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

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

#41

Post by xxpor » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 4:55 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #6

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…

As an American, I'm not very familiar with the telco situation in Canada. Is Bell related to AT&T (the old one)? Do they have a approved monopoly over all phone service, ala AT&T way back when (by this I mean do they carry all calls at some point, even if its only as a wholesale co)?

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

#42

Post by MikeCapone » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 4:57 PM UTC

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.

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

#43

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 4:58 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #41

jacquesm wrote: post #6

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…

As an American, I'm not very familiar with the telco situation in Canada. Is Bell related to AT&T (the old one)? Do they have a approved monopoly over all phone service, ala AT&T way back when (by this I mean do they carry all calls at some point, even if its only as a wholesale co)?

> Do they have a approved monopoly over all phone service, ala AT&T way back when (by this I mean do they carry all calls at some point, even if its only as a wholesale co)?

Not any more, as far as I know. But because there are plenty of restrictions on infrastructure installations and because Bell simply owns all the infrastructure that was invested in in the past Bell effectively has a finger in every pie and as a provider it is almost impossible to get around them.

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

#44

Post by Maxious » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:01 PM UTC

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

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

#45

Post by Nobido » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:03 PM UTC

yoyar wrote: post #14

coryl wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

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 asp…

At the same time, you shouldn't confuse a regulatory system that gives corporations whatever they want with socialism. If there was no crtc, they would already be billing this way. It's a lot harder for a free market to curb monopolies in Canada, as we are a vast and comparatively sparsely populated country. I would imagine the cost of setting up an infrastructure across the country for so few users would not be viable for a small startup company. If it were not for the crtc, bell would never ever have shared their infrastructure with smaller companies and the free market would have delivered us a monopoly for sure.

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

#46

Post by xxpor » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:03 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #43

xxpor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I'm not very familiar with the telco situation in Canada. Is Bell related to AT&T (the old one)? Do they have a approved monopoly over all phone service, ala AT&T way back when (by this I mean do they carry all calls at some point, even if its only as a wholesale co)?

> Do they have a approved monopoly over all phone service, ala AT&T way back when (by this I mean do they carry all calls at some point, even if its only as a wholesale co)? Not any more, as far as I know. But because there are plenty of restrictions on infrastructure installations and because Bell simply owns all the infrastructure that was invested in in the past Bell effectively has a finger in every pie and as a…

Hmm. I can't imagine what advantage there is to having tight restrictions on building out infrastructure. It seems like it could only help.

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

#47

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:07 PM UTC

ergo98 wrote: post #38

jacquesm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 landline…

Your complaint seemed to be entirely based upon the difficulties in getting broadband in a sparsely populated area. And then some big telco coming in to try to undermine it. We've seen the same story again and again, over the globe. There is nothing unique to Canada in that. As to Bell being a monopoly, that's a bit laughable of a concept now. I haven't used any Bell services for personal use in well over a decade, d…

I don't know who keeps modding you down, you certainly are 'adding to the conversation', sorry about that.

> Your complaint seemed to be entirely based upon the difficulties in getting broadband in a sparsely populated area.

No, it is mostly centered around Bell playing dirty. Getting broadband in a sparsely populated area is just an example of how they use their resources. Using the legal system to put the squeeze on other ISPs is another.

> And then some big telco coming in to try to undermine it.

If the big telco is the only game in town then that changes matters considerably.

> We've seen the same story again and again, over the globe. There is nothing unique to Canada in that.

I live in a rural European area right now, where I live I can choose from > 10 broadband providers with packages up to 20 Mbit/sec.

> As to Bell being a monopoly, that's a bit laughable of a concept now.

Bell still has an effective monopoly on infrastructure and that is what this article is about, charges that Bell levies on ISPs that are more or less forced to do business with Bell, we're not talking about a consumer monopoly, even though they still profit plenty from their former monopoly in that field.

> As to Canada's situation, it regularly ranks in the top tier of broadband penetration and broadband speeds.

The situation here is somewhat skewed because a large amount of the Canadian population lives in a very small total area of the country.

> It sounds like you're the one using your anecdote inappropriately, because actual metrics refute you.

No, it just underscores the issue. For the record, I've also lived in Toronto (King Street) and it is the contrast between the two that strikes me as placing the rural areas at a deliberate disadvantage. If anything Bell should do everything in its power to level the playing field given the monetary advantages they've been allowed to have.

> You're conflating issues. Because of the in-the-ground angle, companies are allowed to terminate twisted-pairs at the switching station, providing their own voice or data services. We recently hooked up a backup high-speed ADSL line, the line provided by Bell, with the data provided by Cogent. There is nothing changing in that.

Exactly. So how much choice did cogent have in using Bell infrastructure in order to reach you?

> What is changing is if Bogent terminated that line, but instead of providing their own infrastructure they simply leached off of Bell's. That was put in during the "Soviet style" control.

They did not 'leach of Bells', they have very little choice. Bell owns the roads, if you want your cars on them you'll have to pay toll.

> Again, this is all a bunch of people inventing a reality where they can have their free lunch.

I really disagree with you there, if they were free to lay their own fiber then that would be one thing but as long as they have no way around Bell they should not be squeezed like this.

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

#48

Post by mustpax » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:07 PM UTC

JeffJenkins wrote: post #5

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…

The situation is much more complicated than that. Smaller ISPs only piggy back on Bell's telephone lines only in the so-called last mile of the connection. The resellers have their own DSLAM equipment at the switchboards and they have to make their own peering arrangements to the rest of the internet. Bell's telephone lines have been (still are) heavily subsidized by the government, which is why the government is requiring Bell to share the last mile in the first place. This last bit of regulation nullifies any pro-competitive effects of sharing the last mile.

Owning critical communications infrastructure is not Bell Canada's god given right.

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

#49

Post by yoyar » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:13 PM UTC

uytrtyui wrote: post #30

yoyar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 asp…

>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.

I was referring to the hardware. Not the set of supplier corporations that are intertwined with the state.

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

#50

Post by ergo98 » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:17 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #47

ergo98 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your complaint seemed to be entirely based upon the difficulties in getting broadband in a sparsely populated area. And then some big telco coming in to try to undermine it. We've seen the same story again and again, over the globe. There is nothing unique to Canada in that. As to Bell being a monopoly, that's a bit laughable of a concept now. I haven't used any Bell services for personal use in well over a decade, d…

I don't know who keeps modding you down, you certainly are 'adding to the conversation', sorry about that. > Your complaint seemed to be entirely based upon the difficulties in getting broadband in a sparsely populated area. No, it is mostly centered around Bell playing dirty. Getting broadband in a sparsely populated area is just an example of how they use their resources. Using the legal system to put the squeeze o…

In the Cogent example, Bell is legally required to let Cogent use their loop for a low maintenance cost. That is not what this issue is about, and nothing about that has changed or will change.

The case here is that these small ISPs are not only terminating the loop, they're also using Bell's pipes beyond the termination, with contracts that were enforced when Bell really was a bonafide monopoly. There are actually a lot of competitive options when you're looking for bulk bandwidth, will Bell being a small, small player.