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Canada Splits Local Phone, DSL Services
s20451 writes "Running counter to the recent string of pro-consolidation FCC rulings in the United States, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that big Telcos like Bell and Telus must offer ADSL service even when local phone service is provided by another company. Effectively this ruling splits local phone and net services, opening both up for competition and lower prices. Press release here."
In my area, ADSL is much slower than Cable, I'll stick with my cable and my connection that isn't capped as low as ADSL
Gibble: Descriptive of an emotional state in which one's mind is scrabbling for some purchase on reality
... that someone here would work to implement this in the United States. It would mean that companies like Verizon and Qwest wouldn't have the stranglehold on broadband that they currently do...
In Phoenix, we have two different Cablemodem providers, with some fairly significant overlapping coverage, but all of the independent DSL line providers for residential closed except for Qwest, and Qwest still uses Pair Gain, which kills DSL.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This is quite good news. I'm glad we aren't following the US.
:)
I love living here
...by pricing it ridiculously high. If they get suckers who sign up, then they profit. If they don't, well they really didn't want the business anyway.
Should happen soon, though - you can already order internet access from cable companies w/o subscribing to their TV services.
maybe next they'll force computer manufacturers to offer alternative OSses on computers, to open up competition and lower prices.
Machine9dotNet
I'm an American, you insensitive clod!
The phone companies are already basically monopolies, and here they were willing to sell their DSL at a loss for a few years to put other DSL providers out of business. Sure, they had to share the lines under the law, they just made it difficult and expensive.
Bell was losing hundreds of subscribers a day due to their bandwidth capping earlier this year, and now they have to provide ADSL service to really small markets where it will cost them more to upgrade the infrastructure to support ADSL than they could possibly make in revenues from customers?
;)
Sell your Bell stock!
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
OTTAWA-GATINEAU -- In a decision issued today, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) directs the incumbent telephone companies to provide their retail high-speed Internet services to residential customers of competitors upon request.
The incumbents--Bell Canada, Aliant Telecom, Sasktel and TELUS-- are to remove the restriction in their rules that makes their high-speed Internet services available only to their own residential customers.
Today's decision is about removing the obstacles to fair competition, said Mr. Charles Dalfen, CRTC Chairman. Making the incumbents' high-speed Internet services available to the competitors' subscribers will give customers more choice when it comes to choosing local telephone service providers and should enhance competition.
In this decision (Telecom Decision CRTC 2003-49,[] Call-Net Enterprises Inc. - Request to lift restrictions on the provision of digital subscriber line Internet services), the Commission has determined that by refusing to provide retail high-speed Internet services to competitors' customers, incumbent telephone companies are unjustly discriminating against their competitors and giving themselves an undue preference. This practice contravenes subsection 27(2) of the Telecommunications Act which prohibits unjust discrimination and undue preference.
The decision requires the incumbent telephone companies to make their high-speed Internet services, including Lite services, available to a competitor's residential telephone customers, who are served by local loops i.e. lines leased by the competitors from the incumbent telephone company.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is an independent public authority that regulates and supervises broadcasting and telecommunications in Canada.
Reference document: Telecom Decision CRTC 2003-49
Why do I h8 apple?
In that case Canada == America since your
post-increment doesn't occur until after
the statement.
You're not a programmer by any are you?
Jealousy brings out the worst in people :)
Some monopolies should be broken, but others are better off regulated. We got Unix out of AT&T, but I'm not even getting reliable Caller ID out of the local tel.
Yeah, I'd like to know why they think they're exempt too...
Though, I'm compleatly happy with MTS's services, DSL, local phone, long distance and cell. I'd just like to know why they think they don't have to be subject to this...
If Canada bell is anything like the bells over in the US, they had it coming. The US bells have been abusing people for over 100 years. Normally I'm for the free market system, but sometimes, enough is enough. (note that if we hadn't granted them a naturally monopoly in the first place, perhaps we wouldn't have the problems we do now).
Actually, it's a compliment.
Although his logic is wrong, taken literally
(albeit incorrectly)
Canada==America++
would mean that Canada is 1 up on America.
Effectively this ruling splits local phone and net services, opening both up for competition and lower prices
This also opens up the possibility of finger-pointing and blame assigning, instead of problem resolution. A couple of years ago, I had difficulty getting DSL from DirecTV DSL over BellSouth's phone lines - rather than solving my problem, the two companies used me as a message carrier in their blame war. I gave up, got a cable modem, and haven;t looked back.
Slashdotted? Not from where I'm sitting.
They have unbundled local service and dsl so that people don't have to pay for a land line to get high speed internet access? So a person could just subscribe to the high speed service and do his own internet telephony?
An ear? Tornado? Angband map?
Sure, opening up things to competition would be nice, but at the moment, there's two big things that hold me back from using Bell's ADSL: the monthly bandwidth cap, and the speed. I'm with Rogers, and they decided to hold back on implementing a similar plan until they were done seeing how Bell fared with it... and they haven't implemented it yet. :) Plus I've found that my cable connection is often faster than friends of mine who went with Bell.
From where I'm sitting, it costs about the same for Bell or Rogers. The unlimited bandwidth and increased speed that Rogers offers is very nice, considering that I have roommates whose downloading habits I can't control.
In other words, the telcos can compete with themselves all they like, but (at least in my situation) it's a moot point if they still can't really compete with cable.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for more competition. But "unjustly discriminating against their competitors"? And "undue preference"? Since when is it bad to give your own company "preference", and who are they to say it is "undue"?
This looks to me like socialism at work under the guise of capitalism. In the one hand, they uphold the virtues of competition, and in the other, they take away the rights of businessmen to decide how they compete. *shrug*
Sola Scriptura * Sola Gratia * Sola Fide * Solus Christus * Soli Deo Gloria
I think he meant Canada == (America++)... silly order of operations
Visualize the world of wine
Interesting - let the competition begin.
However, we'll all be wireless before too long, and there will be no place for DSL - unless this market competition drives the overall costs down. Who wants to pay for local phone service (if you're already paying for it with your wireless plan) if you just want DSL, which would then be an additional cost to the local line?
$30 local phone
+$60 DSL service
-----------------
($50) Digital Cable + ($45) Cable Internet
Assumption: You already pay $35 for a cellphone.
Sure, I'll take 125 channels as a perk for my decision making skills.
I hope this will make it harder for my decision making skills, it's amazing how quickly you learn that you have 125 channels and nothing is ever on!
Well, I couldn't get to it....
