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There's no such thing as unlimited media streaming, and prices are usually $30/gigabyte at best for prepaid.
See for yourself. Here are comanies that offer full nation-wide coverage (not just small urban areas). Make sure you check the prices for additional data.

Telus, Bell, Rogers, Virgin, Koodo.

There are so many people dealing with mental illness that it's ridiculous not to deal with it.

The worst thing you can do is to NOT get treatment or help.

Take a look at settings for Windows Phone 7/8, a page which must have been updated more recently:
http://support.bell.ca/Mobilit...

A single setting, the APN pda.bell.ca. Nothing else.

Then your APN settings are wrong. And direct from Bell. Note that those settings are listed as being for the Nexus One, as Bell's support page does not list the Nexus 5.

Then your APN settings are wrong. And direct from Bell. Note that those settings are listed as being for the Nexus One, as Bell's support page does not list the Nexus 5.

Well, if someone really wants to pay by the minute instead of $10 per month for unlimited to Canada and the US or $37 per month for unlimited calls to almost anywhere in the world it's either because they almost never call outbound long distance or they're not very bright.

I wouldn't consider that plan to be the baseline cost. Most people are going to pick unlimited.

Well, if someone really wants to pay by the minute instead of $10 per month for unlimited to Canada and the US or $37 per month for unlimited calls to almost anywhere in the world it's either because they almost never call outbound long distance or they're not very bright.

I wouldn't consider that plan to be the baseline cost. Most people are going to pick unlimited.

...and my long distance calling is still $0.25 per minute.

You've never been to Canada...

It seems Netflix and CrunchyRoll understood the international game very early on, as well as being wise enough to stay under 10$ per month.

As for region lock, look up the stupidity that are Shomi and CraveTV. These idiots require a subscription with their cable/satellite services in order to get these streaming services at an extra cost. That's proof enough that the media dinosaurs need to die before any real change happens.

Interesting, but Telus still charges $35: http://www.telus.com/en/qc/get...
Bell also charges (no specified amount): http://support.bell.ca/Billing...
Rogers charges $50: http://redboard.rogers.com/201...

It seems that C-343 hasn't been accepted yet. http://www.parl.gc.ca/LegisInf...

Bell Canada - Call Display $10.95 /month (landline)
Link (click on "full details". Yes they have bundles but not everyone wants that.)

http://support.bell.ca/billing-and-accounts/security_and_privacy/how_does_bell_respect_my_privacy?step=4

I like their response to the single question FAQ - Is my information shared?
- "No, under these new programs, we will not share any information that identifies you personally outside of Bell Canada and its affiliates."

Run this through the Corporate Speak Translator and you get:
- "Yes, we will share most of your data indiscriminately, but the data that personally identifies you will only be shared throughout the massive national organization of Bell Canada and anyone who pays enough to become an 'affiliate'".

Ummm. No. Fibre To The Neighbourhood, as opposed to Fibre To The Home (FTTH -- and note that Fibre ends with re, not er). http://www.bell.ca/Bell_Internet/Promotions/Fibe-Internet

The parent AC is mostly incorrect. The major telecoms only emphasise post-paid plans, but do have pre-paid available without the need to purchase a phone. They don't want to sell them to you however, and will only tell you about pre-paid if you visit their website or ask them specifically.

In Canada there a dozen or so MVNO's, most of whom operate on a pre-paid model in addition to the 'big three' incumbent companies. Each of the 'big three' providers (Rogers, Bell, Telus) owns one or two MVNO's. Rogers has Fido and Chatr, Bell has Virgin and Telus has Koodo. There are also several highly regional carriers (SaskTel, MTS, Lynx, TBayTel, ICE Wireless, etc.) that offer services where the 'Big 3' do not operate (Northern Quebec, Northwest Territories, Northern Ontario, etc.).

All that being said, there is only one major GSM network, the Rogers/Fido network. Thus, (until 2008/2009) only Rogers/Fido were offering pre-paid plans you could use with a GSM phone. Telus and Bell were CDMA. In the last few years Telus and Bell have built their own HSPA+ network. Now that they have a network that takes SIM cards, all three of the major players are offering inexpensive pre-paid SIM cards, with fairly expensive per-minute rates (40c/minute, unless you get a pre-paid 'plan'. Some of the plans are even 'free' if you top up frequently enough).

