Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.
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Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.
#2Seems like the CRTC needs to find a way to remain relevant. This is central planning, socialist style. I hope everyone enjoys it.
Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.
#3Iv'e been following this debate, but it's been difficult to find actual facts.
Right now with Telus (Canadian dsl ISP) i pay for 125gb transfer a month and $2/gb if I go over. Yes, the overage charge is insane but it's been like that for a long time.
As far as I can tell, the issue is that the big ISPs (tells, Rogers, bell) all have caps/overage, but the smaller ISPs that piggyback on their network can offer unlimited data transfer. This new ruling seems to 'even the playing field'.
I want the Internet to be free and unlimited as the next guy, but I have yet to understand what the big deal is here.
Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.
#4Seems like the CRTC needs to find a way to remain relevant. This is central planning, socialist style. I hope everyone enjoys it.
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'.
Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.
#5This 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 getting bandwidth from Bell, this is totally ridiculous. Their ability to compete with Bell on price or levels of service is almost totally eliminated. When my friends and family in Ontario were explaining this to me I kept having to ask them to repeat themselves because it boggled my mind how ISPs using bell's infrastructure could be subject to those sorts of restrictions.
Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.
#6The 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 things that made it 'impossible' to get broadband before are mere chalk lines instead of the hurdles they were made out to be before.
In Canada it is illegal (or was, this is 4 years ago, it may have changed) to have a satellite receiver that receives FTA programming and so on.
Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.
#7Iv'e been following this debate, but it's been difficult to find actual facts. Right now with Telus (Canadian dsl ISP) i pay for 125gb transfer a month and $2/gb if I go over. Yes, the overage charge is insane but it's been like that for a long time. As far as I can tell, the issue is that the big ISPs (tells, Rogers, bell) all have caps/overage, but the smaller ISPs that piggyback on their network can offer unlimite…
And now that the big ISPs can force smaller ISPs to pay for overage rates, small ISPs must increase their prices, giving them no competitive edge against brand giants.
The end result: everyone gets overcharged for internet access as these companies try to make up lost sales in phonelines and television by killing everyone on internet.
Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.
#8Seems like the CRTC needs to find a way to remain relevant. This is central planning, socialist style. I hope everyone enjoys it.
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'.
That still doesn't sound like a free market to me. Very much capitalist?
Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.
#9Iv'e been following this debate, but it's been difficult to find actual facts. Right now with Telus (Canadian dsl ISP) i pay for 125gb transfer a month and $2/gb if I go over. Yes, the overage charge is insane but it's been like that for a long time. As far as I can tell, the issue is that the big ISPs (tells, Rogers, bell) all have caps/overage, but the smaller ISPs that piggyback on their network can offer unlimite…
The big deal here is that instead of offering competitive plans the big ISPs are _decreasing_ the level of service and _increasing_ the prices of plans.
Also, Bell/Rogers/Telus have the advantage of offering bundles if you use them for cable/satellite+cell phone+Internet, whereas a lot of smaller ISPs would not able to do such things. This screams anti-competition.
FYI, I don't mind paying per usage as long a the rates are reasonable. How about charging us $10-15 for connection fees, and then $0.25/GB of transfer?
Re: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers.
#10Seems like the CRTC needs to find a way to remain relevant. This is central planning, socialist style. I hope everyone enjoys it.
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'.
Yes, this is lobbying out of control. It was this kind of thing that caused me to move to the United States... How was I supposed to build a career in high-tech when Canadian high-tech companies were at a terrible disadvantage compared to their U.S. competitors? The country is full of very bright, talented people with initiative and drive, and it's squandered.