Here's the deal...
All dsl lines are owned by the major telcos... the CRTC forces them to let smaller ISPs resell the lines (bulk pricing allows for profit)... services (email etc) and the actual pipe to the internet are provided by the ISP... but the dsl line is owned and supported by the telco.
BlackNova Traders
Stupid Slashdot...
The FCC rulings of late are NOT pro-consolidation, but simply anti-regulation.
The FCC is very simply recognizing that its place in the system is changing with the times.
This is one of those VERY rare times where a governmental organization has decided to limit its own powers, and Slashdot's complaining! The experts employed at the FCC recognize that its place is changing, and it shows the integrity to reign itself in, and the uninformed morons in Congress object!
Ahh, fair enough. Got confused for a sec :)
In either case, this is something I know alot of my friends in the states would be happy with.
Maybe in time, with a new gov.
Its not really all that big of a deal . From a competition perspective bell is allready forced to allow all of the tiny little ISPs access to there lines for ADSL equipment , we have tones of little tiny hs providers competing for our business (see http://www.canadianisp.com/ for a good list of them) . I mean I dont really want bell ADSL service , it sucks and neither do I want telus ADSL service , I want the little tiny independt companies that I can already chose from :-) .
A few months ago I acquired a cell phone from Rogers AT&T. Soon I realized that having a cellphone and a landline phone seem redundant. So I cancelled my landline and have all my voice calls through my mobile phone. But cancelling the landline phone (from Telus) means I cannot get their ADSL service. Have to use the alternate Cable service offered by my Cable company. The decision means ADSL service does not have to be tied to you having a landline phone account Good job CRTC
Actually I am in Canada and a friend only pays $25 CDN for DSL from Telus. And if this story is correct due to competition it may go down
And it's more evident with the recent news that we keep hearing how Canada is moving forward while the States are slipping into regress by way of draconian laws and regulations a la DMCA, Super-DMCA, Media Consolidation, etc.
I've had Bell ADSL in Toronto for almost 3 years now. Setup was a pain, and I had problems with it about one year later for a few days, but other than that it's been rock solid, and very reliable performance. Not FAST - 128kbps up, 1mbps down - but I know I can get those speeds any time.
Of course... 3 years later, I find myself paying more for less. Speed hasn't increased at all (why would it?), the price has gone up a few dollars, and they've introduced monthly transfer limits - 10GB combined upload/download, with absurd prices for extra bandwidth. What ticks me off is that they still advertise it as "unlimited".
There are other, smaller, local DSL providers - but the speed and prices are comparable.
Maybe this will finally help advance an industry that's been stagnant - from the consumer's point of view - for over 4 years now!
Hehehe... oh I kill myself... I really do...
*keeps looking for a way to afford SDSL*
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
I work for a CLEC in the US and I really don't see why thats necessary. I'm sure we would offer a discount to customers who purchased phone service and DSL from us, the ILECs should be allowed to sell whatever packages they want as well. Allowing the little guy access to the lines is one thing, but regulating how they can sell their packages is too much.
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it." -Voltaire
Telus, the big telco out here in the west, offers a good DSL service. They have not begun to enforce any capping, unlike the cable companies, and the speed is much better than many (if not most) of the US residential DSL providers...
I don't think this announcement will have nearly the impact in the west that it will have in the central and eastern parts of Canada. Out here, there really aren't any viable competing telcos, and Telus allows other companies to resell DSL under other brand names (for the same price, as far as I can tell) so who you get DSL from seems pretty irrelevant at this point.
Being able to get DSL-only service would be cool, however. I know people who really don't need a land line, but they have it just to get the DSL service.
- Murphy's Corollary: - It is impossible to make things foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
Not only do they "lose" the case but they
get Slashdotted!
(I am joking because hopefully these guys have the
capacity to handle it.)
Bell ADSL 1mbps/256k in the Ottawa area is $25/mo. In most cases, cheaper than the rest of your phone bill.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
parenthesizing it doesn't help. (America++) still returns America.
Why not fork?
How the hell do you expect to rip 125 channels all at the same time?!! Some sort of Beow...<CARRIER LOST>
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Indeed, this is what I'm talking about. DSL has the burden of requiring the subscription of a service you already pay for (given that you have a cellphone). With cable, you at least get a non-redundant service for a similar amount of money. Hopefully, this competition will drive DSL prices down far enough so they are significantly lower than cable, and cause the price of (cable + internet) to also fall in response.
Sorry mate, but Labatt's has been an Interbrew company for some time now. Interbrew is Belgian.
Molson would be a better choice. It's only 20% owned by Miller and another 20% by Phillip Morris.
The gov't of my town (the most conservative city in MN) decided that it would be best for the city to let Charter Communications have free reigns as the sole provider (carte blanche).
The happiness this contributes to my life is undescribable... somewhere between the lowest rates for my modem/tv and outstanding service I receive makes me actually consider Canada as someplace I might actually consider living...
"Canada is kind of like a loft apartment over a great party" - Robin Williams
-Brad
"The truth suffers from too much analysis"
"Assumption: You already pay $35 for a cellphone.
Sure, I'll take 125 channels as a perk for my decision making skills."
One. Phone providers offer a 3-10 (I forget what it was after tax) dollar a month dial tone, which is fine for DSL. If your wonderful "decision making skills" can do the math on that one, you'll realize that if you DONT need actually need the land line, its cheaper to get that instead of paying for a 30 month "DSL connector" (so to speak).
Two. I wouldnt trade my land line for a cell phone any day. I can call anywhere I want in the US, I dont pay long distance, and the calls are crystal clear. I dont have to worry about charging my phone, or is it "off time (night/weekends)" or is the call going to be disconnected. I can hear the other person, the phone isnt the size of a used bar of soap so I can cradle it without holding it to my ear (and I have a headset too, in case I need "hands free", ie, gaming). Plus I'll never be tempted to drive with the fucking thing stuck to my ear.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
More like +$30 for DSL service.
Yes, it WAS +$60, but prices keep dropping every day.
Some changes to your math:
$24.95 local phone
+$24.95 DSL service
-----------------
$49.90
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Perhaps it has something to do with the FCC wanting to pass full control of broadband to the baby Bells? If you don't see the big deal here, then don't complain about it in a few years when the baby Bells have broadband users at their mercy.
Your prices are way high for Canada:
/mo. for phone
I pay:
$24 Local line
+$30 1.7/0.4 Mb ADSL
==================
$55
Compare that with cable 1.5/0.2 Mb service at $44/mo with TV service, or $54 without.
