Considering how bone headed the original caps were, I have a feeling this isn't over.
UBB overturned - Canada no longer biggest internet loser.
51–60 of 83 posts
Re: UBB overturned - Canada no longer biggest internet loser.
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean New Zealand, right?
New Zealand is rather isolated geographically, it's expensive to build infrastructure on the periphery of the network. This is true for the South Pacific islands in general. This is a snapshot of the current undersea infrastructure in the Australia-New Zealand area: http://i.imgur.com/K1t4y.png
Right. And the expense is(/was?) typically picked up by the isolated edge node rather than shared between the two end points.
ie: There's a lot more value to New Zealand in connecting to the rest of the internet, than for the internet to connect to New Zealand.
Re: UBB overturned - Canada no longer biggest internet loser.
#53The second half of this article reads like it was written by Bell or Rogers. The problem with UBB is not caps, per se, but the fact that the caps were absurdly small and overage fees grossly exceeded the cost of bandwidth. Not to mention that they were introduced at the same time as Netflix launched in Canada, and the providers' own TV-over-IP services were exempt. I dumped my $120/mo Bell Expressvu subscription last…
The second half of this article reads like it was written by Bell or Rogers. Indeed. There were a few lines which particularly stood out to me as having been written by someone who doesn't really get the situation: > To encourage competition, major telecom operators that have spent heavily on infrastructure are required to lease bandwidth on their networks to small providers. I get that the system is maintained by th…
A random nitpick that you might find interesting: in fact unused electricity is not "simply lost." Where would it go? Because of the law of conservation of energy, it would have to go somewhere, and we're talking about what might be a lot of energy.
Electrical systems actually must generate exactly the required amount of electricity at all times. One particularly interesting tidbit I learned in one of my engineering classes: hydro dams are like giant capacitors. If you can't "push" more energy into the power grid, then you also can't push more water through the turbines; it gets harder to turn the turbines due to electromagnetism. And so the dam starts to fill up, more or less automatically, because of the laws of physics.
Re: UBB overturned - Canada no longer biggest internet loser.
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
The second half of this article reads like it was written by Bell or Rogers. Indeed. There were a few lines which particularly stood out to me as having been written by someone who doesn't really get the situation: > To encourage competition, major telecom operators that have spent heavily on infrastructure are required to lease bandwidth on their networks to small providers. I get that the system is maintained by th…
I agree that the caps were low and the overage rates seemed high, but it's not actually about the incremental cost of delivering the next gigabyte, it's about the cost of building an infrastructure that can handle hundreds of thousands of people using Netflix all at once at peak capacity. That's an entirely different calculation. Also, at Bell you can buy 40GB extra for $5 if you pay in advance, which equals $0.125/G…
The fact that you can buy "overage insurance" is telling and shows that UBB isn't about capacity, but instead a new revenue stream. If there was a legitimate concern regarding bandwidth and infrastructure, insurance wouldn't be offered and there would be hard limits to usage.
Re: UBB overturned - Canada no longer biggest internet loser.
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
The second half of this article reads like it was written by Bell or Rogers. Indeed. There were a few lines which particularly stood out to me as having been written by someone who doesn't really get the situation: > To encourage competition, major telecom operators that have spent heavily on infrastructure are required to lease bandwidth on their networks to small providers. I get that the system is maintained by th…
A random nitpick that you might find interesting: in fact unused electricity is not "simply lost." Where would it go? Because of the law of conservation of energy, it would have to go somewhere, and we're talking about what might be a lot of energy. Electrical systems actually must generate exactly the required amount of electricity at all times. One particularly interesting tidbit I learned in one of my engineering…
Well, now I feel like an idiot. That comment was based on a poorly recalled statement regarding the ineffectiveness of Earth Hour. If you don't use electricity, it'll flow to the next guy, so your lack of use doesn't really have any effect. Still, you need to generate enough electricity to cover everyone's potential needs. Whether that electricity is used or not (where not means that unused electricity dissipates as heat or.. whatever happens to unused electicity?), it still needs to be available, and at a cost. Unused bandwidth doesn't need to be generated. It's simply a quiet line.
Thanks for reintroducing logic to my brain. The rest of my argument mostly holds up though, right?
Re: UBB overturned - Canada no longer biggest internet loser.
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's safe to say that, with two major reversals in a year, the CRTC has lost any credibility it may have had (although it did not have much to lose). My vote would be for dissolution - maybe then they can create a regulator that actually employs people who understand what they're regulating.
What was the other major reversal? I'm a bit out of the loop.
The decision to block Wind Mobile from operating as it didn't meet Canadian ownership requirements.
Re: UBB overturned - Canada no longer biggest internet loser.
