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Canadian ISP Co-Op Shows Upside of Line Sharing

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the grass-roots-muni-wifi dept.

Golden Gael writes "The FCC got rid of mandatory line sharing in the US a few years ago, but it's alive and kicking in Canada, and an interesting article at Ars Technica looks at what can happen when there's vibrant broadband competition. 'Wireless Nomad does things a little differently. The company is subscriber-owned, volunteer-run, and open-source friendly. It offers a neutral Internet connection with no bandwidth caps or throttling, and it makes a point of creating wireless access points at the end of each DSL connection that can be used, for free, by the public. Bell Canada this is not.' The ISP has some ambitious plans for the future, including getting involved in WiMAX."

6 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. Frustrated with options in the US by timeOday · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I live in a city of over half a million people. Last night I spent about 40 minutes trying to find out what my broadband options are. Nobody is upfront; it was incredibly difficult to determine even how much each service will cost after the teaser rates expire, especially if you don't want bundled local telephone or cable TV. Next, try to determine what DSL speed you'll get at your house, or what the upstream bandwidth for cable is. You can't. Just lots of stupid marketing fluff and "congratulations! Satellite Internet is available in your area!" type garbage. In the end I gave up, it didn't look like I have any real option besides what I have now - Comcast (which is good but too expensive, especially since I don't really want cable TV any more). I am sick of everybody pretending the free market is at work so everything is great. It isn't.

    1. Re:Frustrated with options in the US by Jarjarthejedi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ^ Not a big free market believer

      "sick of everybody pretending the free market is at work so everything is great. It isn't."

      The problem in this case is not the free market itself, but rather that the average person has no idea what most of the stuff means. It's getting better, and we're seeing the beginning of the end for the market-speak in the internet area (the recent unlimited capped internet being the big thing now), but for the most part the average consumer has no idea what the applicable difference is between a 100 mb/s and 300 mb/s line is (they do know that one is 3x faster, but not how that will affect them and whether it's worth it). Because of that ignorance the providers are able to keep all the important information secret, because the majority cares more about whether they'll have the internet and be able to send e-mails rather than what they can expect their upload and download rates to be and what the caps are on their internet use. Once those are seen as important by the majority (read: once the majority is at least technologically sufficient, if not proficient) they'll start being advertised.

      Just thought I'd point that out. Internet here is quite pathetic, but it's not strictly a free market problem. It's more a general population problem which is amplified by having a free market environment.

      --
      There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
    2. Re:Frustrated with options in the US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I am sick of everybody pretending the free market is at work so everything is great. It isn't.


      I am sick of everyone pretending there is a free market. There isn't
  2. Re:Must Be Great.... by clsours · · Score: 5, Funny

    First the dollar and now this?! Is Canada the new America?

    --
    Seagoon: Shut up Eccles!

    Eccles: Shut up Eccles!
  3. Getting results by freelance+cynic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Before anyone comes in screaming that this isn't how the "free" market is supposed to work, how bad governement intervention is, etc. etc., let me point out the following:

    In Canada, the biggest telco, by far, Bell Canada, was for a very long time a state sanctioned monopoly and thus recieved tons of public funds to help build its infrastructure (not unlike the situation in the US). Due to this fact, the CRTC (the Canadian equivalent of the FCC, but usually with a clue), forces Bell to allow access to its lines to competitors, as mentionned in the article.

    Results? While the particular company Ars focused on isn't a resounding success (even if it has cool ideas), there's tons of others that are. Example: unlimited, uncapped DSL, which would cost me 45$ with Bell, cost me 28$ with one of its competitors because Bell has to lease them the line for 22$/month (a price point at which they still make a profit, I feel it must be pointed out).

    And it's not just competition on prices and service level, it's customer service too. Anyone that had to deal with a telco before, at one point or another, pretty certainly wanted to go on a shooting spree. The company I deal with? Pick up the phone and someone (in Canada!) will answer, straight away, 24h a day... none of that "please press 1-3-2-6... please wait... we're receiving an unusual volume of call... waiting time is 17 minutes... your call is important to us" bullshit.

    So, basically, go mandatory line-sharing! Anyone wanna bet that it's never going to happen in the States? ;P

  4. Re:Must Be Great.... by MarkRose · · Score: 5, Funny

    Look at any map. We've been on top of the US since day one!

    --
    Be relentless!