Kind Regards,
Bruce
"Running counter to the recent string of pro-consolidation FCC rulings in the United States, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that Taco Bell must offer ADSL service...
After some nasty customer service from Bell I switched to Sprint for my local phone service. Was I ever surprised to find out that I was unable to get DSL after the switch. IGS is a great little DSL company but because they lease lines from Bell I was still unable to get service.
I had to go with Rogers Cable, which isn't a whole lot different then Bell sympatico
Maybe I is dumb, but I live on the canadian east coast, where there is only one phone company, no dsl, and no cable modem service at all. What good does this actually do? Telus can't even sell cellular phones right, I doubt they can do DSL effectively.
Just for the sake of argument, why would I _not_ want to move to Canada? (I currently live in the U.S.). I've certainly considered living in other countries, if only just for a while to see more of the world, but I don't want to fall victim to the "grass is always greener" illusion.
As background, let's say that I'm a moderate with a bit of a leftward bent (Kucinich is looking surprisingly good for a Democrat), and I don't think national healthcare is such a bad idea at all. What might I find to be worse were I to relocate to Canada?
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
How much longer is it going to be before eveyone in the US smarter than a brick has left for some other country with sensible laws? Or maybe its already happened and im too dumb to know it?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I have it even better here in the US:
$50/mo Cable Modem with admins too stupid to catch me running a web server
+$60/mo cell phone with Unlimited SMS, nights&weekends, & free long distance within continental US
=================
Watch TV over a friends house since nothing is on that makes it worth buying cable.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Between stuff like this, and Coffee crisps, Canada keeps looking better and better.
Now if they would just do something about the GST...
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Why do you say that?
Telus, the big telco out here in the west, offers a good DSL service.
As someone who must deal with Telus on a daily basis, I can only say *BULLSHIT*
Telus is the absolute _WORST_ ISP I've ever had the displeasure of using.
First off - they only provide dynamic IP addresses.. they refuse to provide static addresses, even though they charge more for them.. (They claim the IP addresses are static, but you must use DHCP to get them - anyone care to tell me what the 'D' in DHCP stands for?)
In October of 2001, their DHCP servers for the northern half of Alberta were down for TWO WEEKS! - which meant _NO_ DSL service.. Their current DHCP servers are broken, giving incorrect or incomplete netmask/broadcast addresses.
Second - _ANY_ problem with the line results in multi-hour hold, only to be told "you must reboot your machine, release and renew your IP address", and "reload TCP/IP, reinstall your network drivers, and if that doesn't work, reinstall your operating system." before anyone will look at the problem.
It's ludicrous.. we had a school running on Shaw cable for _TWO YEARS_.. it had no problem at all - ZERO downtime.. an administrative decision to switch to Telus saw the line go down every two days (like clockwork).. Calls to Telus say "oh, it must be your hardware".. Looking through the logs I found out the truth - their DHCP servers are issuing a lease, and then revoking it 48 hours later, but not telling the client.. so the client gets hung up thinking it has a valid lease (which according to the DHCP spec, it does) but the Telus routers refuse to acknowledge it.
And don't get me started on when they switched their DSLAMS, fucked up on the install, and blamed all their customers machines for _TWO DAYS_ before admitting it was their problem.
The great Straw man of the republican party. "We can't try to regulate trusts and monopolies, think of what it will do to Small Businesses" And under that guise all progressivism is stopped, the national debt ramped up to prevent any reforms, and tax cuts granted to the rich. What a Wonderful World!
When Sympatico kicked in the bandwidth cap I was a little ticked, but then they offered their Ultra service with 3 times the speed (3Mbps down and 640kbps up) and double the bandwidth (40Gb instead of 20). The additional cost was less than my excess bandwidth charges, so it was a no-brainer upgrade.
Then, after 3.5 years of month-to-month contracts, I figured that I wasn't going anywhere so I agreed to sign a 12 month contract to make my bandwidth caps go away.
So, I have a reliable 3Mbps down, 640kbps up, no bandwidth caps for C$70/mo (ignoring discounts).
Rogers is 1.5Mbps down, 192k up, no bandwidth caps for C$45/mo (ignoring discounts).
If you compare the "standard" broadband offerings, Rogers may have the edge (but they still have "heavy traffic" slowdowns), but for a bit more money (less than a case of beer or 3 packs of smokes) Sympatico blows their doors off.
As always, everything subject to geographic availability, etc.
hrm, you're right... why? doen't parenthasis have a higher order of operation than the equality check? sigh.
An ADSL line is, essentially, a very nice phone line. Given that it's not the phone service that's expensive, but the line and the ADSL service, that doesn't make much sense. Cable makes only marginally more sense. The result is that while you can choose to get cable internet without cable TV, the price difference is marginal.
That's just that many fewer people here who will vote socialist Democrats into office.
But that means more people (relatively) to vote for even more socialist Republicans.
The rate of incrase in social spending is 50% higher now than when Clinton was in. And that doesn't include the perscription drug program.
I think you missed the gist of the ruling from the FCC in the last big mess over DSL. It is an ugly, ugly mess. They did NOT back away from regulation as you suggest-- the ruling *requires* the telephone companies to share their networks for local phone service. However, they did end the requirement for linesharing of the "last mile" for alternative DSL companies.
If you had to regulate one or the other, which would you have picked? The one that requires the telcos to allow competitors to use their entire network to sell phone service? Or the one that allows companies with their own nationwide backbone infrastructure (like Covad) to use JUST the last-mile portion of the lines?
I REALLY don't understand why they picked what they did. It's not pro-consolidation OR anti-regulation. It's the worst possible combination of choices. It's no wonder there is widespread objection. Although most of the "nerd news" reporting painted the decision as one that was bad for nerds (no more DSL competition)-- mainstream press widely reported it as a terrible loss for the telcos (because they have to basically do all the infrastructure for their POTS competitors). Now, if a decision screws everybody (dsl users, dsl competitors, AND the telcos)-- it can't possibly be doing any of us any good. What the hell was the FCC thinking?
I'll agree that Bush has been a disappointment as someone who claimed to be a fiscal conservative. That's why I'm voting Libertarian next year.
USA != America
First off - they only provide dynamic IP addresses.. they refuse to provide static addresses, even though they charge more for them.. (They claim the IP addresses are static, but you must use DHCP to get them - anyone care to tell me what the 'D' in DHCP stands for?)
