Bell Canada vs the citizens of Canada

[Ferno]

Apparently, Bell thought it was a good idea to institute UBB (usage based billing) on their wholesale lines to charge their customers.

Needless to say, the citizens flipped right the hell out and the CRTC chair got torn a new one.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/canbroadband
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2009/2009-484.htm
http://www.financialpost.com/related/to ... story.html


We've got 60 days to push Bell's antiquated disinformation back into the hole it came out of.

[Blaze]

Limited internet would make sense iff the (fair) monthly price were based on the cost of using it 24/7. That way if you don't use it much you hardly pay anything.

[Ferno]

gee, for a lot of strong willed people here, you guys are being awfully quiet about this.

[Alter-Fox]

Not too many Canadians here. Kind of means not too many people who care. Stephen Harper doesn't like it apparently... is that a good sign or does he have some ulterior motive? Is he looking at this board right now?

I wonder if I can give myself a custom title now?
Scourge of the Limefrost Spiral System.

[CDN_Merlin]

This only impacts small ISPs who give out unlimited packages to clients. Doens't affect anyone who is a user of Rogers/Shaw or Bell as they don't have unlimited packages.

[Alter-Fox]

I wonder where large regional providers like MTS fit in? Kind of important since that's what my family uses (though switching back to Shaw wouldn't be too hard).

[Krom]

There is good reason for everyone to keep an eye on this situation, even if you aren't in Canada. The service providers in the USA (and many other parts of the world with a similar anti-competitive landscape) have been salivating at the idea of forcing this same punitive low cap high overage billing model on the market as well. In fact Time Warner Cable and AT&T have already tried once in the US, fortunately it was quickly shot down by public outcry.

You have to see the truth that ISPs and media conglomerates are trying to bury behind lies of "network neutrality", "congestion" and the "exaflood". Movie studios, cable/television networks, cable providers and ISPs are frequently one and the same, which means they all have a common and disruptive competitor/enemy that they desperately want to crush: Netflix. For $8/mo you can stream unlimited movies and TV shows from over most high speed internet services in the US, the problem is that the ISP which often has a stake in paid TV service doesn't get any of that $8 to keep for themselves (never mind how profitable they already are). The ISPs have been complaining about how it taxes their system, or it causes congestion, or there will be an exaflood/internet brownout, which is all rather amusing since in many of the cases it is because the ISPs have been deliberately degrading the performance of Netflix in an attempt to keep people from using it.

The entire UBB (Usage Based Billing) debacle is all about turf protection and has virtually nothing to do with network resources or available bandwidth. Unlike your water/gas/electric utility which deals in a finite resource, bandwidth on the internet is effectively infinite, adding more and faster links to the congested areas is child's play to an internet service provider. UBB on an infinite resource just doesn't make sense, it isn't like people are going to run out of it! It is only there because ISPs and their media empire ownership hate Netflix and the internet in general because it draws people away from watching paid TV so they want to punish the users by charging absolutely ridiculous overages (over 100 times the actual cost) on bandwidth used by Netflix and other competitors. The real kicker is at the same time these ISPs are developing their own internet video streaming services similar to Netflix. These ISP owned services are completely inferior products that are deliberately limited in order to drive more customers towards a more profitable full paid TV subscription. And they actually cost the ISPs MORE to implement because they have to do the whole thing end to end, yet these sub-par walled garden products that couldn't possibly beat Netflix in a fair and open market can get away with it because they don't count towards the monthly bandwidth meters (How network neutral is that eh?).

If bandwidth was really as expensive as ISPs and media empires are making it out to be in the UBB debate, Netflix would never be able to afford their streaming service. Netflix pays for bandwidth just like everyone else and can easily afford serving up dozens of 5+ GB high definition movies per month to subscribers for just $8. The economics of the network simply do not reflect the low cap high overage UBB model that ISPs are pushing as necessary in order to stay in business. The ISPs are simply using their duopoly/monopoly position to try and force a disruptive competitor out of business which should be illegal.

[Ferno]

This only impacts small ISPs who give out unlimited packages to clients. Doens't affect anyone who is a user of Rogers/Shaw or Bell as they don't have unlimited packages.

If you look at bell and rogers packages, they had 60 and 15GB caps respectively for their 3MBit packages, $2.00/GB and $4.00/GB for overage respectively.

It's absolutely abusive and if I were you merlin, I'd be creating a hornet storm.

[Krom]

This only impacts small ISPs who give out unlimited packages to clients. Doens't affect anyone who is a user of Rogers/Shaw or Bell as they don't have unlimited packages.

Yeah, meaning Rogers/Shaw and Bell already rip you off, and now they are trying to get their lap dog the CRTC to outlaw the competition...