Further muddying the waters is the fact that most of the MVNOs don't specialise in pre-paid 'long distance' rates or pre-paid 'local' rates. Part of this is because of foreign ownership restrictions. These have been recently eased, but are still tighter than most other countries. Canada is also extremely large, with a small population. Canada is the size of Europe, with 10x fewer people. England, is approximately the same size as Southern Ontario (130,000km^2), but England has 50,000,000 people and Southern Ontario has 12,000,000. Let us not forget that a large part is because the owners of the networks don't want to give anyone a better deal than they give their own customers, at least not appreciably.

All that being said, the 'big three' all offer prepaid SIMs for $10-$20 dollars, so do most of their sub brands. The MVNOs Petro-Canada Mobility and 7-11 'Speak out' wireless are reasonably easy to find and offer prepaid services depending on where you are visiting.

Rogers Wireless - http://www.rogers.com/web/content/wireless-products/plans#,Tabset1--4
Telus Mobility - http://www.telusmobility.com/en/ON/prepaid/rate-plans.shtml
Bell Mobility - http://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Cell_phone_plans/Prepaid_plans

Big three 'sub brands' (frequently with regional restrictions ie: major cities):
Virgin Mobile - Bell Mobility - http://www.virginmobile.ca/en/plans/prepaid-talktext-plans.html?itcid=NAV:58
Koodo - Telus Mobility - http://koodomobile.com/en/on/plansandboosters.shtml
Fido - Rogers Wireless - http://www.fido.ca/web/page/portal/Fido/PrepaidPlans?forwardTo=prepaidPlans
Chatr - Rogers Wireless - http://www.chatrwireless.com/web/chatr.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PlanBrowse

Regional Operators:
Sasktel - http://www.sasktel.com/personal/mobility/prepaid/index.html
MTS - http://www.mts.ca/mts/personal/wireless/mts+prepaid+wireless ... etc.

Independent MVNOs:
Petro Canada Mobility - (Rogers Network) -

Our phone carrier (Bell Canada) sometimes calls from a number where the number is listed but the organization name is not listed. I assumed it was a telemarketer or something because it was an 800 number. When I finally picked up after numerous calls from the same number it was them (or at least somebody claiming to be them). Seems I forgot to pay the bill. *Then* they asked for my credit card details to collect payment.

I asked to speak to a manager and ask about how that correlates to the fact that their website says that their Website says "Do not give out your personal information. Legitimate companies will never call or e-mail their customers requesting information such as passwords, bank account information or a credit card number, unless they are responding directly to an inquiry you know you have made (See Bell’s Privacy article.)".

Nobody seemed to have anything to say about it other than that it was standard practice for them to make such calls. I had no way of knowing with certainty that it actually was Bell Canada and not some other organization performing a phishing attack.

I'm not sure what the nuances are, but if you mean Satellite TV, yes, we have them in Canada.
http://www.shawdirect.ca/english/default.asp
http://www.bell.ca/Bell_TV
http://www.telus.com/content/tv/sat/

Could be Bell. They have a page on getting ready for IPv6 ( http://ipv6.bell.ca/ ), but there is no way to actually get IPv6 capability from them!? Though, is there any ISP in Canada providing means to natively get onto IPv6?

The Sprint and Verizon (and Au) networks are an evolutionary dead-end, so I wouldn't expect a lot of people to be working on inter-operability with them beyond the minimum necessary to make things work. Note that Au is rolling out LTE, which will put them on the GSM Alliance track. Their CDMA-2000 network will be left for voice only for some years, however. I expect a similar situation will follow in the US.

Verizon is rolling out LTE as well, and Sprint will be doing so as well, so, yes, it appears the US situation is similar to the Australian situation. Telus are "eventually" doing LTE, and Bell Canada are already doing HSPA+ and LTE, so it looks as if Canada are going the same way. I suspect any other markets that still use cdmaONE/CDMA2000 protocol stack are doing similar things, given that Qualcomm killed off UWB, making cdmaONE/CDMA2000 a dead end.

Still, CDMA-2000 and W-CDMA are very different technologies in some ways (aside from both using CDMA), and thus you can't expect one phone to work on both, unless they built both systems into it, which would raise the cost.

Well, yes, one such phone costs USD 199 and above; dunno what other phones use chips capable of handling both CDMA2000's air interface and W-CDMA.

That would be a pretty good rate, is that a voip based?

Here is the price list for Bell Canada.
http://www.bell.ca/styles/wireline/en/all_regions/pdfs/LD_OverseasSched_1.pdf

For Armenia it is $4.29/min so that would be $257.40/hour, so for a month not stop you are looking at $185,328.(24 hours x30). This is expensive, and vastly more expensive than the original $86,000!

