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Canada May Name High-Speed Access "Essential"
BurpingWeezer writes: "Whoa. Here's something that caught my eye. The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) is considering designating high-speed Internet services provided in Canada an essential service. Now before you blow your top that CRTC designation would only set "minimum standards for " ... "service because it is deemed essential to the quality of life in Canada." On the other hand look at what the designation has done for phone service. (Now you can blow your top.) The focus is on the needs of business customers but with residential users in mind. I guess there are enough complaints against Rogers@Home and Bell Sympatico that the CRTC is thinking of flexing its regulatory muscles. Before our American cousins to the south start on government intervention remember that it's because of the CRTC that no high-speed Internet company in Canada is able to charge residential customer more than CAD$50 per month. (I'm told that dirt cheap compared to the U.S.) Many Canadians will welcome this."
And what if you wanted a service that they couldn't provide at $50/month? "Sorry, nothing we can do..."
Government intervention can provide a benefit in one area ( e.g. some subsidized service ), but it is never without a cost at least as great as the benefit ( e.g. higher tax rates ).
In the abscence of regulation, people do business wherever it is mutually beneficial. Regulation means that people are prohibited from engaging in some mutually beneficial action, therefore it's bad overall.
Monopolies are in some respects a different story, but keep in mind that the majority of monopolies are a product of government regulation, not of the free market.
God, both sides can sometimes go to obscene extremes. Government regulation can provide a minimum base service for the Important Things In Life. That's why you can get basic analog phone service anywhere in the US, because the phone company MUST provide it. That's why the mail man will drive out to your hog farm in the middle of Iowa and deliver your NRA membership renewal, because the Post Office MUST render that service. In many of these mandatory service cases, the companies in question might wince and squirm and provide the shittiest service they can dream up, but they do provide it.
On the other hand, when they smell money, they need no regulation. Multiple companies enter lucrative markets and compete to the blood. That's why in large population centers it's easy to get cable modems and ADSL. That's also why you will never see high speed internet access in many areas of the country. In many rural parts of the US you can't even get cable TV, and you probably never will. Same holds for cell phone service and other non-essential services.
Saying that regulation is ALWAYS bad is nonsense. Lifeline services such as phone, mail and electricity MUST be regulated, otherwise only the convenient-to-service people will have them. As time passes, new services might be deemed essential and start being regulated. Maybe one day internet service will be essential to life in modern society (we seem to be moving that way already), and it will become mandatory to render that service. That's what happened to phone service, which used to be a luxury only one hundred years ago.
Standard Oil, US Steel and a multitude of other exampes of a 'free market'
Yes, what examples of the 'free market' do you have? The ones you mention were granted subsidies or negotiated special licenses with the U.S. government. They had special protective laws passed. The government has a nasty history of subsidizing businesses until they get to monopoly size, then looking at their Frankenstein market and saying "the free market doesn't work! Look at that evil thing it created! Clearly, we have to intervene."
If government wouldn't interfere in the first place, few of the oft-cited monopolies (ALCOA - created by government fiat during WWII, the rail barons - again created by subsidy and licensing, etc.) would have arisen. In fact, the only monopoly that I can think of that doesn't have government help is Microsoft.
The reason wireless is so prominent in Europe is that the government-provided telephone service is unreliable, expensive, hard-to-get, and inflexible. Yet these telcos were created with the same reasoning that Canada is using for broadband.
Let's face it, if you didn't have the US on your border driving down prices through ruthless competition, you'd still be going ga-ga over the pushbutton phone.
Don't you see what will happen if we don't have it even for a few minutes? People will die! Everyone will starve to death. The universe will end!
Broadband is going to be big in Canada. Big. The federal government announced last month (via the Ministry of Industry) that all communities would have access to broadband Internet by the year 2004. The initiative is called Connecting Canadians.
A good press release, issued last month, can be found at here
. Definitely something I want to see progress, although if the CRTC gets into it too deeply, things will probably go awry.
J
Why isn't the phone company on the list? Because my area is now deregulated. I have AT&T local digital service. What do all those have in common? You haven't got a prayer of entering the market because of the red tape. I think Cable is officially open, the other three are offically monopolies. The post office is the only company legally permitted to carry non time critical letters in the United States.
I don't list Microsoft because I don't do business with them. I have a Microsoft mouse, but Microsoft does not have a monopoly on mice. Given that I have a computer and don't do business with Microsoft, it sort of implies that they aren't a monopoly, no doesn't it?
So I've got 3 sort of natural monopolies that are definitely helped along by the government, and one that is in no way a natural monopoly but exists anyway because of the government. Then I have one supposed monopoly that isn't. I don't feel any need to retract my claim.
I had the opportunity to call the CRTC when my ISP was having trouble allocating a DSL port for my new company. While the CRTC has (at this time) no regulatory control over High speed Internet Access, the CRTC offered to make an 'informal' call to Telus on my behalf. Like magic, 27 ports appeared in my CO the VERY next day.
Corporations who have had any experience with the CRTC know that they wield a big stick, and know how to use it. This would be a welcome relief, as I am currently fed up with my crappy @Home cable connect (excellent pack loss), and the emails I receive from them saying that 'It is a known issue, and technicians are busy working on correcting the problem'.
