Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bell Proposing Usage-Based Billing

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-the-man dept.

Idiomatick writes "Bell Canada is attempting to impose UBB on its wholesale customers. As Bell was given a last-mile monopoly in much of Canada by the government, they are required to follow rules set up by the CRTC; this includes leasing their lines to competitive ISPs. And they are given a directive by the CRTC to provide competitive speeds to said ISPs. Teksavvy has informed its customers that were this to go through, the current monthly cap would be quartered and the cost for exceeding it would be 'multiple times more than our current per Gigabyte rate of $0.25/GB on overages.' They have also helpfully included a link where you can send your comments/concerns to the CRTC directly."

6 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. Do-over by concernedadmin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How much would it cost to rip up the ground and lay down more fiber? It seems like in most cases, a (natural?) monopoly results. When things get this bad, is there any chance that a new generation of telecommunications companies can spring up (perhaps with government subsidies to get them going)?

    1. Re:Do-over by digitalchinky · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's not so much the cost that matters, it's the monopolies you mention. They are not natural though, they were formed from contracts that were drafted with precision greed and much forward contemplation of their potential future value. They did have a hundred years or so of prior telephony contracts to give them a good heads up. It'll be many years and many legal battles before your new generation get to turn their first clump of dirt.

    2. Re:Do-over by Swizec · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is what happened in Slovenia. A new comer (T-2) came along and decided to say fuck you to the biggest and the baddest and just start laying down fiber, offering FTTH at prices much lower than the market value and simply work against all conventional business ideology.

      What happened was that after a few years they were the cheapest, fastest and all around bestest internet provider in the country. This forced the biggest and the baddest to sharply drop their prices and start laying FTTH to simply stay in business at all.

      Now, about 5 years after this started happening, Slovenia is the 7th in the world in FTTH adoption right behind Scandinavia and Asia.

      Fun fact: It's about half cheaper to get 20/20 FTTH here than it is to get 1024/256 ADSL.

  2. Re:Thats it... by arogier · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not everything going on in the US broadband wise is completely disheartening. Last week my hometown passed a bond initiative to fund fiber to the home as a municipal utility.
    http://www.highlandilnews.com/index.html

    --
    http://www.aaronrogier.net
  3. Re:Greed at its finest.... by multipartmixed · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > If I switch to Rogers, Bell will lose me as a phone customer. I'll have no
    > reason to not subscribe to a digital phone service from Rogers.

    Make sure your port your number. When you port your number away from Bell, it triggers some magic retention-department panic. They'll call you several times asking how they can get your business back. Make sure you tell them exactly why you're no longer a Bell customer, maybe if enough people shout loud enough they'll eventually listen.

    In my case, there was no DSLAM in the nearest CO; they suggested I get Bell WiMax. After I finished laughing at them, I explained that my new phone company had their own ADSL2+ DSLAM in that same CO, and that I was pleased-beyond-belief with the service I was receiving. The bits... they torrent!!

    --

    Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
  4. Re:Usage based is fine if you're an honest ISP by Hizonner · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I agree. UBB actually makes a lot of sense, but the UBB structure they're proposing is wrong. If you're going to bill on usage, bill on usage; don't set up some arbitrary cap at which the rate goes insane.

    I don't think it's a matter of gouging heavy users, though. Not exactly, anyway. The problem is that the carriers sized their infrastructure on the assumption that the subscriber base would grow a lot, but the data transferred per subscriber would not grow as much as it has. They didn't see mass-scale P2P file sharing coming along, let alone YouTube coming along and replacing cable TV.

    So now they have a big, expensive, inadequate infrastructure (and an inadequate pricing model to go with it). The depreciation schedules they based their plans on require that infrastructure to last a long time before it gets replaced, but it's already being overwhelmed.

    I think what they're really trying to do is less to gouge heavy users, and more to discourage heavy use entirely, so that they can continue to limp along on their old infrastructure long enough for it to pay for itself.

    In other words, they screwed up their market forecasts, and now they want everybody do without improved service until they make their money back based on those flawed forecasts.

    Of course it was their screwup in the first place, and most of them (I don't know about Bell or Canada) got a lot of subsidies and tax breaks based on promises of fabulous networks. They then kept as much of that money as they could get away with while building out the cheap network they thought they could get away with. I therefore think they (their shareholders) should really be first in line to eat the costs of writing off the infrastructure they built in error.

    Then they can go ahead and do UBB to create a revenue stream to get financing to build a proper network.