could they be on contracts if no one has them?

Createideas 16y ago

Well honestly this does kind of make sense.I'll explain 1.Verizon owns the pipes an charges companies or.Facebook or NEtflix a set fee for bundled usage fee. 2.Netflix and Facebook in turn would have to charge customers basic membership or usage fees to recoup the cost of there bundled usage fees they pay Verizon. 3.Customer would pay membership fees for services that we in theory and utilize alot more because there free. In retrospect though based on the amount of members or customers of both these companies would there usage growth take that much of a hit and would those two companies still be able to operate if they were forced to change there business models and chage people just to access there content. In the case of Facebook how many members would thy have if people were required to pay say $9.99 a month to access Facebook. In the case of the Internet as a whole clearly it costs money for companies like Verizon to expand and lay new lines to meet the demands of usage.Why then would it not be right to charge the data hogs for overuse of bandwith? Society has become addicted to free and believe that content in itself should have no cost associated with it.However people don't realize the manpower,creativity and cost associated just to have that content produced. It makes sense now as to why Rupert Murdoch is against the freemium models for news via the web. I mean just think about it on a small scale just for me to write this comment.I'm paying for Internet service,heating bill,electric and other costs also.So why shoudnt I be able to pas that cost to the end user?

commanda 16y ago

Literally, I think Egyptians just became the world's biggest internet losers.

sedachv 16y ago

Canadians can sign a petition that also purports to send email on your behalf to the CRTC: http://openmedia.ca/meter http://openmedia.ca/meter I've been considering not getting Internet at my new place when I move (which is coincidentally the end of the month, when this regulation takes effect) for productivity reasons, and this cements the decision. I've been pretty happy as a Teksavvy customer otherwise.

Dramatize 16y ago

Welcome to Australia

gregsadetsky 16y ago

How expensive would it be to start a number of small independent Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs)? I'm thinking of a decentralized "movement" of geeks organizing what's required to get neighborhoods and villages online: an omnidirectional antenna high enough that Line of Sight can be provided to most residents, a high bandwidth fiber optics connection at the center, and subscriber antennas at the residences. I've tried to find more information on Motorola Canopy technology in the past days -- look at this example deployment in Nova Scotia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_for_Rural_Nova_Scotia_initiative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_for_Rural_Nova_Scotia... From what I'm gathering, Canopy can be deployed over unlicensed frequencies (2.4 and 5 Ghz), allows for hundreds of subscribers connecting to a single Access Point, can provide up bandwidth in the 5-10 Mbps range, etc. Are there particular advantages to Canopy over 802.11x? Could it become viable, with infrastructure costs spread over some years, to run a small local WISP? I'm thinking of a "Real Internet" designation/"certification" that could be given out to any ISP that follows a basic code of conduct: offers at least one unlimited transfer connection plan and does not throttle traffic. Is starting an ISP, regardless of the physical layer, overly regulated by CRTC? The Wikipedia page says "The CRTC does not regulate rates, quality of service issues, or business practices for Internet service providers" -- is that in effect true? How can anyone manage with 25 GB per month? Are Netflix or the NFB going to do something about this? If not, can "we"?

a_m0d 16y ago
Could be quite expensive. Where I live (40kms from Perth, WA, in a semi-rural area) we use this Motorola wireless technology, and the prices are astronomical - $80 for 3GB on peak and 5GB off peak. When we first signed up, we also had major stability issues (connection constantly dropping out, connection hijacked by a hacker for a few months, etc.), although things are looking better now.
- gregsadetsky 16y ago
  Thanks a lot -- do you know if you're using a 900Mhz, 2.4 or 5Ghz subscriber unit? Also, what's the distance from the ISP to you?

SaintSal 16y ago

This reminds me of when the Canadian RIAA (CRIA) successfully campaigned the Canadian government for a "levy" on all blank data media in 2002. They wanted to charge an extra $21 per GB on CDs, DVDs and hard drives in digital media player - ostensibly to cover the costs of piracy. Sound silly? Canadian legislators obliged (though it was overturned in court years later.) http://news.dmusic.com/article/4580 http://news.dmusic.com/article/4580 As I recall, this backfired since the levy eventually meant that they couldn't sue people for pirating content - they had already paid for it via the levy. Like double jeopardy. Anyway, it proved that levies like this don't actually change behaviour much. Canadians drove to the US to buy their MP3 players. Telcos benefitted by online media consumption and competed heavily for broadband subscribers. Digital lifestyles in Canada flourished. Ironically, it's now the telcos that are complaining for the same reason. The key difference now is that big telcos can use this decision to squeeze their competitors (who they also supply.) Though I can see ways that this will backfire too. The good thing about the Canadian government is that they have a history of continually watching, listening, adjusting and even backtracking if they feel they made the wrong move. I hope this keeps the telcos from abusing their new rights, and from stifling digital innovation in Canada, which hurts them too in the long run.

nl 16y ago

We have this in Australia. Here at least the situation isn't too bad, because we have competitive resellers at the ISP level[1]. The ISPs compete on service, bandwidth, data limits and inclusions. For example, many (most?) ISPs arrange peering with video providers like Tivo so video streamed on their services don't count towards the data cap. [1] There are laws to ensure that any ISP can install their equipment in the exchanges, or get access to the dominate telco's equipment at close-to-cost. Most of the time, these laws work, if slower than ideal.

jay_kyburz 16y ago
It might also be interesting to some that in Australia, where we have always had metered plans and where people have come to accept it, natural competition has seen our first unlimited plans emerge. For $60 a month TPG offers uncapped internet and phone line bundle. Even thought this may now be legal to do, Canadians may find that some ISPs still offer unlimited plans just to get ahead.
lukevdp 16y ago
Yeah, I saw this thread and thought "Wow, internet isn't billed on metered usage everywhere else in the world?"

napierzaza 16y ago

Working at a Canadian university I hear my boss say that bandwidth doubles every year for the same price. But Bell has been selling the same service (DSL) for less and less bandwidth... for a higher price every year.