I hope that the CRTC *does* take control, and *does* force the larger Internet providers (like Telus/DSL and Rogers/Cable) to start treating customers with the respect they deserve.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
I'm sorry while I can agree that telephones should be considered an essential service mainly for contacting emergency services, I just don't see broadband as an essential service that needs to be regulated for QoS like the phone network. It's not as if a cable modem outage could cost someone their life (aghh Bob's having a heart attact, call 911, shit the dsl is down again, sorry bob) About the only thing you could really lose from a cable modem outage is money and if rock solid 24/7/365 uptime is essential to your business your web server shouldn't be plugged into the cable modem and sitting your living room.
;-) for my service, which means my ISP can afford redundent equipment and enough staff to keep things humming. In the 18 months or so I've had the cable modem I've had maybe 5 days of downtime that weren't the fault of some piss poor wiring in my building, maybe 10 days of downtime that were due to the wiring and 7 of those were in my first month of service as they were trying to nail down the problem. Pretty damn good service considering that I live in the unregulated US. I should also point out that I do live in Alaska, so the climate and infrastructure is probably less forgiving than in eastern Canada.
On the other hand the 5 and 8 days of outages per month quoted in the article are just plain unacceptable, if my cable modem service were that bad I switch to DSL in a heartbeat, but then again I pay $40US (actually $60 but I pay extra for a static IP and a "double speed" cable modem, well worth the expense to run acerbic.org out of my living room
I'd also like to point out that I have my choice of two DSL providors and one cable modem provider, this is true for all of Anchorage and any community within 60-70 miles of Anchorage. Statewide nearly every city/town/village with >5k people has at least one broadband option. Plus AT&T has chosen Anchorage to be a test market in 2001 for a wireless broadband pilot program, if nothing else that'll encourage even more spee/price competition. Ah the joys of fast, reliable, reasonably priced, unregulated broadband. For all geeks across Canada I truely hope you manage to get rid of regulated broadband.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
But this is a Good Thing. The job of government isn't to do everything for us, but to put all people on a better grounds to compete. For many small businesses, that is high speed Internet access. For many people in remote areas, better Internet access means better access to basic educational resources. The CRTC has done a good job with telecom; in Canada we have a lot of competition, and prices are good. As for the $50 (Canadian!) cap on consumer broadband, we still get better service than the vast majority of Americans are able to get. I think the CRTC has been pretty reasonable with this, as we have a lot of competition in the broadband market (I can get @Home, Bell Sympatico DSL, or DSL from a number of other third parties, all in the $50 or less range). That wouldn't be there if there was no money to be made in it.
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
You *CAN* get more expensive services, very easily. There are Home Business and Small Business (or larger) plans for every ISP.
I can get part of a T1 redirected to me with a Small Office plan (at least that's what it used to be). Or I can have the upload/download speed caps on my DSL raised to 4Mb/1.5Mb with the Home Business plan.
As for higher tax rates, I'll have you know that Alberta is moving to a 10.5% FLAT tax at the start of the new year. There will still be federal tax... but even at its worst, if you live in Alberta you won't pay more than 38% in taxes no matter how much you earn. And look at what you get - space, a clean environment, safety, cheap living expenses, etc.
As for the rather... pardon me... idiotic statement that "Monopolies are in some respects a different story, but keep in mind that the majority of monopolies are a product of government regulation, not of the free market." I'll just point to Standard Oil, US Steel and a multitude of other exampes of a 'free market' at work, which it was back then. Unrestrained competition and battle ultimately produces a winner, and his reward is monopoly up until he gets lazy and taken over by a younger, more dynamic enemy (ie, a new company with bright ideas, low overhead, etc.) Monopolies are hardly exclusively the product of government regulation... though they can be.
And no, I'm not some Canadian out on some crusade to prove that we're as good as Americans. I, and most other Canadians, don't need to prove anything to you. I'm just trying to argue your invalid points.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
We have the ACCC here - Australian Consumer Competition Commission [http://www.accc.gov.au]. They have the power to force price and operation changes, but so far have only "recommended". I really do agree with this Candadain ruling - as we come to rely more and more on the internet in our daily life, high-speed, affordable, quality internet access is VITAL to quality of life in all areas of Autralia.
Phew. Getting passionate really tires me out.
Comments Welcome!!
Cheers,
Daniel.
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Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511
You're presuming not only that there is competition, but that there is any company willing to supply at all.
In rural areas such as Canada, the initial logistical expense means that buying the service from a truly free market would be unaffordable.
Discriminating against rural areas is as unacceptable as discriminating against, say, hispanic areas or native american areas. Now that isn't a problem for corporations who only want to make profit, but it is a problem for governments who want to be re-elected.
The standard way to get around this is to set minimum levels of availability, typically as part of a company's licence to trade.
For instance, I live here (as my wife points out) in the Cotswolds.
There is NO WAY any teleco is going to be able to supply my house with digital comms for a profit for less than, I'd imagine, US$500 a month.
Yet I have unmetered dual channel ISDN for US$90 a month (plus ISP fees of US$35).
This is because British Telecom is forced to supply ISDN to my house as part of their licence to trade across the UK.
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Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com