While the D stands for Dynamic, just because you get your IP via DHCP doesn't mean you don't get a static IP. You often configure DHCP servers to give our the same static IP to hosts. Why? Because it makes it much easier to reip the host/network later-- you have 1 config file to change instead of 10,000 hosts to reconfigure, and don't have to worry about the misconfiguration of those hosts.
-- I speak only for myself.
But the pre-increment... Canada == Americb?
Why not fork?
I know for a fact that Verizon offers the "cheap" line... before they offered their "freedom" package, I had MCI's Neighborhood, which unfortunantly couldnt have DSL (stupid ILEC). So I called verizon and pressed and pressed and pressed and finally they admitted that they had a "dial tone" which DSL could be run through.
A CSR Manager is NEVER going to offer that, because its bad for their bottom line... but they DO offer it, I know for fact.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
There is hardly any difference between democrats and republicans. Contrary to popular belief, republicans DO NOT support a free market-- they bail out airlines, support steel tarriffs, and pass laws to appease their corporate contributors. Vote Libertarian!
Everything Poops
And once all the Democrats are gone, then the Republicans can run unopposed. How the hell can that not scare any sane person? The country will slowly (or maybe not slowly...) drift to the right until the silly fears of a police state become not-so-silly.
"Green all year, no mosquitos." .. *cough cough* .. Well, I suppose if you count them as helicopters...
.. We've got privatized health care, and the Klein gov't intends to use the nothwithstanding clause to duck the same-sex marriage issue (stupid on Klein's part, IMO) The education system is great; especially the tax breaks; I've made $22,000 in a year as a student (8 months work); and been given back -everything- I paid in taxes. As for Chretien; between him and Bush, I'd say we have the lesser of two evils.
Honestly though; I'm quite happy in Canada, even if I'm in the most conservative province in the country (Alberta)
True, my math is different -
I've found that for comparable DL rates on DSL (vs. Cable), I had to buy a 2nd tier DSL plan - 1.5Mbit down and 256K up, thus the $60. Also, I should mention I'm in the US, so we're all relatively screwed anyway.
DSL @ $49.90 reaches many, many more people's budgets.
You can always count on folks acting in self interest.
don't follow it
You'd think it'd be worse for business to lose a customer entirely (as with my case) to a competitor and as a result take $0/month from them than it would be to offer the "service of last resort" and then take $70/month from them.
I suppose nobody has accused Verizon of brilliance, either.
Either way, a good bit of info!
to emigrate. The real land of the free. Issues like this seem to always favor the consumer and small business rather than the conglomerate. Pot is not-illegal. Gays are free to marry while in the US they have to fight to keep the police out of their bedrooms. Not everyone is considered a terrorist until proven otherwise. Unfortunately you are still amazingly too anti-gun for my tastes.
Seriously, why didn't the big guys win? They always win here. Are your politicians not for sale? Or are your corporations too cheap to buy them?
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
If you just move across the border (say, from Detroit to Windsor), you would notice very little differences, but everything varies from city to city. For instance, Alberta is still fighting homosexual marriages, but Toronto now weds couples daily.
The father you move from where you are, the more things are different, regardless if you go to a different country (Los Angeles -> Montreal) or not (Los Angeles -> New York).
I don't know about Canada being a socialist state (have always wondered why people would think that ... ), but I have lived in both countries (and have family living in both countries).
The truth is that the Canadian government is happy to infringe upon the freedom of corporations in order to enhance the lives of the individual. (e.g. decrimilize pot smoking, legal gay marriage and broadband for the people).
The US government, on the other hand, is too happy to curtail the freedom of the individual and let big corporations (and their campaign contributions) do whatever they want. (e.g. Patriot 1/2, DMCA, RIAA, MPAA, etc.)
Cheers.
> why would I _not_ want to move to Canada?
:)
1) You'd start talking funny, eh.
2) You'd have to use weird words - your dollar currency would be called a "Loonie" (there's a Loon on the dollar coin), and your two-dollar currency would be called a "Twoonie," eh.
3) You'd have to start making fun of people from Newfoundland ("Newfies"). I don't know why, you just would.
4) You'd have to pretend there's a really big cultural difference between Canadians and Americans. To everyone who asks, or doesn't ask.
5) You'd have to listen to Canadian radio and watch Canadian tv, which would basically be American radio and American tv if it weren't for Canadian laws which require a certain portion of broadcast content be native Canadian. Which means you get to hear a LOT of Loverboy, eh.
6) You'd have to claim William Shatner as your own.
7) You'd have to laugh at Jerry Lewis. Oh wait, that's France. Nevermind.
8) Hockey.
9) Curling. (and I don't mean irons)
10) That stupid Labatt(sp?) Blue spokesbear.
11) No littering or cursing allowed in Canada. Also, please be kind; rewind.
12) If it weren't for Canada, all you Europeans would be speaking German right now! Oh, wait, that's America...
13) The inevitable McKenzie Brothers comeback movie, "Dude, Where's My Beer, Eh? (Hoser)"
14) A pound of Canadian bacon a day keeps the doctor away, eh.
15) All the nice imported American acid rain.
16) Americans can't find your country on a globe or a map.
17) That damned South Park song.
18) Having to bow and scrape to the "Queen of Canada."
19) Your socialized health care means you get to wait a _very_ long time to see a doctor. (But at least you can afford it.)
20) Your money ain't worth shit.
21) You'll develop very little sense of humour about your newfound (Newfie!) country, and lists like this one will really piss you off. Eh.
22) When you get candy called "Smarties" at the local food jobber, you won't get the tasty treat you're used to in the U.S. Instead, you'll get a bunch of things that look like M&Ms. They don't, unfortunately, taste like M&Ms. They taste like *STALE* M&Ms. And that's the way they're supposed to taste. When an American brings up this fact, you have to pretend to like them, anyway.
23) You have weird beverages with little balls of cellulose floating in them. On purpose.
24) There is no number 24 in the Canadian number system. Deal.
Okay, that's enough of these off the top of my head.
Can't resist a good troll...
Taxes aren't that bad here, especially when you factor in the cost of medical insurance. (I make ~$60k/yr CDN and pay about 28% taxes without loopholes, so duh!) For some, they're better than having an equivalent position in the USA, as they discover when they move down and experience user-pays-for-everything, and they move back to Canada for economic reasons. It all depends on cost-of-living in various regions, and even the region of Canada or US one moves to, as well as the income bracket you're in. I've found that the moderately wealthy complain about taxes consistently, if they're from a somewhat socialized industrial nation.