#57I'm annoyed that I didn't even know about UBB until earlier today, when I stumbled across Reddit Montreal and saw something about the organization of a protest. Then again I'm getting all my news from here and Slashdot these days - haven't watched any TV in ages. My ISP already posted up new rates conforming to UBB - if it does get overturned, I hope they'll return to the old rates: $29 a month for unlimited bandwidt…
Yeah, the sub-reddits are what make Reddit great. If you are stuck reading the default front page, you're doing yourself a great disservice. Browse through, there are a lot of excellent sub-reddits.
Re: UBB overturned - Canada no longer biggest internet loser.
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
The second half of this article reads like it was written by Bell or Rogers. Indeed. There were a few lines which particularly stood out to me as having been written by someone who doesn't really get the situation: > To encourage competition, major telecom operators that have spent heavily on infrastructure are required to lease bandwidth on their networks to small providers. I get that the system is maintained by th…
A random nitpick that you might find interesting: in fact unused electricity is not "simply lost." Where would it go? Because of the law of conservation of energy, it would have to go somewhere, and we're talking about what might be a lot of energy. Electrical systems actually must generate exactly the required amount of electricity at all times. One particularly interesting tidbit I learned in one of my engineering…
One particularly interesting tidbit I learned in one of my engineering classes: hydro dams are like giant capacitors. If you can't "push" more energy into the power grid, then you also can't push more water through the turbines; it gets harder to turn the turbines due to electromagnetism.
In dynamo-generated power it's harder to turn the tubines when the electricity is "used," that is, when there is current flowing. The more current that is flowing the harder they are to turn.
Turning the wires of the coil in the magnetic field sets up an emf. If you allow that emf to drive a current, you now have current-carrying wires moving through a magnetic field feeling a force opposite their motion. This is felt as resistance by whatever is driving the turbine. So, when you "use" the electricity the turbines are harder to turn, not easier.
This also makes sense in terms of conservation of energy. You are taking the energy out of the water and using it to power the users connected to the electric grid. The more power you want to supply, the more you must take out of the water (or steam, if you are using steam to drive the turbines).
So the inability to push more water through the turbine is due to the turbine delivering max current (that is, it is at full load). Any less load means less current and less resistance.
In fact I understand (not an expert on their construction) that it is a problem when the load reduces at some types of plants because you are still driving the turbines with the same fuel but their resistance drops. You have to adjust the fuel to the turbines to keep everything balanced.
With Nukes this may be a slow processess, so that is perhaps why you hear of plants "dumping" energy-- using it in some (wasted) way just to keep the current in the coils high enough to provide resistance to whatever is driving the turbines.
I've heard of places that pump water into elevated storage so as to use it again when demand suddenly picks up- kind of a capacitor effect- but I don't know anything about it first-hand.
Re: UBB overturned - Canada no longer biggest internet loser.
#59The second half of this article reads like it was written by Bell or Rogers. The problem with UBB is not caps, per se, but the fact that the caps were absurdly small and overage fees grossly exceeded the cost of bandwidth. Not to mention that they were introduced at the same time as Netflix launched in Canada, and the providers' own TV-over-IP services were exempt. I dumped my $120/mo Bell Expressvu subscription last…
Not to mention that they were introduced at the same time as Netflix launched in Canada, and the providers' own TV-over-IP services were exempt.
Caps were in place on the vast majority of Canadian connections (meaning direct customers of Bell, Telus, Rogers, Cogeco, etc) long before Netflix came to Canada. The UBB decision impacted a very small number of customers on services like TekSavvy.
Not saying it's right, but just want some context in there.
Further, I hope you can appreciate how a provider's own internet services don't carry the same demands and costs as an outside source. Though perhaps they should be forced to allow Netflix to colocate a distribution server in each of their distribution points to deal with that.
Re: UBB overturned - Canada no longer biggest internet loser.
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Liberals may be forcing an election soon, and after tens of thousands of complaint emails, the decision was an easy way to gain a couple percentage points in the polls. This was a no-brainer for the incumbent Conservatives, but their swiftness in resolving the issue was really impressive.
They weren't particularly swift. Every other party had come out strongly against UBB while the conservatives would only say they would be "paying close attention" to the ruling. This was simply such a wildly unpopular decision that it would have been political suicide to support it, and once every other party had come out against it the Conservatives couldn't be the only ones not to do so. The Conservatives are well-…
They weren't particularly swift. Every other party had come out strongly against UBB while the conservatives would only say they would be "paying close attention" to the ruling.
Opposition parties are always quick in reacting because there is little to be lost. They get zero credit for that.
This was simply such a wildly unpopular decision that it would have been political suicide to support it
Again, let's be rational here- the UBB decision impacted a very small number of users (although its competitive impact may have been larger over the longer term). Further there is a political risk in taking action like this in that now the opposition has the ammo to say "Well can't you let the experts do their job? Isn't this what they're supposed to do?" (see also: Census).
It isn't as clear cut as you proclaim at all. Now Bell can intentionally cripple their pipes for a bit, blame bandwidth hogs, and the Consveratives will be in hot water.