Now mind you they do have plans, but as far as I can see there is no unlimited plan that includes Armenia.

Canada is getting this way, at least with the large providers. I think Bell tops out at 75 gigs/month on a Fibe 25 connection (25mbit/sec down, 7mbit/sec up). I think you can eat that up in a single standard work shift.

Of course, I've had a connection with them solidly since 1998, and my grandfathered plan is an actual unlimited data plan, but that means I can't upgrade to a Fibe25 connection (without paying a lot of money for their "data insurance", which is still less than unlimited even if you buy it three times) as I'd have to cancel the old contract.

Bell Fibe 25 pricing
Rogers pricing
(Rogers "Extreme" internet is similar to Fibe 25, although upload speeds are 1/7th as fast..)

Unfortunately both Wind and Mobilicity, as well as Public Mobile only work in the GTA, their networks are tiny. Anywhere else, and you're roaming on robbers and getting raped by roaming charges. Plus, they use the "Other" 3G band, the same one that TMO uses in the states. Depending on where you go Bell/Telus/Robbers will be your best bet. Bell/Telus share the same CDMA and HSPA+ networks, bell owns everything east of manitoba-ish, telus owns the rest and the companies share. If you're going to Ontario, as long as you're below Timmins, you're probably going to have fine coverage, after that, well.... it gets kinda spotty....

As an example, here's Bell's coverage map:

http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpWls_Coverage.page

A 250GB cap? Nope. I'd be very surprised if somebody just using Yahoo is going to blow that cap... I am a fairly heavy downloader and use Netflix a fair amount, and I still come in under 300GB/mo most of the time.

But are you seriously telling me that every plan out there comes with a 250GB cap? I beg to differ. Somebody using just Yahoo, some youtube from time to time, and maybe VOIP/SIP video chat online will easily blow the astonishingly high 2GB/mo cap on that plan.

Like a tax, once an ISP has implemented a cap, it will only get worse not better. Unless government rips the privilege from their cold dead hands, which will not happen as much like in the USA, the regulators are in bed with industry.

So it went from no caps, like 3 years ago, to caps, to tiered caps... So it used to be that everyone got the same cap. Then they figured we can make even more money of this and separated it into usually 3 tiers, light, regular, and Pro... Basically most Canadians can go with the Cable company (Rogers) or Phone/DSL company (Bell).

For a regular DSL account with BELL in Ontario, Canada (I know because I was looking to switch recently from Cable as the caps suck), the Uupload/Download Cap is 2GB. Yes that's right, that is not a typo, not 150GB but 2!. Their "Performance has 25GB.... I am not kidding here is the link:

http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpGnl_PrdCompare.page?oct_browse_page_url=PrsShpInt_Access&oct_catalog_category_id=SympaticoOffers&skuListComp=DSLTIEPlusNCOONNewMass;DSLTIPONNewMassNCOPF10;

It is absolutely ridiculous. Pathetic. We live in the dark ages. Now there are new "Fiber" accounts you can get which are much better, however you have to live within certain "Areas". I live in a medium sized city in the most populous area of Canada and I can't get it. I suspect you have to actually live within Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal to get it so not available to most Canadians.

I am with cable and my current Cap is 60GB so it isn't nearly as bad, but it is still stupid compared to just about anywhere else. We just had an election and the Internet and price gouging actually became a pretty big topic during the election, we shall see if the elected Conservative government actually does anything about it... I'm not going to hold my breath.

If it was a 250 GB cap, that would be fine for most people, including myself.

However, when it's a 25 GB cap, then it's a bit of a problem.
In fact, even the 25Mb/7Mb fiber service has only a 75GB cap.

That's what the complaints were about.

"Maybe the Canadian government should be requiring all phone companies to upgrade their switching stations to DSLAMs. 50k to 500k is a big jump, and is the difference between being able to watch hulu.com or not."

Actually Bell has a monopoly on the lines. Such a mandate was issued then rolled back in terms of definition of both coverage and required bandwidth.

I worked as an employee of Bell up until a week ago as I am switching jobs and where I live. We use a program Called Iris to determine availability of High Speed based on address. We would often figure situations where a next door neighbor had high speed available where next door they did not.
Same goes for cellular Coverage: http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpWls_Coverage.page

Look how things get patchy into the North. Even around North Bay a city of 60 000 plus people with a University extremely modern Hospital and other thriving industries.

Laptops (Which I sold) were often sold based on whether they had a 56kb modem in them, typically Toshiba facilitated this. Our USB Modems were sold out, always.