If I get cancer, I can still change jobs or provinces without losing my medical benefits or paying disproportionately. That's not commie, that's humane, you twit!
One other thing... gross disparity of income leads to other extremely expensive social ills, like massive prisons, health problems, badly educated populace, violence and insecurity, drug use, despair, riots, and extreme cultural stress. It's a hidden cost, and we canucks have our share of these problems. I think it's hilarious that 'Americans' consider us socialized pinkos!
Besides, isn't Robin Hood a hero? You presume that the rich never steal from the poor.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Why is there no "too stupid to live" mod? Even better, "retroactive abortion needed"...Hmmm...I sense a fork of Slashcode coming...
The US Constitution included the right to bear arms so that the people could rise up against an oppresive govenment.
... we're just too busy enjoying our beer, pseudo-legal tokes and cheap broadband ...
In Canada, private citizens are typically better armed and better funded than the government, so we could rise up if we wanted
I have been stuck in the annoying as hell situation of needing DSL, because I need a static IP, because I run servers at home.
Unfortunately, this also means I need to use Bell Canada as my local telephone service provider.
I won't bother listing the many encounters I've had with Bell, suffice it to say at the earliest opportunity I will discontinue using them for telephone service.
Bell's Sympatico service is honestly the worst. I switched to Rogers cable because I absolutely despised them. Not to mention the 10GB cap on transfers which Rogers doesn't have. I'm really hoping some of the local DSL providers will step up to the plate and force Bell to change their ways. This deregulation should force Bell to drop the 10GB limit, or at least up it to something more reasonable. A SuSE distro can be 7 CD's and there goes 1/2 of your transfer.. WTF? It should also give their customers a choice, because Cable is unbearably slow in some areas and technically isn't a viable option. Another strike for the good guys. Now if the CRTC could only deregulate Cable TV so I have a choice where my money goes and allow me to watch US Network TV over the web via services like jumpTV and then I'll be completely happy.
-I DDoSed your mom.
Those here on /. seem to like competition in software or media or phone/DSL service.
But for some damn reason they have a royal hard-on for a Canadian-style health care monopoly. Desipite the evidence such as you just provided.
If you neglect your civil rights,they will be removed by the Cheney-Rumsfeld regime.
Remember, regime change begins at home
Thanks and have an Ashcroft-free week!!
W00t
While the D stands for Dynamic, just because you get your IP via DHCP doesn't mean you don't get a static IP.
... you have 1 config file to change instead of 10,000 hosts to reconfigure
Yes, it does.
If the DHCP server goes down, you lose your connection when the lease expires - with a static IP address, that shouldn't happen.
Static IP addresses should be hard-coded - otherwise you're just inserting a needless additional point of failure.
You often configure DHCP servers to give our the same static IP to hosts
Sorry, that's just bullshit. No sysadmin in his right mind would trust the configuration of 10,000 hosts to one machine.
If you Americans think you have it bad, you don't know how bad it is Canada (until recently anyways), where you had exactly two choices for broadband: Bell Sympatic ADSL, or cable.
I was so pissed off with Bell in a billing dispute that I ended up dropping my residential phone lines and ADSL, bought a cell phone with a lot of minutes, and finally broke down and subscribed to cable just so I could still get broadband.
I got mad because they dropped my phone line without so much as calling me . They left me a voice message to call their offices, but even the operator admitted it was very misleading. Anyways when they refused to waive a reconnection fee I told them to cancel everything including my ADSL. They said fine. Months later, I found I was still being billed by Bell Sympatico, and they told me that I was still using my ADSL line, more than a month AFTER MY PHONE LINE WAS PHYSICALLY DISCONNECTED. They had claimed I had used > 2 GB of data during a period when it was technically impossible for me to use their ADSL. Even after faxing them a copy of my disconnection letter, they never refunded me all my monies. (Stories like this about Bell are legion. Don't get me started on their technical support)
Anyways the worst part about it was that they insisted that "Bell Sympatico" was a different entity than "Bell", and that *I* was obligated to call the ADSL and disconnect with them. Well excuse me for being confused - you both call yourselves "Bell", Sympatico shares much of the same graphic identity, I get Sympatico sales hawk material in my Bell bill, and I needed a Bell line to use your f*cking service. Purely for customer relations, they should have accepted the misunderstanding, understood that I could not have used their service, and refunded me for the service I couldn't have possibly used.
As I understand the situation is already a lot better. There are several companies now in Canada offering DSL service on Bell phone lines. But I'll be tarred and feathered before I ever give Bell canada or one of their cronies another dollar.
Is there anything they can't do?
I'm sorry, I'm from the US. What is this "competition" you speak of? Is that a new service offered by Verizon? Something from Comcast perhaps? How much does it cost on top of all the other charges that make my monthly billing statement thicker than the King James Bible?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I think you've got the cart before the horse. An uneducated populace is unable/unwilling to go out and provide for themselves, hence you have income disparity.
But when you have a government that tells people that even if they are unable/unwilling to earn themselves a living, there are always others who DO work that will pick up the tab. That kind of system rewards laziness and punishes hard work. A funny bumper sticker I once saw speaks the truth: "Work harder! Someone on welfare is counting on you!"
I also find the assertion of socialists that the government knows what's good for me better than I do insulting and extremely condescending. Many socialists proclaim to be educated, but have no problem with letting a parental government run their lives for them.
Is capitalism perfect? Far from it. There are always those who live off of the hard work of others, under any economic system. But government adaptation of that practice is an unacceptable alternative. I'll take my chances because I'm smart enough to not let anyone take advantage of me, and that I can and always will be able to take care of myself.
"Besides, isn't Robin Hood a hero? You presume that the rich never steal from the poor."
Not if you're the rich guy :) Of course, now you don't have to be rich to be bent over the proverbial barrel. But then I guess this is the same reason why folks like Jesse Jackson are also perceived as heroes by some.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
In my tiny town of 5,000 we had DSL availible in most areas by the end of 2002. Speed is great. 1.5 Mbs down, 512kbs up for $35/month CDN. Downtime runs about 10 hours a year, and the tech support is competent and NAT friendly (it's in the manual too). They have quotas too, but they've never enforeced them really.
...and I wish I was only paying $25/month for a 1mbps/256k connection. I'm paying $44.00(plus $7-something for every gig over 10) for the same connection with Bell Sympatico(DSL). The parent poster may have one of the faster connections. Bell offers an "Ultra" edition for around $60-70/month. But that is a complete waste, since you'll only burn your download cap a lot faster.