[snoopy]

I am intersted to see how this plays out.

I compare it to cable television. Think about it: you pay $100 a month to get more channels of the same commercial-ridden shows as you can get on broadcast tv. I dropped cable when I bought a house, and am pricipally opposed to it. I'd be willing to pay a low per-usage or per-channel fee to get the extra channels that I want, but I hate having to sign up for a package of 100 channels just to get the one that I want.

Good news is that Comcast is going to get ruled against soon, releasing CSN philly to the all of the competition, at which point I'll look into satelite.

Per-usage charges are okay if you're serving web pages and are generating terabytes-worth of traffic. They're not okay if the average user is going to incur them.

I have hope for the american way. If the monster media companies get too big, someone else will come along with a slick ad campaign and a cheaper product, and win out until they get too big for their own good.

[Krom]

People ask what "net neutrality" is all about, the answer is: Think about how much you hate the forced channel bundles on cable TV... Now apply that same model to the internet, that is what ISPs are trying to implement, and what the honest net neutrality people are trying to prevent.

If you want the really worthwhile channels, you have to subsidize about 80-200 crappy or downright horrible ones you couldn't care less about. ISPs want to carve up the internet and turn it into exactly the same kind of system, where they call all the shots and people have no freedom and it is more expensive for less stuff. If they can pull it off, you would be better off getting your internet access from China because it will be less restrictive.

[CUDA]

Good news is that Comcast is going to get ruled against soon, releasing CSN philly to the all of the competition, at which point I'll look into satelite.

Ya it's the same thing here. CSNW which broadcasts the Blazers games has exclusive rights, so if I want to watch a game I need to get comcast. hell I cant even buy NBA league pass because they blackout local market games.
I'm willing to pay the $100 a month ONLY so I can watch my team. otherwise I'd go right back to Dish.

[Isaac]

Once more! Everyone on the forum should read this.

People ask what "net neutrality" is all about, the answer is: Think about how much you hate the forced channel bundles on cable TV... Now apply that same model to the internet, that is what ISPs are trying to implement, and what the honest net neutrality people are trying to prevent.

[Neo]

net neutrality that had to be the biggest computing buzz word of 2010 -.-

[Sirius]

I have been seriously considering dropping the cable portion of my Comcast subscription myself, actually. It barely has anything I want to watch on it, and much of what it does have is being cancelled by the networks in question anyway. Haven't got a Netflix subscription yet (watching movies? Time for that? I wish), but plan to ... and between that and Hulu, I can't think of a great deal I'd be actually missing. Well, yeah, there's sports, but the few things I actually want to watch are rarely televised anyway because I'm in the wrong market...

[Isaac]

net neutrality that had to be the biggest computing buzz word of 2010 -.-

Yet I'm amazed at how few actually understand the issue...
edit:
In fact, someone on this forum said net neutrality was bad because the government shouldn't pay for your net connection. Clearly that person did not understand the issue at that time. Imagine how many others, who aren't very internet savy, don't understand the issue.

[Ferno]

more developments:

http://www.tvo.org/TVO/WebObjects/TVO.w ... 0946792001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r254724 ... PRO-active" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r254716 ... t~start=40" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

so far, the fight is turning in our favour, but knowing who we're up against, the big telcos will put more money into their side of the UBB issue and try and sway support in their favour. Can't let that happen.

[Burlyman]

net neutrality that had to be the biggest computing buzz word of 2010 -.-

Yet I'm amazed at how few actually understand the issue...
edit:
In fact, someone on this forum said net neutrality was bad because the government shouldn't pay for your net connection. Clearly that person did not understand the issue at that time. Imagine how many others, who aren't very internet savvy, don't understand the issue.

Isn't this what always happens with computing buzz words?

[Alter-Fox]

Isn't this what always happens with computing buzz words?

Isn't it the point of buzzwords? People don't understand and so less people are against something that could be controversial.

[seeker3]

I live in BC and have used Shaw and Telus in the past,but after finding my current provider,I would definitely not go back.I get 3mb service for $29.95 and can upgrade to 6mb for less than $5.00 a month.No caps and no throttling:)We are so far behind as far as Internet service goes,and the monopoly these companies like Bell,Shaw,Rogers,etc have makes me sick.The CRTC is a dinosaur which doesn't improve the situation at all.When I read about some of the speeds and prices that some countries have,it really shows how far behind the times both us and our neighbors to the south really are.And don't get me started on our archaic rules concerning streaming movies and tv shows from the states.It's no wonder a lot of Americans think we all live in igloos and eat seals and have snow 365 days a year! That's my rant for the day,LOL.

[Sirius]

Strangely, the internet speeds I got in Richmond, BC were about the same as in Bellevue, WA - but with less latency. Maybe just lucky...