People in the North are far from poor. Some people I know own 1000's of acres worth millions but choose to live a modest life.

They can't justify paying bell THOUSANDS to have a line run to their property.

But they certainly can afford to pay a premium for an alternative to the tyranny of the monopoly.

They do it in Canada, too. $0.15 per incoming text, with most carriers. You pay extra to add text packages.

It's not *quite* as bad as that, though... most voicemail/call display packages include a small number of text messages. 100/month is more than enough texts to cover accidental texts, and messages from people who don't realize you pay for texts. Upgrading from the entry-level plan to the next step up gets you 1000 texts/month, which is more than enough for most users. Additionally, most non-entry level plans will get you included texts as well.

With some carriers, about $50-$75/mo will get you unlimited north american long distance with unlimited data. With the big providers, that'll cost you about $125/mo at a minimum (unless you threaten to cancel... Rogers lowered my bill to $75/mo when I threatened to go to Wind... :P that gets me 400 anytime minutes, unlimited evenings/weekends from 6pm-7am, 500mb data, unlimited north american LD, texting, call display, call waiting, voicemail, etc., and better coverage than I'd get with the smaller players... important, because I live in the sticks.)

Mobile service is still disgustingly overpriced in NA when you compare it to what's available in Europe and Asia, but from what I understand, it's much worse in the USA. :(

Or for 5$ a month you can get 100 gigs instead of 60. http://www.bell.ca/shopping/Usage-Insurance-Plan/VasIntInsurance.details so well short of the extra 22.50$. If you continually bust 60 gigs but stay under 100 this is a much better deal.

As someone else mentioned, it's symetric, so provided your provider aren't wankers you could run a fairly robust web server yourself.

Interestingly enough, such companies even go so far as to try to trick people into believing that they are getting fiber to the premises. Really low.

A Canadian ISP recently re-branded their DSL lines as "Fibe".

It's not a scam if a corporation with lobbying powers is doing it.

I'm in Canada. I pay $30/mo for 3mbit/512kbit ADSL, with a 200GB cap. The cap came in really handy when one of my HDDs died, and I had to re-download a lot of steam games.

Canada has had such a law for a long time. After all - the major backbones were funded by the government, and therefore taxpayers, so why should we be locked in to monopolies? Unfortunately for us, just as the US is considering such a law, Canada is considering revoking it.

Sure I can get 30MB access for $65, but that's like buying a 40 seat bus to carry your family of 4. More than you need is great if you don't have to pay for the extra.

Right now you can get 3-6mbit ADSL for $30/mo without a contract. With a contract, $40/mo will give you ADSL speeds of up to 15mbit. $45-$55/mo will give you the same speed with cable.

Considering that we have less population density than the US (and therefore higher upkeep costs per subscriber), I think the law is doing its job quite effectively.

Links/proof:

http://www.teksavvy.com/en/abc_resdsl.asp?ID=2&mID=1
http://www.teksavvy.com/en/resdsl.asp?ID=7&mID=1
http://www.bell.ca/shopping/internet.portal;GEMSESSIONID=vMQVKY3XsKBv1cQyx2xmKTJn322pxDn1LNp2yfw84xGM2wpQNg2n!1182660780?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=PrsShpInt_NewAccess_internetBrowse_portlet&PrsShpInt_NewAccess_internetBrowse_portlet_actionOverride=%2Fportlets%2Fpersonal%2Finternet%2Fbrowse%2FgetDetailPage&_pageLabel=PrsShpInt_NewAccess
http://www.telus.com/portalWeb/inlineLink/CP_SCS/General/Internet/High_Speed/General/Compare_Plans/?_region=BC
http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Internet/High-Speed/

I contacted them at domainnotfound@bell.ca and I was told about the NoRedirect extension for Firefox. That wasn't what I was asking for, but it is an improvement over their fake opt-out mechanism.

For those of you who want to let Bell hear a bit of your mind, the comments form is here:

https://www.bell.ca/support/PrsCSrvInt_CtUs_Eform.page

Welcome to Canada, he almost got a better rate then we do here Rogers Wireless which is the only provider of GSM unless he was with Bell or Telus for CDMA / TDMA. In Canada you have to deal with one of the three (there is Fido but they are really Rogers) for 1GB(yes o.n.e) it is $30/month with a 3 cent overage calculated per KB, this is from the Rogers and Telus is actually 5 cents per MB. If you can figure out what Bell is actually offering your likely a natural genius but all the plans start at $45.