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
Problem is, it doesn't work. They use these stupid non-rfc compliant Nortel boxes to run it all and it fucks up all the time. Their support people don't understand how it works, all they know is release and renew your IP, etc.
I thought it was neat at first but let me tell you it's a nightmare. Complete garbage. I consult for small companies and I absolutely refuse to set them up on Telus. I acutally fired a client over it once, he inisted on Telus so I told him I wouldn't do it. Guess who was back in 3 months?
So, forcing large monopolistic companies to offer products will encourage competition? No. Nothing's forcing them to price the products at a level people will pay, and all it will do will scare away smaller companies ("Well, I was thinking about buying bandwidth and reselling to the locals, but no way now the big telcos are in the picture...").
She's also looking for Internet access, which is why she didn't just go the cell phone route. I was hoping to find a local phone service provider with a promotion or discount for buying both local phone and Internet service, but haven't found anything. Thanks for any help/advice in advance! =)
The 25 bucks per month is an introductory offer. It's about 40 /mo, usually.
What with $4 billion or so directly from UK citizen's taxes, you'd think they'd be able to do better than prop up a UN weapons inspector as a "senior government intelligence source" in order to further their own agenda.
Once upon a time I was working for a retail company with stores all over the country. We decided to put a new concept into a store in Edmonton, network POS system with an encrypted tunnel to the head office in Calgary. We got Telus Not-So-Static-IP DSL installed in the store and it was good.
3 months later it was bad, DSL would work for 15 minutes afeter IP lease and then die. The store manager tried to talk to Telus and got no where. I talked to them, they sent out a tech. 3 times this happened. They started telling me there was a bridge tap on the line so it might not ever work. It _had_ worked for months of course. I demanded a manager, got him to send out a tech, nothing. They replaced some piece of equipment in the COLEC that cost upteen thousand dollars. I go out and replace the computer in the store, still doesn't work.
By now a month have gone by, we got no DSL, everything is crap. I have spent about 10 hours on the phone with these guys. My boss (the company prez) is breathing down my neck, he doesn't understand why I can't get this going. Neither do I, all I can do is point a finger. I look like an idiot here but it gets worse. One day the store manager gets fed up and calls Telus support, whoever she talks to somehow fixes the problem in five minutes. Bang, it's back. it works everybody is happy. Except me. Talk about embarassed, I looked like a complete asshole. Nothing I could have done differently either. Telus set me up and made me thier bitch.
I will not say that we have not had problems with Telus. However, I have found that the local techs are very knowledgeable and have always been able to rapidly resolve a situation even if their phone support people have not been able too. I have been using Telus ADSL in small town Alberta for several years and have had virtually no problems.
I'm a particular fan of Blanche de Chambly.
---
Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
$25 is a promotional deal for the first year, after that it goes up to $34.95 and if you don't have telus long distance it goes up another $3.00. And thats on top of basic phone service.
Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
Taxes aren't that bad here, especially when you factor in the cost of medical insurance. (I make ~$60k/yr CDN and pay about 28% taxes without loopholes, so duh!)
The rate for income between $30k and $60k in Manitoba is a combined 37%, give or take. It only gets worse from there. I haven't met many Americans paying $1000 a month for health insurance.
Tack on 14% sales tax, several HUNDRED percent alcohol and tobacco tax, entertainment tax, gasoline tax...
There's a reason our 'tax-free' day is in July, and this is for the *average* taxpayer.
Never mind the costs involved with our so-called 'free' healthcare: ambulance fees, prescription fees, room fees, fees for crutches... there's a reason most working Canadians have supplementary medical insurance. Healthcare simply isn't free here.
Having said that, I'm very happy to know that if I get smacked up on the freeway tonight, they won't let me die based on my bank account. (does this actually happen in the USA, or is this propaganda?)
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
"An uneducated populace is unable/unwilling to go out and provide for themselves, hence you have income disparity."
I'd like to test that theory, but don't have the time right now to do the literature search. My experience (hanging and working with millionaires and entrepeneurs, hanging and working with ne'er-do-well artists and slackers, living and working with the homeless/street kids/multi-generation impoverished) suggests to me that there are many educated loafers, and that many of the wealthiest are not there by merit; and that an education can often lead to pursuits other than the acquisition of personal wealth.
I've seen lots of folks who work their asses off doing fundamentally crucial work, and make $22K/yr, and I know plenty who make +$100K but mostly cruise, or put in long hours but it isn't really crucial work. This is the old problem of exchange value (for labour) not being rationalized with use value... never mind danger pay.
No-one's disproved the industrial theory of skimming surplus value of labour for profits to my satisfaction, if you know of such disproof please direct me to it.
"I also find the assertion of socialists that the government knows what's good for me better than I do insulting and extremely condescending." I couldn't agree with you more, except that I see that it is primarily 'conservative' governments who tell me what substances I can put in my body, who I can sleep with or marry, what I can watch or read, and who I can worship (or not).
On the other hand, since any society is implicitly interdependent, we share some of the costs of idiots who dump PCB's in their back yard or can't drive properly, so I'm glad that there's at least some regulation, e.g. the rules of the road! Stay on the right of the yellow line, eh! It's good for you!
Damn those pesky terrorists
After all, the wire is private property owned by a private company. How do you justify some sanctimonious twit in parliament (or whatever you canuks have) just stepping in & forcing them to provide a service they'd rather not?
Doesn't anyone in that godforsaken ice-pit believe in property rights?
---Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Service? The service was crap because AT&T controlled everything. So you wanted a repair done, might take weeks. At least today you have a choice if you hate the company.
The problem most countries have when they de-nationalize a service is they don't do it right. You can't simply declare 'well you're not longer nationalized' and pretend that things will get better. For it to work right, you have to do that, and then split the company apart into competitors. Most dimwitted countries fail to accomplish part B.
-
$40 is the max for high speed. There is other LEVELS of high speed, but the 1 meg service cannot be more than $40.
Here is a few gripes I have with Telus:
I cannot gripe about the price as it isn't all that bad -- $35 CDN a month, which is $25 USD. They also do encourage connection sharing, as they sell Linksys routers in their stores.
However, Telus ADSL sucks and I welcome competition. Maybe Telus will clean up its act when it comes to their Internet service.
I suppose I could have said that Canada is to C++ as America is to C, but I was busy coding, so I just threw up the first thing to come to mind...
Americans still suck the sweat off a dead mans bag, though...
