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Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.

thetyee.ca

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

#61

Post by axod »

jacquesm wrote: post #34
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…

There is a reason why lots of technical people from Canada seek to find their fortune in the United States.

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.

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

#62

Post by transition »

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.

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

#63

Post by blub »

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…

So much for 'the cloud' and ubiquitous broadband. Next time I see someone mention that such and such iPhone app can be made as a web app I'll point them here. Web apps are at the mercy of so many third parties...

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

#64

Post by GrooveStomp »

samatman wrote: post #56
wildmXranat wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Most online services that have a presence in Canadian market will start to see cuts in their revenue. I was using NetFlix, but no longer. Many of my friends and co-workers are not using Dropbox for backup anymore. It makes no sense. Many went back to good old fashioned portable drives. In addition to purchasing less of online services, many people that I know refuse to buy anything from Bell and Rogers. No cable…

A total OT, but is "pardon my French" at all PC in Canada? Serious question!

I suspect it is. I've heard the term used and nobody's batted an eye. Could be because we're on the west coast, though.

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

#65

Post by cal5k »

JimmyL wrote: post #58

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 ) and ( 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…

This is EXACTLY what regulatory capture is all about. Bell knows the game and played it masterfully.

Ask for the moon - ask for really ridiculous things, but expect to only get half of those things. The CRTC, wanting to seem "reasonable" and "balanced", meets Bell halfway. Unfortunately, halfway towards Bell's ridiculous agenda is still absolutely terrible for consumers, a perspective that the CRTC has utterly failed to consider.

This is a classic problem, one that recently contributed to the Gulf oil spill as well (and resulted in the disbanding of the regulator, just as the CRTC should be disbanded or, at the very least, stripped of its ability to regulate the internet).

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

#66

Post by jacquesm »

ergo98 wrote: post #54
jacquesm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bell is legally required to let Cogent use their loop for a low maintenance cost. Yes, that's because they own all the lines and Cogent has no other way to sign you up as a customer in a way that would be worth their while. > 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 bonaf…

So, again, what choice do they have? Twisted-pair sucks , actually, and Bell's monopoly is on dead technology. We only use it as a backup line in a worst case situation. We actually had a number of options, which is what we used for our primary line. Though I'm not even sure what your point is. If that were really true don't you think these ISPs would switch to those competitors with their 'competitive options' inste…

> Twisted-pair sucks, actually

The reason we're having this debate is because twisted pair easily does 20MBit these days.

> and Bell's monopoly is on dead technology.

Not quite dead. Maybe not on par with fiber to the home, but not all that bad either.

ITU G.992.5 Annex M: 24 Mbit/s down, 3.3 Mbit/s up.

> Though I'm not even sure what your point is.

I think we can agree on that :)

ISPs on metered billing is going about 10 years back, I really can't see any justification for it.

> keep up with this ridiculous illusion that Bell has any ounce of a provider monopoly in Canada.

You've provided more examples of that than I have actually.

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

#67

Post by noarchy »

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.

Unless something has changed, you still cannot get a Kindle from amazon.ca. Instead, you've got to go through amazon.com, and there are restrictions on the books that you can buy, if you do it in Canada.

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

#69

Post by cal5k »

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...

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/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.

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

#70

Post by Swannie »

A much better article explaining the same issue:

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.

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