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Canadian ISPs Fight Back, Again
jenningsthecat writes "With the recent CRTC decision giving Canadian telcos such as Bell and Telus the legal right to deny third-party ISPs access to their infrastructure, smaller Canadian Internet providers are again fighting for their lives, and are asking their customers for help. The ISPs are seeking public support, asking people to go to competitivebroadband.com to send either a form letter or a personalized message to the Industry Minister, the Prime Minister, the Opposition Leader, and optionally the respondent's local Minister of Parliament. If the CRTC's decision is not overturned, approximately 30 ISPs will likely be forced out of business. Competition in the ADSL market will be totally eliminated, and Canadians will have only two choices for wired Internet access: the local Cableco or the local Telco. Given that Canadian taxpayers have heavily subsidized the telcos in multiple ways for several decades, this decision to hand over exclusive control of the keys to the cookie jar hardly seems fair."
The problem is the current big ADSL ISP's(Bell and Telus) have a monopoly on their markets(It might be an Oligopoly, I don't know if Bell and Telus compete in the same geographic areas.)
If the prices will go too much up, I'm sure customers will be unhappy and there will be new ISP's taking place.
Have you taught about the price to enter such a market? It is not possible for any new player to come in and create its own infrastructure and try to compete with the Bell, Telus, Rogers & Videotron of the Canadian market which all have huge market share. So yes the CRTC has to come in and legislate and force the market to open up especially since all Telcos have been subsidized over the years by the Canadians.
The thing you are missing is that the infrastructure was build with government money. The competition is unfair because the big telco "own" the networks and if you don't have the government forcing them to sell their network capacity to the smaller ISPs then they will stop selling to the ISP or sell at high rates and then sell at low rates to their customers. This will put all the smaller ISPs out of business and once they are gone the big telco can jack up their prices because they have no competition.
The problem is the current big ADSL ISP's(Bell and Telus) have a monopoly on their markets(It might be an Oligopoly, I don't know if Bell and Telus compete in the same geographic areas.)
You got that right, all the telcos and cable companies have very specific geographic areas, quite often the only real choice is either ADSL or cable, and in many locations you don't even have such a choice.
Monopoly, American style!
Seriously, O Canada, don't emulate us on this one. America needs the "Crazy Uncle" to the north to provide some alternatives to business as usual.
Living in Canada and working in Telecommunications a bit (and my father still does) you begin to learn a few things about these two big companies. Where I live there are 2 basic Internet Service Providers, Shaw (cable) and Telus (Telecommunications).
Telus, being the Telecommunications company - actually OWNS most of the physical infrastructure, or the wiring, that runs across the city. Shaw basically sets up a deal (not sure of the terms) so that they can provide internet access THROUGH telus' wiring. You can try both service providers, but essentially you have two choices: Regular speed with random faults of downtime (telus) or something slightly slower but pretty reliable.
The big wigs of these companies are by no means in competition, with the way they charge rates, make deals to use each others services*, I wouldn't be surprised if they both play Golf together, all the while discussing "How can we make an extra few Million this year. A little for me, a little for you..."
*(for example, 411 directory service from ALOT of providers that aren't Telus is done by Telus Employees)
If I had upvotes, I'd upvote this to the moon. This is exactly correct.
...Steve
Frankly, if I were Bell and the CRTC said I could do so, I would stop offering wholesale internet altogether immediately.
What business wouldn't love the opportunity to instantly and permanently kill all its competitors except those on completely different lines? Why adjust prices when you can just kill them off?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
But the government has given these companies a monopoly over the infrastructure. If the government granted you the same monopoly then it's not a matter of your freedom to set your own prices, it's a matter of your obligation to the government and the public for being granted that monopoly.
What new ISP's? The existing ones have a, say it with me, monopoly. A government granted (and enforced) monopoly at that.
I think you've completely missed the entire issue here. The government historically regulated the prices and forced these ISP's to open up their lines to allow true competition so that the unhappy customers could go to a new ISP. But now they're allowing these ISP's to set the prices for their competitors. They're forced to sell access to their network (due to their monopoly status), previously they were forced to do so in such a way that other ISPs could compete with them, but now they can just set such a high price that their offering is the cheapest on the market, driving the smaller ISP's out of business.