You can tell I'm slightly bitter but paying this kinda dough just to have 'the right' to do what I want and have the same kind of access other places in the world have the opportunity to use it kind of makes me feel silly being Canadian.

Hmmm... maybe it is a unique service, but I know that we have such a service here for home phones. See: Bell Call Privacy (sorry for their horribly undescriptive page, but basically the idea is that if you have call display blocked, it will ask you to key in a number in order to be connected.)

What has always surprised me (and I know this is slightly off-topic since the topic seems to be about cell phones and not PSTN) is that no enterprising phone device manufacturer has built an inexpensive phone that allows you to filter calls based on phone numbers, or change ringtones. Caller ID is pretty widespread, and I can't imagine the technology to do filtering would be much more expensive to implement. You'd probably want to make it configured over a USB port on a PC, but with the recent response to Canada's national do not call list I would think there would be at least some people interested in spending an extra $10 on a phone that had such a feature.

In Canada pretty much all the big cellphone companies still offer paging service:

http://www.primustel.ca/en/residential/paging/
http://www.your.rogers.com/store/wireless/products/pagers/business/overview.asp
http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpWls_Pagers.page

Wha, wha, wha, WHAT?

1 - "Geeks" do work around "latency" issues -- I have been doing so since the dialup era. I run my own DNS server for this reason, and use nscd on local machines. I use SquidProxy.

2 - I don't work around traffic shaping. But a packet is just a packet. What the fuck does the ISP think it is doing when (re)prioritizing my packets? I guess I simply don't deserve ANY priority, right?

3 - You didn't address your argument for keeping shaping private. Explain WHY it should be private. I will gladly add quality of service requests to my packets -- IF THE SHAPING POLICY IS NOT PRIVATE.

4 - "A few geeks demanding maximum bandwidth". Sure, why not? What does Bell DSL advertise?

Let me give you a hint:

http://www.bellvideostore.ca/help/

This is Bells "download video" service.

"Technical Specifications:
720x480 maximum resolution, 30 fps, 1,500-2,200 kbps average bit rate. These videos will play on all 4th and higher generation Archos portable media players. THESE VIDEOS WILL NOT PLAY ON MOST PORTABLE VIDEO PLAYERS AND ARE NOT IPOD COMPATIBLE."

http://www.bell.ca/support/PrsCSrvGnl_mover_offers.page?region=ON&language=en&EXT=PDL2_SA_MOVE_2008Q2_AR_EN_ON_Google_bell%20dsl&s_kwcid=bell%20dsl|1920763120

"If you're moving, now's the perfect time to move up and into a Bell Better HomeTM: ...
        * The most powerful Internet"

Of course Bell (the ISP) offers a music store in addition to the video store:

http://musicstore.sympatico.msn.ca/help_en/index.html

Conflict of interest? No, they really need to shape traffic to keep up with that audio and video goodness.

Let's see how Bell advertises the service for new buyers (note the lack of fine print):

http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpInt_NewAccess.page?userType=NEW

"Total Internet Performance
Download high quality music files, stream video,or play games.

Best price
in a bundle$42.95/mo.
Bonus: Get 2 months free

Regular price: $47.95/mo. *"

(editors comment - the * footnote is NOT on this page, I have no idea what it means)

And my personal favorite:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ArpmbnxIQIQ

This ad aired until fairly recently.

So this ISP does bandwidth shaping -- why? Aren't they selling Total Internet Performance, the Bell Better Home (tm), Audio downloads and Video (even streaming) at near HD quality?

A FEW GEEKS DEMANDING MAXIMUM BANDWIDTH??? Hell, I would like to see the beavers deliver a fraction of the promises. And let's not get into "never shared, never slow" crap they advertised.

Wha, wha, wha, WHAT?

1 - "Geeks" do work around "latency" issues -- I have been doing so since the dialup era. I run my own DNS server for this reason, and use nscd on local machines. I use SquidProxy.

2 - I don't work around traffic shaping. But a packet is just a packet. What the fuck does the ISP think it is doing when (re)prioritizing my packets? I guess I simply don't deserve ANY priority, right?

3 - You didn't address your argument for keeping shaping private. Explain WHY it should be private. I will gladly add quality of service requests to my packets -- IF THE SHAPING POLICY IS NOT PRIVATE.

4 - "A few geeks demanding maximum bandwidth". Sure, why not? What does Bell DSL advertise?

Let me give you a hint:

http://www.bellvideostore.ca/help/

This is Bells "download video" service.