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
No it doesn't. Nex
I shouldn't reply to an AC flamebait post, but...
Telus certainly has had tech problems, especially when Telus and BC Tel were combining... There were lots of outages and tech support got a bit hellish there. And they have this stupid one-number tech support policy that is supposed to be helpful (you can get tech support in BC or Alberta on the same number) but is a serious pain for those of us trying to manage businesses with branches in both provinces.
But Telus is, compared to most tech suppliers that I've worked with, not bad at all. They rarely hassle me if I have some serious tech problems. They NEVER EVER have multi-hour holds. Usually 3-5 minutes. You must have been calling an airline's air miles line. They boost me to "level 2" with one call, and when you've got the magic level 2 key, you don't wait on the phone and they queue you to get to-your-door service on a pretty tight timeline. The most annoying thing is that they often have to send someone out to discover what I've been telling them all along -- it's not MY problem, it's YOURS.
Their pricing is good, too. Most of the (western) branches of the company that I put on DSL are paying residential rates, even though Telus knows they're businesses. Other provinces have to pay Mafia-extortion rates for business DSL, which usually is the same service as Telus' residential, just with a different label.
And as for the whole DHCP thing -- My static machines have their IPs hard-coded into them. They don't even ask Telus anymore. Seems to work fine. My "dynamic" machines almost never change their addresses, by the way. That could be considered a bug in Telus' system, but it's very nice for me as a "power user"... When used with a service like no-ip.com, I can get a low-maintenance solution without paying for "static" IPs.
Now, Bell out in Ontario -- there's a nightmare. What's up with the virtual network card and the dialler you have to run every time you restart the computer!? And they charge the same price for ONE business DYNAMIC IP that Telus charges for TWO STATIC ones.
- Murphy's Corollary: - It is impossible to make things foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
I doubt it. Where's the bandwidth coming from? Point to point won't work for most so I don't see how this is at all technically feasible. Given the ever increasing demand for bandwidth, we're far more likely to finally see fiber to the end user than universal wireless.
wish we had this in California... I'm tired of paying Verizon for a voice line (that I don't use) just so I can get DSL service.
im using iam net for my dsl. they have 1meg up 3 meg down at about $81 (incl tax and static ip). check it out. also very reliable but you have to have your own modem, or you pay 5 more a month. no cap :)
I am a Canadian with a graduate degree who worked legally in the U.S. for 5-1/2 years and have an American-born son. When Green Card processing was effectively shut down after 9/11/2001, and the telecom bust hit me, I had to return to Canada. Fair enough, I knew the H1B deal.
That does not mean I like it here. In fact, at the risk of overapplying generalities I find most Canadians liars at best, and thieves, and murders at worst.
1. Canadian health care: on a par with medicaid. 25% of all Canadians who are referred to a cardiologist die before they get to see one because of the waiting list.
2. Even this level of health care is not available to me despite the fact that my taxes pay for it. You see, to get it, (at least in Ontario), you have to claim to intend to never leave (i.e. live there permanently).
3. Purchasing private insurance instead of participating in the public plan (and agreeing to never leave, and thus be a tax slave forever), is illegal, even if you fund the public system.
Now, I made some strong accusations: that Canadians are (a)liars, (b)thiefs, (c)murders; at least the vast majority that support the status quo. Let's see how these accusations are backed up:
1. Liars. One is told that one will get health care "for free" via public tax participation. But, one does not get the care one could obtain on the free market based on what one has paid. Thus, the promise of health care is a lie. And a big one. Political students and other readers of "Mein Kampf" will recognize Hitler's "the bigger the lie, the better" propaganda point.
2. Thieves. Given that tax dollars are taken, by force, if necessary, with no commensurate compensation at free market levels, even a proponent of the legitimacy of tax collection on the basis if majority rule would see this as theft.
3. Because Canadians are impoverished to the point of not being able to afford proper health insurance, except for the rich who likely have to break the law if they do so, some die as a result. Enforcers and proponents of the system that does this are murderers and accossories thereto.
The U.S. and other nations have some of these attibutes, to be sure, but certainly not in the insidious combination that Canada does. If one points out the traps and pitfals, one is advised to "lie to get the service" (i.e. claim an intent to remain permanently, even when this is not true).
A nation with an entrenshed culture of lying as necessary to survive is surely one ruled by tyrants.
Clearly, I hate and dispise this Canadian nation whose citizenship I wear like a brand on my buttocks. Nevertheless, I live here and obey it's laws. One would think that a civilized society has room for political opposition -- flag burning and neo-Nazi marches are still legal in the U.S., despite the angst such expressions no doubt cause parents of sons and daughters who have fallen in her service, remebered with a revered piece of cloth; and survivers of 1930s German genocide of Jews. But this is not the case.
At every turn I am encouraged to not voice my opinions, that life "will be made difficult" for me by some ominious force. Is this Russia under Stalin, Italy under Mussolini, Germany under Hitler? Do I risk death for my views?
Having believed in American ideals (though, not necessarily present American political pressures which seek to quench them), and experienced life there, I am very much predisposed to dying on my feet, in mid-scream of my protests, than living on my knees. Perhaps it is the newness of my short experience of relative liberty compared to my upbringing, that I embrace a love of freedom over life itself whereas the American taste for the illusion of security has grown as the thrill of liberty gives way to the risks it implies, that leaves me with a giddy sense of patriotism to not a country, but to principle. But, the thought of the mere possibility of dying fr
You could've hired me.
Bell Cancelled my service early, pulled the card from the local office (only to put it back 3 days later), cut my phone service for a day and a half, and further messed up the line for 5 days until Echo complained directly to Bell.
Switching DSL service providers should be as simple as changing your authentication (username + password). Well Bell doesn't like making things easy.
I switched to Echo online's DSL service because on the 26th of June Bell Sympatico started blocking all inbound port 25 connections.
I was wondering if anyone else has similar problems, is anyone annoyed enough to start a class action? (I have no interest in investing the time, but if you want to rant try class.action at marks.______.net)
FWIW: I thought it was funny to mention Echo Online does not have OS myopia, they ackowledge, Linux, *BSD and even Sega Dreamcast as possible client OSs.
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Wait, doesn't Philip-Morris own Miller?
I'm very happy to know that if I get smacked up on the freeway tonight, they won't let me die based on my bank account. (does this actually happen in the USA, or is this propaganda?)