DrStalker 16y ago

It's not that bad. Really. Australia has had data caps since broadband first came out; for the vast majority of of users a basic plan provides all the data they need, techy users with heavy usage patterns get higher plans, and people with the compulsion to torrent every TV in existence get plans with unmetered periods (a few ISPs don't meter traffic during the quiet periods at night) The usual behavior once you're over your data cap is to drop the internet speed down to ~64kbs for the rest of the month so even if you kill your data cap you can still access email and other low bandwidth services, you're not off completely.

westajay 16y ago
It is bad. We never started with caps in Canada so we're losing a lot. In australia you get ripped so badly for broadband it is not funny. This affects not only consumers, but also the whole tech ecosystem.. For example business models that rely on unmetered internet (think netflix, or offsite backup). It also affects people like me who have to host services in Canada (for regulatory and/or data security reasons). If I get nailed on wholesale bandwidth, I have to pass that cost onto my customers. This ruling appeared out of the blue.. Without much time to prepare contigencies.
snowwindwaves 16y ago
it is bad. australians and new zealanders get ripped on their telecommunications.

napierzaza 16y ago

I'm surprised as to how many regular people I've talked to who don't torrent and who have gone over bandwidth (with Bell). The caps are super low, even for regular users and not just the techies.

westajay 16y ago

This could snowball with a nasty public backlash. Can anyone tell me if this is specific to bell? If so, how would this affect us out west where our wholesale provider might be telus, shaw or allstream?

westajay 16y ago

This is really about conflict of interest. Perhaps it is time for regulation mandating the split of telecom from media content ownership. In Canada, the telecoms own most of the major media assets (Shaw, rogers, bell).

benregenspan 16y ago

Doesn't that title still belong to Sierra Leone? Or perhaps Liberia? http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm

mkramlich 16y ago

Selling Internet access could become something like the next oil. Almost everyone in the US has to buy oil/gas, whether directly or indirectly. Therefore, that's a good business to be in. Internet usage, both in terms of breadth and frequency and data volume, will likely keep increasing. Therefore, getting into the business of selling access to it -- especially if you can sell metered usage -- could be increasingly lucrative. And it's a growing pie. Furthermore, since so many mediums and industries are seeing their traditional cash flow streams go away due to the easy availability of free alternatives on the Internet, it makes sense that if you can't beat em, join em, and then just charge for the pipe to it all. So-called "pirates" can avoid paying for the official e-versions of digitizable media (songs, movies, images, encyclopedic info, sound effects, games, books, news, etc.) but it's much harder for them to avoid paying for the physical connection.

switch 16y ago

what an overreaction. I`m in Canada and calling Canadians the biggest Internet losers is nonsense. People who use 300 GB of data per month cost the ISP more than people who use a few GB a month. That`s just a fact of life. Should they have flexibility to charge more - Yes.

chad_oliver 16y ago

You mean that most countries don't pay per gigabyte? I live in New Zealand, and there's only one company with an unlimited broadband package, and that's only with a two-year contract. The norm in New Zealand is to pay for say, 20GB per month, and if you exceed that then you drop down to dial-up speed (or pay for more). With all due respect to the Canadians here, it's not really that bad at all. Life goes on, and it actually seems to be a pretty good life too.

forensic 16y ago
>With all due respect to the Canadians here, it's not really that bad at all. Life goes on, and it actually seems to be a pretty good life too. You do realize you are being horribly ripped off? It's true that life goes on, even for slaves.

dhughes 16y ago

This is going to suck, software gets bloated far faster than network hardware can be developed and certainly faster than network hardware can be installed. New services such as Netflix and who knows what else is coming down the line (3D Netflix movies?) are going to use up your overpriced bandwidth faster than your ISP can evolve, they'll just charge more for the same service. This will be like when video became popular when everyone was still on 56kbps modems, the web developed faster than the hardware meant to use it and it will stall development. Why develop when there isn't anyone using it or able to use it? In the end people will do what they have to when they only have a limited amount of disposable income, ISPs will see people spend $50 for 10Mbps service and when the ISPs increase the monthly bill by a $1 here and a $1 there (to serve us better) consumers will get the 5Mbps service for $50.

thangalin 16y ago

while true; do wget http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/publications/reports/policymonitoring/2010/cmr2010.pdf; rm cmr2010.pdf; done Signed, Japan ($9/month unlimited Internet access)

efsavage 16y ago

The most dangerous problem isn't the markup or extra cost, it's that as soon as UBB is old news, the media companies that are now also the internet companies (comcast/nbc) will offer discounts on "in network" bandwidth, so an NBC show will cost you the regular 1.99, but a movie from another network, or an independent production will cost you extra. I'd be all in favor of this kind of pricing if it was anything resembling an open market, like how the cell phone industry had/has major downward price pressure, but there are far fewer choices when it comes to wires into your house, so the local monopoly effects are very strong.