"Technical Specifications:
720x480 maximum resolution, 30 fps, 1,500-2,200 kbps average bit rate. These videos will play on all 4th and higher generation Archos portable media players. THESE VIDEOS WILL NOT PLAY ON MOST PORTABLE VIDEO PLAYERS AND ARE NOT IPOD COMPATIBLE."

http://www.bell.ca/support/PrsCSrvGnl_mover_offers.page?region=ON&language=en&EXT=PDL2_SA_MOVE_2008Q2_AR_EN_ON_Google_bell%20dsl&s_kwcid=bell%20dsl|1920763120

"If you're moving, now's the perfect time to move up and into a Bell Better HomeTM: ...
        * The most powerful Internet"

Of course Bell (the ISP) offers a music store in addition to the video store:

http://musicstore.sympatico.msn.ca/help_en/index.html

Conflict of interest? No, they really need to shape traffic to keep up with that audio and video goodness.

Let's see how Bell advertises the service for new buyers (note the lack of fine print):

http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpInt_NewAccess.page?userType=NEW

"Total Internet Performance
Download high quality music files, stream video,or play games.

Best price
in a bundle$42.95/mo.
Bonus: Get 2 months free

Regular price: $47.95/mo. *"

(editors comment - the * footnote is NOT on this page, I have no idea what it means)

And my personal favorite:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ArpmbnxIQIQ

This ad aired until fairly recently.

So this ISP does bandwidth shaping -- why? Aren't they selling Total Internet Performance, the Bell Better Home (tm), Audio downloads and Video (even streaming) at near HD quality?

A FEW GEEKS DEMANDING MAXIMUM BANDWIDTH??? Hell, I would like to see the beavers deliver a fraction of the promises. And let's not get into "never shared, never slow" crap they advertised.

Bell sells a capped service. They say you can get 60G/month. So it should be easy to figure out the average load on the network with everyone under this Cap. If Bell can't actually provide the service they sell, then they should set the cap at a level they can support.

Think for a second how oversubscribed Bells network is. Here you can use Bells own claims. "5 percent of users generate 60 percent of its total traffic":
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080519-regulators-want-answers-from-bell-canada-on-p2p-throttling.html

So how much are those nasty 5% capable of gobbling down?

If you max your cap that is 2G/day. Say all of it is in the peak 12 hour window (but actually heavy downloaders run 24/7).

So 1G/6hours. 167MB/hour = 45 kB/s. This is the most on average, that the theoretical bandwidth hogs can use. Bell advertises a service that is 10 times that speed. So if everyone was a peak user and only used it during the peak window, bells network is over-subscribed by 10 to 1 vs the evil bandwidth hogs.

BUT these are the evil 5% choking down 60% of the bandwidth according to Bell. How much does the other 40% (good users) average? So (60%) = 5% x 45 kB/s = 224kB/s, so (40%) = 150kB/s /95% = 1.58 kB/s

So a "good" user averages 1.58kB/s, less than modem speed. If sold a 5mb/s connection (Bell advertises up to 7mb/s), they are oversubscribed about 300 to 1 on what they expect from users.

So is a 300 to 1 over-subscription fair? Perhaps bell should be forced to tell it's customers their target average usage for their network. In Bells case that seems to be 1.5kB/s average if used a lot by everyone. Is this adequate for a service sold as up to 7mb/s fast and never shared??
http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpInt_Perf.page
"Consistently fast service that's never shared"

High speed always on, never shared internet connections are not the telephone service, with 5 minute hold times and 2 hours a week usage. This is multi-hour/day usage. Attempting to solve bandwidth problems by traffic shaping traffic you don't like is a never ending cat and mouse game that doesn't address the real issue: Over subscription of the network or a completely incorrect usage model. This has to be addressed regardless of any traffic shaping. What is next shaping youtube? Voip? VOD? How can this be justified when you start offering VOIP and VOD services.

Exactly!!
Teksavvy ROCKS!!

Their customer service and a personable approach is bar none the best I have ever seen. Their services are cheaper, more reliable and faster than Bells. What does Bell do about it ? They f**k up your traffic.

Here's what I know:

I have been on Teksavvy for many years ( an ex-Bell subscriber ) . As of few days ago, their traffic during ~4pm - ~1am has been shaped by Bell. What used to be a ~600 KBp/s now turned into a 30 KBp/s. At the same time 2 of my friends living right beside me can do the exactly same download using their Bell Sympatico at around ~150 KBp/s .

They say that their traffic sometimes gets stuck on 100 and sometimes on 150 , but never at 30 KBp/s.

What else ... 2 months ago, I was having line issues and my access was dropped for about 14 days. I called Bell to give them an earful, because it was their problem and finally it was solved. In turn, they have called me 4 times since then, offering me various promotions to switch to them. Stuff like 3 months free, on another occasion they tried to offer free long distance, but the last call takes the cake: A Bell rep calls me and offers me a portable wireless internet http://bell.ca/shop/Sme.Sol.Internet.Unplug.Home.page and says it will be free of charge for 2 months. In addition I can stay with my current land line ISP provider. He tried very hard to find out which ISP i subscribe to ( as all other Bell reps that called me ) . I simply told him that I wouldn't give out that information.

A week passes by, and Bell sends me a land line based kit with a regular DSL modem and phone filter package. As I call them, telling them that I was sent the wrong package, as It was supposed to be a portable wireless business internet one, the lady simply denied THAT BELL OFFERS THIS KIND OF SERVICE . They do, look here : http://bell.ca/shop/Sme.Sol.Internet.Unplug.Home.page .

In any case, I told them to screw off and shipped the kit back, but not before she tried to find out my ISPs name. Once again, I told her to fly a kite.

Lesson learned. Bell will do anything under the sun to muscle out their competition because they are leaving Bell en-masse in hope to get treated with respect and have the service that's stated on the contract.

Exactly!!
Teksavvy ROCKS!!

Their customer service and a personable approach is bar none the best I have ever seen. Their services are cheaper, more reliable and faster than Bells. What does Bell do about it ? They f**k up your traffic.

Here's what I know:

I have been on Teksavvy for many years ( an ex-Bell subscriber ) . As of few days ago, their traffic during ~4pm - ~1am has been shaped by Bell. What used to be a ~600 KBp/s now turned into a 30 KBp/s. At the same time 2 of my friends living right beside me can do the exactly same download using their Bell Sympatico at around ~150 KBp/s .

They say that their traffic sometimes gets stuck on 100 and sometimes on 150 , but never at 30 KBp/s.

What else ... 2 months ago, I was having line issues and my access was dropped for about 14 days. I called Bell to give them an earful, because it was their problem and finally it was solved. In turn, they have called me 4 times since then, offering me various promotions to switch to them. Stuff like 3 months free, on another occasion they tried to offer free long distance, but the last call takes the cake: A Bell rep calls me and offers me a portable wireless internet http://bell.ca/shop/Sme.Sol.Internet.Unplug.Home.page and says it will be free of charge for 2 months. In addition I can stay with my current land line ISP provider. He tried very hard to find out which ISP i subscribe to ( as all other Bell reps that called me ) . I simply told him that I wouldn't give out that information.

A week passes by, and Bell sends me a land line based kit with a regular DSL modem and phone filter package. As I call them, telling them that I was sent the wrong package, as It was supposed to be a portable wireless business internet one, the lady simply denied THAT BELL OFFERS THIS KIND OF SERVICE . They do, look here : http://bell.ca/shop/Sme.Sol.Internet.Unplug.Home.page .

In any case, I told them to screw off and shipped the kit back, but not before she tried to find out my ISPs name. Once again, I told her to fly a kite.

Lesson learned. Bell will do anything under the sun to muscle out their competition because they are leaving Bell en-masse in hope to get treated with respect and have the service that's stated on the contract.

AT&T has always had overpriced data plans, and the iPhone plan is no exception ($20/month for unlimited).

I actually opted out of touch tone on my fax line. As for the "Network Charge 5.95" this is because you are on a Bell's LD plan. First Rate TM Worldwide is the plan that you have. If you don't have a LD plan, this are the rates for LD Calls: http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpPns_Lng_Base.page (Remember the time where it was cheaper in the evening? This is it...) If you check their 15c a month plan, which allegedly doesn't have a monthly fee, they will charge 5.95$ of "Network Charge" http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpPns_Lng_Detail.page?wlcs_catalog_item_sku=10001 You can either signup with another LD carrier that has no montly fee or get Bell to disconnect your plan. I've signed up with StarTec.ca recently, but I haven't gotten a bill or a credit card charge yet. They say that there is no montly fee at all if everything is done electronically (eg cc billing, and email invoice).

I actually opted out of touch tone on my fax line. As for the "Network Charge 5.95" this is because you are on a Bell's LD plan. First Rate TM Worldwide is the plan that you have. If you don't have a LD plan, this are the rates for LD Calls: http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpPns_Lng_Base.page (Remember the time where it was cheaper in the evening? This is it...) If you check their 15c a month plan, which allegedly doesn't have a monthly fee, they will charge 5.95$ of "Network Charge" http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpPns_Lng_Detail.page?wlcs_catalog_item_sku=10001 You can either signup with another LD carrier that has no montly fee or get Bell to disconnect your plan. I've signed up with StarTec.ca recently, but I haven't gotten a bill or a credit card charge yet. They say that there is no montly fee at all if everything is done electronically (eg cc billing, and email invoice).

Residence line 18.48
Network Charge 5.95
CITY CALLING AREA EXPANSION 0.50
911 emergency service access 0.19
Touch-Tone service 2.80
Long Distance Credit* -2.95
First Rate TM Worldwide 0.00
Total 24.97

I'm from Canada (though the my comment is really about Toronto). For the record, we're worse off when it comes to cell phones (there is no such thing as unlimited data in Canada), however I think Bell (who is the DSL half of our very own duopoly) have started to push the cable carrier, getting at least a little competition going. In Toronto we have fiber. :) Albeit only at 7Mb/s, though they claim it'll climb to 16 soon. Oh, and we have WiMAX, too. http://bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpInt_Int_Chart_Optima x.page

Rogers/Fido, Bell and Telus up in Canada make AT&T look competent and benign.

Rogers data plans : http://www.shoprogers.com/store/wireless/services/ voice/navigate-mobile-internet.asp?

Bell data plan examples: http://www.bell.ca/shopping/en_CA_AB/PrsShpWls_Rtp IRPList.page?wlcs_catalog_category_id=TreoPocketPC RatePlans

Telus data plan examples: http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/plans/pcs/talkemai l_all.shtml

Couple those rates with service that is slightly less friendly than AT&T's.

No caps on my service it's unlimited, they have a bandwidth activity tracker http://www.bell.ca/myinternet you can see your combined usage for each month. My last tree months were all over 110GB & as it states when I log into that page my account is unlimited bandwidth usage.

I consistently get 450kB/s to 550kB/s speeds when downloading via utorrent, not bad for a 5MB service really.

Here's the part in the user agreement dealing with caps

The Sympatico High Speed Internet service includes: # 1. a high speed Internet connection; 2. depending on the particular Service offering available to and selected by you: (A) unlimited bandwidth usage; or (B) bandwidth usage with a limit on the combined download (from the Internet to you) and upload (from you to the Internet) bandwidth activity. In the case of (B), this limit will be identified to you prior to placing an order with Your Service Provider. An additional charge will apply for bandwidth activity that exceeds this limit.

If you want to compare providers look here http://www.canadianisp.com/

If I did have to switch I'd likely go with http://www.montreal-dsl.com/index.php

Rogers and Bell in Canada have WiMAX services using OFDM Non-Line-of-Sight NLOS wireless service. The modem is a (RSU-2510-FV) NextNet Expedience Broadband Wireless Modem which you have to rent (can't find anywhere to buy one) from either carrier. I've tried it and it works well.

The reason why this *MAY* pan out for these companies is that even in major urban areas in Canada, you have problems getting xDSL because you're too far away from a CO and they haven't dropped a RDSLAM in your subdivision. However, the above services are available up to 5KM or so in any direction from a broadcast tower. I also suspect it's cheaper for telcos to deploy, plus they get the revenue from the modem rental.

Be assured, $0.02 per kB is absurdly cheap compared to Canada. Here's one of the the easier to link provider's pricing page (their rates are nearly equal to the nearly impossible to link Rogers, who are the #2 largest provider in Canada, and Bell, the #1 largest cellular internet provider in Canada is more expensive).

$40 in Canada buys 7 megabytes of cellular internet through Fido. You can verify it yourself, but Rogers (if the link works) gives you 7 MB also, and Bell (LOL if that link works) gives you either 1 MB of data service for $45 on your Blackberry (dead serious), 4 MB of data on your Palm for $40, or 8 MB on a PC Card (they will not service anything else).

(Oh, and yes, I am considering purchasing a US cellphone and using it in roaming mode in Canada to save money. Stupid, but true. I looked up the pricing plans, and while I've not found anything as good as what you mention, $0.002 per kB is absurdly cheap here.)

Cellular internet *was* $50 a month flat rate from almost all the providers several years ago. However, the impetus for that rate was from Fido, who were purchased by Rogers to quash service rates like that. Aren't monopolies great?

What Carrier are you with?

Bell Mobility offers some very competitively priced long distance plans.

Look at the Business Canada plans, which have an option of unlimited E/W starting at 6pm for an extra $32 a month.