No, it doesn't happen. Hospitals provide emergency services regardless of your ability to pay. Whether or not you'll be able to get expensive reconstructive surgery is less certain, but you probably will. And physical therapy afterward, if you really need it. Actually, this situation is at the root of one of the biggest problems with our system: Because emergency care is effectively free, but preventative care is not, many people end up needing expensive emergency care for something that could have been prevented much more cheaply.
The obvious followup question is: If emergency care is free to the recipient, who pays for it? The hospitals, basically. They try to collect what they can from the patient, but that's often not much, and they do get some help from governments and charities, but mostly it's just an added operating expense for them, which means that it gets added to the bills of the patients who do have insurance, or other means of paying their bills.
However, despite all of the flaws in the system, I can't think of any way more certain to make it worse than to turn it all over to the government. Many health care professionals I know point to the existing Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security-related medical programs as the source of many of the existing problems.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I think the CRTC's decision is a bad one. In my area, the telco is a Crown Corporation, which is owned by the people(SaskTel). We paid the money to lay the telecommunications infrastructure via taxes, and cost of service, and now some other company can come, and capitalize on our expenditures. This is ludicrous. If the CRTC was truly all for competition, it would allow our television over DSL (SaskTel MAX to be packaged separate from the broadband internet service. They would also force cable companies such as Shaw Cable and Rogers Cable to open up their broadband infrastructure to competing cable companies. Broadband prices are a drop in the bucket in Canada compared to other parts of the world, including some areas of the United States, where a 384kbit/s connection costs someone as much or more than a 3mbit/s DSL connection would cost me here in Canada. ($99CDN/mo), or a 2mbit/s DSL connection ($60CDN/mo).
Hmm how ... let me see, Antitrust laws that where in place before the company even opened its doors could be a good reason. Updating the laws to be enforced on new media is not a strech of the imagination. It is cheaper for there to be only one physical telephone provider to each house. This by definition is a natural monopoly. We know the free market will not work well to protect the consumer without regulation. There is not much to justify as the laws where always there and for good reason.
There are limits on your freedom, you legally can't do certain things like kill people,or choose not to sell a product or service on the basis of racial discrimintation, or engage in monopolistic behavior, so get over it.
You know, if you want people to take you seriously, tone down the Hitler stuff.
Unless you're the premier of a very squirrely province!
Wah!
Yes, it does.
No really, it doesn't.
If the DHCP server goes down, you lose your connection when the lease expires - with a static IP address, that shouldn't happen.
Sure, but that shouldn't be the issue.
Sorry, that's just bullshit. No sysadmin in his right mind would trust the configuration of 10,000 hosts to one machine.
Of course not, you'd set up redundant servers. You'll note he said "DHCP serverS". That should go without saying. You work to minimize the points of failure in the system, while increasing the maintainability of the system.
I can tell you've done lots of admin work-- this is why you advocate maintaining 10,000 hosts instead of one. Go point and click somewhere else.
So it gets tricky when you try and point out that Canadians/Canadiens might be Americans
(Ok, so I better get home before I throw up, then. Bye.)
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
Did anyone else read that as bandwidth crapping ? Anyone? Beuller? Ok, it's late.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
Note that for most people in the US making the equivelent of that or more, health care is one of the benifits paid by your employer, not only that, but it covers your family.
And if you get cancer, and have to quit your job, you will not lose your medical benifits, but if you want to keep full coverage, you may need some out of pocket. However, if you cannot pay at all, you still receive medical care.
-- Russ
By the way, important point here, Robin hood simply didn't steal from the rich and give to the poor. Do your reading, the fiefdom or whatever you want to call it was grossly over taxing the populace, it was that over taxation that was returned to the people...something that seems long overdue in canada.
and buy your phone line ($400)
then pay NTT (now private telco) $2 (yes Y200/month) connection fee,
and $20-30 a month to your ISP for 8-12-or 100mbps service, who will happily offer free VoIP phone service to your fellow users, and maybe Y2.5/3min to everywhere else in Japan
(all calls are toll calls in Japan, but you can sign up with various providers, like KDD for example)
taxes? 9%, medical and pension together are about $200/month
They'll just bypass this edict by pricing it ridiculously high.
Ahh, well you see, Canada is not like the US. In Canada, people can call shenanigans on corporations and actually get somewhere.
simon
home page
I wish BT would do this in the UK.
It's never going to happen though.
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We have the case of a government chartered monopoly becoming a regular business. When they own the common infrastructure, how else can you foster competition but through regulation?
Markets are not created by God or magically. They're an effective social and political construct used to allocate goods. And they don't always work.
All of this stuff just seems to be be a means to ensure competition for consumers. I fail to see how this has anything to do with economic planning, full employment, or proletarian revolution.
-Stu
While anything else pales by comparison, for the very same reason, it shows that lesser attrocities are that much more likely to occur.
The "it can't happen here" mantra might have legitimacy when applied against an emergence of extreme Fascism or Naziism somewhere, but loses force of likelihood precisely because "even worse" things DID happen elsewhere.
Hitler contributes much to the effective use of propaganda and serves as a useful case study for that reason -- those that do not remember the past are bound to repeat it.
It is quite useful to be able to recognize a particular propaganda technique, trace it to it's origin, and, with authority, legitimately compare the past to the present within the context of that propaganda technique.
You could've hired me.
EFFECTIVLY FREE? EM is most certainly not that way when you can kiss goodbuy the hope of ever having credit because you had Asthma and no insurance.
So your followup questions are meaningless.
EFFECTIVLY FREE? EM is most certainly not that way when you can kiss goodbuy the hope of ever having credit because you had Asthma and no insurance.
The system certainly has its flaws. However, it's also not fair to say that you'll never be able to get credit again after such a situation. It'll take a few years, though, and you'll pay through the nose for credit for a while.
So your followup questions are meaningless.
Eh? I only asked one followup question (who does pay for the free emergency medical services?) and it's certainly not meaningless.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You're absolutely right, and it's something I should have made clearer in my first post. I agree with you completely in that the networks should be publicly maintained, rather than privately owned. I'm also pragmatic enough to realize that things are entrenched enough that we're not getting out of this easily. We at least had a way for competition to build itself in prior to their "worst of all worlds" decision, but now all we have is a mess.
Due to some really shitty (and VERY late -- who the hell mods 3 day old discussions?) moderation:
Not when the corp. in question is Bell (or one of its subsidiaries), they can't.
Then again, it is a funny story, in a sad "we just want to ruin the industry for everyone, and don't care if we go down the shitter too" sort of way.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC