Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers. • Hacker News Board

Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

#211

Post by pyre » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 6:54 AM UTC

gabbo wrote: post #193

pyre wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it was when I was living in Toronto, the last-mile lines are owned by either Bell (DSL/Phone) or Rogers (Cable). Both of those companies are the Canadian telecom heavy-weights. Rogers does: cable tv, ip phone over cable (ala Comcast in the US), cable internet (which IIRC it own the only coax last-mile lines in the areas where it is a monopoly -- I think that west Canada has a different cable monopoly), the only gs…

A few things to add though you painted a pretty good picture: - Shaw is the cable monopoly in the west. Shaw used to have a presence in Ontario but they did a big asset swap about 10 years ago. - A few areas have different cable monopolies but they're vastly smaller than Rogers/Shaw. Cogeco and Videotron, I think. - Beyond Rogers (who bought Microcell a.k.a. Fido) and the smaller players, Bell and Telus actually team…

- I was under the impression that Bell owned Telus or something similar.

- I heard about the GSM network, but IIRC there is some sort of transition period going on right now. Also, I've heard varying reports about it. I wasn't sure if they actually had a GSM network or if people were talking about them not using CDMA for 3G internet.

Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

#212

Post by a_m0d » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 7:02 AM UTC

Maxious wrote: post #44

acangiano wrote: post #24

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 d…

FYI in australia the pricing is pretty similar: 1.00 AUD = 0.994493 CAD, $40AUD = 40GB, $80AUD = 250GB, $100AUD = 350GB

That really depends on where you are - I live in a semi-rural area, 40kms out of Perth, and right on the border of 2 ADSL exchanges. We're not in range for either of them, so we have to resort to wireless internet: $80/month for 3GB on peak, 5GB off peak. There is nothing else available here (including 4G wireless).

Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

#213

Post by spitfire » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 7:15 AM UTC

gamble wrote: post #194

spitfire wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually gotten a bill from them yet? My bill is the same $47/mo it's been for a while. I don't have a tv.

I have. They are enforcing it now.

Where are you located?

Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

#214

Post by Ras_ » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 7:29 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #108

neonfunk wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with metering; I think it's the only fair measure. Granted, the metering you describe sounds atrocious, and there'll probably be a long messy transition to the point where our internet bill is more like our electric bill. But imagine this: on mobile networks, instead of voice minutes, text messages, data caps, fees for tethering, and every other scheme the Telcos are concocting right now (with regard…

A basic 20 Mbit connection goes for about $75 in Europe, that's 1.1 ct / Gigabyte (if my back-of-the-envelope math is correct). 40 Mbit goes for about $100 / month. Metered is out, flat-rate is the future. The only hold-outs will be the mobile carriers and even there I already see flat-rate offerings. $5 or $10 / month would not work due to fixed costs and write-off on equipment higher than that. But once the equipme…

N. Europe:

I have 110/10M (cable-tv network) in Finland for $53. More widely available 24/1M DSL goes for $46. Usage caps are unheard of in cabled internet.

Cheap, non-capped mobile internet has recently exploded - caps will be introduced. Our biggest telco TeliaSonera has only capped versions since the launch of iPhone (they were were forced and willing to pay extra). Other companies haven't introduced restrictions, but since Android-based smartphones became popular in 2010 and currently log the most data usage per unit, this will soon change.

Mobile internet is also very popular with plain computers by using 3G usb-dongles, which telcos give free of charge when you sign up for 12/24 months. Typical offer is uncapped 384k for $6.7 or 1M for $12 (actual rates vary often due to congestion - p2p users are a major pain in the butt with 3G networks). These are available nationwide with no geological price differentiation.

In Sweden broadband is quite much cheaper. The government has been heavily involved in building fiber with subsidies, tax breaks and legal requirements to municipal providers. (IT Bill 2000) http://www.broad-band.gr/content/events/docs/Swedish_broadba...

Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

#215

Post by a_m0d » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 7:30 AM UTC

gregsadetsky wrote: post #124

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 residence…

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.

Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

#216

Post by gregsadetsky » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 7:32 AM UTC

a_m0d wrote: post #215

gregsadetsky wrote: post #124

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 residence…

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.

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?

Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

#217

Post by thangalin » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 7:48 AM UTC

    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)

Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

#218

Post by a_m0d » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 7:52 AM UTC

gregsadetsky wrote: post #216

a_m0d wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

No idea. This is a really bad ISP who seem to get nothing but complaints - they assume that all their users are really dumb, so their technical FAQ (http://oceanbroadband.net/info/faq.html) states only that they use a proprietary system from Motorola Canopy Wireless. As for the distance from the exchange, I think we are about 10kms away, but once again I'm not entirely sure.

Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

#219

Post by cookiecaper » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 8:26 AM UTC

gregsadetsky wrote: post #124

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 residence…

Wireless sucks if the carriers around here are any indication. My brother-in-law uses one and his connection has been throttled twice already for using too much bandwidth during peak hours -- and his usage is relatively small. The normal download rates are slow, a little less than normal DSL speeds (150k-200k) and the upload rates slower. You have to put up an antenna. They firewall you at their place and you have to call to get ports opened.

Really there's no competition to cable. Comcast is the only decent provider around here, it's much faster than DSL. Sucks.

Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

#220

Post by cookiecaper » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 8:37 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #170

acangiano wrote: post #24

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 d…

I've always thought it funny that people who use 250+GB of data class themselves as 'not heavy internet users'. "I don't torrent" != light internet use. What do most people torrent? Movies and TV. And yet there you are doing lots of HD video while claiming you're not a heavy user ("I don't torrent", "I simply..."). Out of curiosity, what level of bandwidth usage do you think quantifies a heavy user?

Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, and YouTube are redefining heavy internet usage. My brother-in-law (who lives with us for the moment) recently got Netflix hooked up on his Xbox and he uses 10-11 GB if he watches all day or 5-6 if he watches for a few hours.

My normal usage, downloading updates for my PCs (Arch Linux, so heavy ones come often), browsing, watching a handful of videos, doing git pulls, lots of text-heavy sites like HN and docs, etc. plus my wife's normal usage, which is YouTube and Facebook, usually ends up somewhere around 700MB-1GB of usage per day. When I torrented from home, the average consumption was maybe 2GB-4GB per day, so Netflix is even more taxing than that for me.

As the web becomes increasingly media intensive, the "normal user" threshold of The cable companies, which incidentally are usually the only good residential ISPs, are going to lose cable subscriptions to Netflix subscriptions and on-demand rentals to iTunes rentals, and consequently we'll see moves like this one seeking to penalize net-based media providers since they take customers away from their TV offerings.