I had a passing interest of the issues at large and I find this decision disturbing, considering our tax dollars paid for this service in the first place!
I consider myself lucky that in my area, the cableco isn't big and mean (Eastlink), and Telus is (AFAIK) the only telco for ADSL in my area, which I would never in a million years use.
How many shenanigans and payola are Rogers and Bell throwing at the CRTC anyways?
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
The ISP I worked for for ten years, and was the system/network admin for for seven of those years went under because Telus and Shaw basically set up a scenario in which we couldn't compete with them. Yes, we did have a fiber connection via Shaw's Big Pipe subsidiary, but it was damned pricey. Worse was Telus's stranglehold on the PRI dialup lines. Worst of all was that while both technically were supposed to open their networks to us so we could resell DSL or cable, the hoops one had to jump through and the poverty-level profit margins they allowed made it all but pointless. In the end, we tried to roll out our own WiFi, but geographically or area just wasn't conducive to that.
The whole deck was stacked from the very beginning, and the CRTC, despite all these grand proclamations of protecting competition, had already handed the keys to the kingdom. To be honest with you, if I were a small ISP now, I'd close shop. There's no money in it any more.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I am pretty sure if you check it out the price on average for a dedicated high speed connection over the last 8 years in Canada has stayed the same, the speed has increased a bit but not by leaps and bounds but compared to many other countries Canada is starting to lag behind. There is no widespread ADSL 2nd generation here, no fiber to the home, no TV over ADSL or other such 'newer' services...
There are already fewer ISPs in Canada then there were 10 years ago when you would have dozens of choice in any major city. Now only a few are left and they don't compete on price anymore. Long gone are the days of unlimited internet for 20 bucks of the modem yesteryear, now everything is metered or limited in some way and nothing you could call high speed is under 30$
There won't be new ISP's taking their place because you can't run a second set of cables throughout the city/region/whatever at a competitive price. Because the previous guys got subsidized.
Possibly you can't do so at any cost because the previous guys where granted exclusive rights or because it's politically impossible to get permission now. Though that's irrelevant due to not being able to afford it if you could anyway.
Your logic only works in a competitive marketplace.
The wires to the home/business are owned by a monopoly. It would be a rare case indeed where putting new wires to a customer makes sense. Most of the time (in the US, anyhow) it's not legally possible to do so.
If these ISPs go away, there will never (outside of wireless) be any alternative to the Telco or the Cable company. Ever.
I'd probably pick Verizon given their pricing and speed plans. They offer plans far superior to that of Bell, Rogers or Telus.
Wait... which is the crazy one?
>>>Companies should be allowed to sell their services at a price they want
Yes except those companies are government-granted monopolies, like the power company, the piped natural gas company, or the Internet service company. Then the government, since it granted the monopoly, also has the right to control its pricing.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Signed, the USofA.
Very few of us down here have any choice for broadband other than the duopoly of telco/cable, and both providers are usually some combination of pillaging our wallets and skimping on service.
Just maybe, you can head this off.
Good Luck!
Unless you live in a rural area, where your choicess are $100/month satelite or.. nothing because a decade ago verison sued to prevent a wifi co-operative, since it would prevent them from competing (read: price-fixing) in a market they're going to enter any day now.
Very true. Just like the power company and the piped natural-gas company are regulated, so too does the Internet service company need to be regulated. Since the government granted these monopolies, it also has the right to control their pricing.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If the infrastructure was built with government money, why doesn't the infrastructure belong to the government?
Do the big telco companies lease the infrastructure from the government? If so, can't little telco's also lease it?
How do the telcos own the infrastructure?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Seriously, you do NOT want to have to deal with Bell Canada customer service or support for any reason whatsoever. They are legendary for the atrocious level of customer care, for bilking their customers, for owing customers money but never giving it back, for simply getting every last little thing amazingly wrong, for the amounts of pain inflicted and for their sheer level of unfairness.
I remember when I got my first telephone line back in the mid-80's, within months I had an unexplained and impossible charge, and I simply couldn't contest the charge - it was either pay it plus (growing) interest or have no phone.
My god, recently I moved to an apartment and had to endure two months of support calls to get my line moved too, and a Bell representative tried to sell me something called Line Insurance - basically, for an extra $20/mo it would guarantee that this sort of thing didn't happen. They wanted to charge me extra to ensure that I got what I already paid for! Can you imagine?!
No, Bell Canada is evil incarnate and must die.
sheesh we've already crashed the pathetic competitivebroadband.com server. either that or the ASP script sucks. HOW DO I MAKE A DIFFERENCE NOW?
Actually, these monopolies/limited markets derive from ownership of wired infrastructure. ADSL is either bought directly from Bell/Telus, who own the phone wires, or a reseller.
The other option is the cable company, who owns the coaxial cable network.
Thus the reason for the quotations :). We Yanks still aren't using a decent measuring standard outside of scientific circles.
What? There is no Verizon in Canada...
This is a paradox but not a flaw. All beings must attempt to survive, but none can ever be allowed to live forever (population problems and you're in your 20s at 400 years old with about 80 kids...).
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Your right, companies should be allowed to sell their services at a price they want... The problem with telcos and cable companies is that we, the people (ie the government) grant these companies monopolies and allow them, and even subsidize them with tax payer money, to set up their infrastructure on our property. The telcos and cable companies do NOT own the land that they set their cables, poles, and underground pipe upon. That land is ours and we grant them right of way to use it for their business because it is in our best interest to do so. You see, just because we grant them this right of way does not mean that we no longer have a say. In fact, it is part of the deal that they are granted this monopoly because it is ultimately beneficial for us that they do so and that they have to follow the rules we set down for them if they wish to do business on our property. Simply speaking, that if they choose to do business in our communities, and we grant them right of way to lay down their lines on our property (which gives them an advantage over their competetors) that they might have to allow others to piggy back upon those right of way lines and have competition. Ultimately we let them have right of way for our own benefit. When this relationship no longer is a benefit to us, the rightful owners of the land on which they have set up their business, we have the right to not "renew their lease" if they don't wish to follow whatever new rules we set out for them. In turn, they can remove their infrastructure (cable/phone lines) from our property and take their business elsewhere.
So you see, all this is, ultimately, is two sides of a business relationship. If they do not like the rules we set out for their use of our property, they have every right to pack up and move on to greener pastures. If however, they wish to continue doing business with us, they can make the lower bid and get our business.
What I'm hoping for is wifi technology that will decentralize internet access and get rid of all these land lines that are cluttering my view. I've already discontinued cable service (I can get "TV" from online sources like hulu, iTuneMusic Store, Netflix, etc and/or buy DVDs) I don't really need cable TV programming. I get phone service from my mobile. The only line I have yet to escape is DSL which I will gladly replace with whatever wifi service becomes available in my area. Hell if it was economically feasible, I'd detach from the electric grid as well. ;)
It would be absolutely fine to ask the government to butt out if these companies hadn't been taking fat government subsidies to develop the infrastructure they need for those services. I think the government deserves to have a return (in the form of a competitive free market) on its investment. Giving select companies exclusive control over publicly funded projects means the government picked the winners instead of the free market.
Let me put it another way. If a government pays a company to build a bridge, does it mean that company should be able to charge whatever toll it wants for people to use it?
Public investment should be for the public good - not selective corporate welfare.
Market forces? Is this some kind a a euphemism for monopolies, anti-competitive practices and union busting? Because that's the only context I ever hear it used in.
Wake up. Wake up you and all the other "free market" drones around here. The "Free market" does not, has not and will not ever exist. Period. It is a pipe dream concocted from the ramblings of economists, most of whom were in the employ of powerful groups who would like nothing better than a free hand to do as they please in any sector of the economy or society in general. It is, at best and idealised theoretical utopia, worthy only of consideration as a thought experiment. If that.
In reality, you cannot separate economics from the general deviousness, manipulation, underhandedness and skullduggary that goes on in almost every walk of human life. People game system and companies, especially big companies, will game the system up to and quite often past the point where they can get away with it. In this reality, on this planet Earth, your free market theories are about as applicable as theories of anti-matter.
The big telco's are going to degrade service, cripple and destroy all competition, punitively raise prices and in general wreck the whole internet unless there is strong government regulation in place to prevent them from doing so. Platitudes about the efficiency of private industry and the prices "the market" will bear are just that. Platitudes, carrying no more weight than a dry tissue. History, and indeed recent events, have demonstrated quite conclusively that no major industry can be left to its own devices, ever . It simply does not work. The prime, prime, prime example was the recent financial crash. But there are many other examples across all industries.
The internet is now one of the foundations of our society and we cannot allow it to be held to ransom by a handful of individuals hiding behind corporate veils and pandering economics.
May the Maths Be with you!
Sorry but I don't see the distinction. Whether you're talking about the power company, the natural gas company, or the internet provider, they still have a monopoly over the market, which was granted by the government's express permission. (Example: Comcast was granted monopoly by my local politicians.) That grant gives the government the power to control pricing. That grant also gives the government power to revoke the monopoly and give it to somebody else.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The issue here (as it is in the States) is that the taxpayer basically underwrote and at least partially funded much of the communications infrastructure out there. These companies keep acting as if they and their shareholders were ultimately responsible for this, but they're not.
If I were the CRTC, I'd say "Either you give smaller ISPs breathing room, or we'll rule your way, but now you will have to pay for every inch of right-of-way that the taxpayer basically gave to you. You will also have to pay back all the grants and other ways in which the taxpayer's largesse has allowed you to profit over the years."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
But they do. Check out the reviews of TekSavvy on DSLreports. Vastly superior service to Bell that can't exist without government defended peering agreements.
Disclaimer: I am not employed, contracted, or a family member of anyone connected to TekSavvy.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
What about the heavy tax payer subsidizing that helped pay for that infrastructure?
... and the way they'd pay back the government? Raise prices, of course!
Me fail English? That's unpossible!
Seriously... it's "ISPs" not "ISP's".
Gah, this crap is so tiring.
Any new regulation can only be a band-aid solution.
The correct solution is to break the monopolies by creating a free market.
Municipal public fibre optic infrastructure.
Layer 2 (maybe even layer 1) service to every building as a public service.
Access to that infrastructure with the same access rules we use for the roads.
(In other words, completely open for private and commercial use)
with a fibre bundle to every home any service provider who wanted to provide Internet, TV, Telephone or any other innovative service could go to the municipal exchange and patch us in to their gear.
This would set the stage for a vibrant competitive market for telecoms.
It would allow private, non-commercial telecoms activities.
It would be CHEAPER than running cable and copper to every building as we do now.
It would be future-proof because the fibre has effectively unlimited capacity.
There is already great competition for IP service, the Internet is a vibrant market place except for the last mile.
Go to any public exchange and shop for IP transit and you will have dozens of providers competing for your business.
Throttling, DNS hijacking, p2p filtering.... these are exclusively last-mile monopoly problems.
We all know that last-mile telecoms infrastructure is a natural monopoly just like power lines, roads and sewers.
So why don't we stop beating around the bush creating heavily regulated and subsidized private monopolies then constantly fighting with them and just run the last-mile ourselves?
Bell holds Ontario, Quebec, and the maritime provinces (I think), Telus controls BC and Albeta, Saskatchewan has Sasktel (The only crown corporation of the bunch), and Manitoba has MTS (Formerly a crown corp, now a publicly traded company).
None of them compete with each other.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Somewhere around here I have a letter of apology from the past president of Telus!
They started to shut off my phone service. You see - I had to build a time division reflectometer and shoot the line that I wanted my DSL service on. This is pretty easy to do. We went to Radio shack and bought about $20 worth of stuff and a 1.5 volt battery and hooked up a dual channel oscilloscope. About 15 minutes later we knew where the line taps were. So I called in Telus and asked them to remove the line taps and told them where they were.
What happened next? I was told it was going to cost me $1400!
I had no choice. I agreed to this.
So a tech came around. I have this on film! I set up a camera and I filmed him! He spent 1 hour. He had to unscrew 14 nuts and open a canister and snip a wire. So I figure Telus wanted to charge me $100 per nut!
After he did this the DSL fired up and ran perfectly!
A month later I got a call from one of Telus's supervisors. He asked me how it is that my DSL works! So I provided free consulting and told him if they snip such and such wires and get themselves a TDR then they can get their DSL services working!
Meanwhile I was in touch with their offices about that $1400 bill for 1 hour of work.
It was about 9 months later that I was in Brisbane. In that 9 month period of time even though Telus told me they would review the bill... they never did. I got a call from Calgary. The phones were being shut off! Telus had already disconnected one line in fact!
I called Telus from Brisbane and managed to get one of the executive assistants. I advised her she could save her company a lot of money. She had a choice. She could listen to me now and get my telephone line reconnected and get the bill reviewed and if she failed to do this then my next phone call was going to be to my lawyers in Calgary and we will get a court order and Telus will pay for it! Guess what - it worked. They reconnected the line. Meanwhile they did reduce the bill so I had to pay them something like $400 for them to fix the line so DSL would work!
Imagine! They want to offer a service they want to charge for and the customer has to show them how to do it and pay something like $400 for an hour's work on top of it! Insane!
That is just part of it.
A few years later I was billed more than $3000 in overcharges. They wouldn't answer their phones. I went through investor relations. IR does answer phones! I found their legal department. I wrote lawyer like nasty letters. I offered to sue them and pointed out that if I file - then we get discovery and in discovery they have to cough up the accounting and justify their billing. Maybe he might want to do this outside of a court action because if he doesn't then he will have to do it as part of a court action.
I got some results. They refunded about $3000.
On this matter I never ever received a correct billing statement from that company!
These days? I will not deal with that company.
It was a nightmare!
Then I hope they are paying for the public right-of-way they are most certainly using.
There is a war going on for your mind.
The WISP space ( microwave backhaul) is still very under-served in Canada. In Calgary, Terago has only two towers - one is too low (on a hotel) and the other one on the CPP hill is overloaded. Hopefully this will improve things. Cables are so 20th Century.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Telus denied the muncipality I work for access to an unloaded copper pair sighting the CRTC ruling. We wanted the line so we could put our own dsl devices at the end points, one at city hall and the other at the remote office. Instead of letting us do this, Telus suggested we use business adsl and use vpn. Great idea, it's only quadruple the price, runs over the Internet, and is factor of ten times slower due to the low bandwidth they offer and the encyption. That's that or go on their managed service for ~$500 or more a month. What irks me the most is they will give us the line but they will go out of their way to load it so it's unusable for dsl. I should just see if I could grease a tech $50 to unload it for us.
What's a Sig?
Don't have so many damn kids. Problem solved.
Next?
Am I the only one who thinks it's ironic that a bunch of small IPSs fighting the big monopolies are using a Microsoft server for their website?
Of course, if you did that, then the CRTC would immediately be deluged with complaints, leaving them with no choice but to recant their decision. It's better to boil the frog slowly, so nobody notices anything's wrong until it's too late.
If I were the CRTC I would say that all infrastucture is now the property of the crown, and every ISP and phone company gets charged the same rate for access.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
> Competition in the ADSL market will be totally eliminated, and Canadians will
> have only two choices for wired Internet access: the local Cableco or the
> local Telco.
Surely you don't want competition. That means a market, and all the evils of capitalism! You want good, old-fashioned regulated monopolies! Or better yet, just nationalize the telcos and cablecoms and everything will be just fine.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I live in Southern Alberta and was a former user of Telus phone/internet services. I lost my nerve on dealing with Telus when this happened. My mother in law told me one day she got a call from a Telus employee in their customer relations department telling them that they are now offering 4Mbit service in "her area" now for 39.95 cdn/Month -- perfect because she was getting 1.5Mbit before for about the same price -- I WAS EXCITED because I too was using Telus and was getting the 1.5Mbit service for the 39.95 / Month.
I haply called Telus billing and requested said service --- the answer was that it was not available in "my area" but I could continue to use the 1.5Mbit service and pay $39.95 cdn/Month for it --- I WAS FLABBERGASTED!!! SERIOUSLY -- I was getting much less service than new customers and paying the same price as they are for this newer service, sure I understand that not all equipment and lines can be upgraded at the same time but WHAT THE HECK! I lost it on the poor agent who then told me that they could reduce my bill by 5$ / month if i agreed to sign a 2 year contract!! at that point i completely lost it and cancelled my service on the spot.
I've been using Shaw since then and have been getting 7.5Mbit and using their home phone service with relatively little trouble. The techs i've had out to do work on the lines have been prompt and efficient (aside from snipping off all of my F connectors on my lines and replacing them with "shaw standard" connectors).
Interestingly enough I find myself now faced with moving out of the city I am in and moving to a rural community not serviced by Shaw and now am having to resort to using Telus again!! WHY WHY WHY!!!!! End Rant
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
OK, I append my title to say "Articles like this make slashdot great, which then make the articles not so great..."
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
I imagine there has been no decent money in it for at least 10 years. The end user cost of phone and data service is probably not far above the production cost, which means these services are mere commodities, like gasoline. How many different gas companies do we need when they all sell the same thing for the same price and make the same tiny profit? When prices for data services change I'm sure it's because the production cost has changed, like gas, and not because of "gouging". Data and phone access services are so marginally profitable for the big companies that they don't even compete on customer service (again, like gas stations :). The real profit is in those things that cost comparatively little to produce, like text messaging and voice mail (or ring tones, according to Chris Rock :). This will probably be the final stage of consolidation of the data access service industry in Canada.
Yes, the infrastructure was built partially with public money through subsidies. Does that mean we, the people are forever and always entitled to do what we want with it? If that was the plan then the government should have built it. If you let a private company (i.e. not government run) build something, sorry, it's the company's property. I can get a tax break to put solar panels on my house. Do I owe you some of my electricity? No. You get a side benefit, which is (theoretically) cleaner air. We've reaped the benefit of the subsidy in that we have phone lines just about everywhere, which is something given the vast sparely populated areas of this country. (I haven't visited all of Canada so I don't know if this is literally true. There are probably people in northern communities still waiting for phone service.)
If I'm right that data and voice service is totally commoditized then the wholesale resellers aren't necessary. They either currently resell service at a price higher than it needs to be, or the wholesale price is artificially low to ensure are profitable. I'm not in favor of paying more than I need to, and I'm not in favor of things that distort prices. At this moment in 2009 I think this is a good decision.
Sigh, I'm saying if I had a choice between Verizon or Bell/Telus/Rogers. I'm not saying I HAVE that choice. It's called a HYPOTHETICAL situation.
I never said they were perfect. They're a shit-ton better than Bell though.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Hypothetical situation. Given the choice between Verizon, Bell, Telus or Rogers and based on their price/speed plans, I would pick Verizon.....
Then deregulation has ultimately left us where we started, with monopolies. Worst of all, as far as Internet goes, there are no real rate framework, and with Canadian ISPs tending to be very geographical, we'll probably enter a sort of informal price fixing arrangement. In short, the taxpayer who underwrote most of this, gets the short end of the stick.
Look at SMS, because that's the model the big guys want, and Canada continues to slip behind the rest of the world.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They 'OWN' a network subsidized by public funds on land granted by public right of ways providing what has become a CRITICAL infrastructure, there should be no question of whether the government has the right to regulate, it should be MANDATED. How many businesses would be out of the water without the NET these days. Could a local government even function WITHOUT THE ONLINE ACCESS TO RESOURCES ?
I happen to own the right of way behind the houses on my block that was used/granted to AT&T when they were the cable monopoly around here. AT&T has since relocated their wires underground and no longer uses the right of way, but several other companies WHO WERE NOT on the original agreement still do. Astound cable, after some convincing offered me free service, which I accepted, they are my net provider now, but I am demanding the removal of ALL other lines and equipment under the basis that they were never given legal authorization. AT&T decided that their usage meant they had a right to lease out that same space, which they did not have the right to do. My first court date was postponed by request of the defendants lawyers after they realized I was serious, had a lawyer, the deed the land in question, and the ORIGINAL copy of the agreement with AT&T. I am so glad my parents were organized and had good foresight.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Seriously... CRTC is so corrupt and full of ex-bell executives its not even funny. When FCC is pushing net neutrality, CRTC is stifling competition. I bet this will go through and I will be paying through my nose for internet. 3 cheers to Conservative in power, please slow down progress, I want my 1800's back.
I can confirm their vastly superior uptimes/speeds/support. I've had both Bell and I currently have Teksavvy.
I see. I'd pick roadrunner, I've worked for Charter and Comcast and they were a lot worse.
then the telcos shouldn't accept subsidies from the government. Also, other utilities are regulated by the government, too.
Markets have a way to circumvent these monopolies. It's called innovation. Wanna bet that 20 million dissatisfied broadband Internet customers are a tremendous incentive for smaller companies to offer a wireless Internet solution? Or something new altogether? Investment in alternative technologies will without a doubt increase if Bell and Telus don't allow competitors to have their slice of profits.
True, and without small ISP's around competition will cause price's to rise. Why, with a small ISP you might be able to negotiate a trade and pay them with apple's, orange's, or grammar nazi post's on slashdot.
Not a sentence!
That's almost exactly my experience with Bell here in Kansas. :(
If the small ISP's don't offer anything beyond what Bell and Telus offer why not let it die?
Teksavvy is a linux friendly provider that lets me run my own servers. I get a 200G bandwidth cap, 5M/800K DSL line for $29.95/month. Static IP address for an extra $4/month. Bell's service is a 25G cap 6M/800K DSL on which I cannot run servers, cannot get static IP addresses, and their customer service is notoriously bad! (Die Emily, Die!)
Rogers is almost twice the cost (however, twice the speed): 95G cap, 10M/1M cable. Chances are they don't allow servers either. Unfortunately, their website is experiencing technical difficulties now, so I can't tell. I doubt they're linux friendly, though.
Frankly, I don't know what I'm going to do if this goes through and Teksavvy closes shop. Either pony up the extra dough, or go without internet (like that would ever happen).
Is this going to affect third party phone companies as well? I was thinking of switching to Teksavvy for my phone service as well.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I completely agree with you that the governament taints business. The issue is that tax payees have been forced from day one to pay for the wiring and most of the infrastructure weather we had Internet / phone services or not. The communications industry is one that will continue to thrive for decades to come and the incentive is there to start selling they just need the wires to start selling. As a Canadian what I think we should be asking our politicians is why do we have such potiential for an industry and no one is able to join in and why are you the gate keepers. I personally believe while slightly idealisic that no o e should be able to own anything that is not on their own property. Once that cable leaves the back of the NOC it has to be owned by the people or who ever owns the soil above them. Now we pay almost $10 ontop of our monthly cell bills for the cell towers as a tax, an additional 1.5% of our cable goes to taxes as well and our infrastructure sucks. With the amount of money going into communications we should have fibre going to each house and a colo facility where any provider can set up shop. The inevitable paridigm shift is that tv, phone and Internet is now all digital and the next step is to consolidate all three into one service, this is what is making the industry panic. Instead of getting at minimum $200 / month for cell / tv / landline / Internet some 3rd party will and should claim a stake in wireless and wired communications and sell the whole thing as one for half the price of course this would kill the folks at bell and Rogers because their ARPU would be split in half. Through the 3rd partys they could offer a la cart tv serving them locally to all their customers once dowloaded from the content creator maybe even giving the residuals if the show becomes popular again in the future. Telephone service or voice communications is old as hell and could be implimented as an afterthought and internet will be the underlying protocol behind it all.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
...should get together and explore the feasibility of banding together in a co-op and see how feasible an all wireless network might be, wifi to microwave bridges to..WiMax to...got no idea, "wireless", I'll let the wireless gurus here fill in those blanks (or shoot it down, this is just an idea).
I get a canopy connection here and it is *some* miles from the tower and I am in a little stream valley with really crappy to non existent "line of sight" and I still connect at least a lot better than dialup, and it works. Not perfect, not blazing fast like some folks get, but dang, can actually get linux isos now and so on. I waited YEARS for any sort of telco or cable company to offer something, and nyet, they ain't interested, despite living on a two lane blacktop that really isn't that far out of their regular "service" area for cable or DSL, like a mile or so too far so they just don't care about it. But this wireless works now after a few hiccups and thanks to those techs, customer service in spades setting this up for me, and they are getting my loot now, and not the dialup and telco (at least directly). Comes in roughly half price what I was paying previously, added plus goodness there.
Maybe it is possible on an even larger geographical area and a more cooperative scale (hundreds of smaller local ISPs and independent customers, etc), given there might be so many customers who would be more than happy to have a bridging tower AP thing set up out in the back 40 for a freebie connection maybe..
I know eventually *some place* in this theoretical wireless co-op scenario they have to tap into the main backbones, but maybe a few legs of the wireless could cross the border into the US where they could do that, or the coop could run a few private fiber lines? Something like that. Then all these ISPs (and maybe some more customers like a lot of little burgs and villages, etc) could just completely bypass those two monopolies.
Now I don't think any *one* wireless tech would work for the whole shebang, but maybe a combination of what is out there now might help get it established.
Very true. Just like the power company and the piped natural-gas company are regulated, so too does the Internet service company need to be regulated. Since the government granted these monopolies, it also has the right to control their pricing.
No, the running of the infrastructure needs to be regulated (or a co-op). The actual service should be free compete.
The people running the fibre and copper should only worry about proper investment. The people routing the packets should worry about providing the best IP service they can.
The two layers should not care about each other (besides not having crumbling infrastructure). The two layers should not be owned by the same parent corporation.
What basically everyone so far has missed is that the CRTC decision only applies to broadband ethernet services. That is, new installs with stuff like fiber to the home.
The existing cable plant and DSL services are still available to third-party ISPs at regulated prices.
However, I've heard rumours that Bell is trying to claim that some of the new residential neighborhoods are connected via broadband ethernet even though it's still DSL on the local loop, and thus bypassing the intent of the DSL regulation.
On the other hand, the regulated monopolies have rights-of-way obtained from the government that the third-party ISPs don't, giving them a substantial advantage in terms of installing new fiber or cable.
So, it's a complicated issue, much more so than the summary suggests.
Just to clarify: MTS is not part of Telus. MTS merged with/bought Allstream.
Interesting, MTS and Telus are having a slapfest because one or the other started poaching customers and erecting towers in the other's territory (and now both are). The end-result is that mobile/wireless in Alberta and Manitoba is a mess right now.
Do you want to know what fun is? Try getting Bell/Bell West and Telus to cooperate when you're in eastern Canada but your western Canada office(s) are down. Dealing with bitchy techs and support staff at both companies reminds me of what it must be like to teach kindergarten.
--srj/mmv
No, it won't affect phone services. But i don't know that techsavvy is flexible enough to survive losing their main product.
Oh, yes they do. They don't compete for local land-line service, but you can bet that advanced networking are wireless are being hotly contested.
--srj/mmv
My Brother is in the Country and the only ISP is a small niche provider giving him ADSL or wireless (I believe) because Bell, Shaw, Telus, Rogers refuse to run lines out there. if that provider goes down his choices are Satellite or buying one of those mobile USB sticks and nothing else!! We do need the right for competition and Choice, often though the small guys lease from the bigger guys so really what is the choice? the big guy is just cutting out the middle man and giving you worse service.
Also try creating a cable company to compete against the current Comcast monopoly. You'll find yourself in court because Comcast (or AT&T or Cox or whoever) has been granted an exclusive monopoly. Therefore since competition is banned, by law, government has a right to step-in and regulate that monopoly to ensure it's not abusing its special legal privileges.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>the deed for the land in question, and the ORIGINAL copy of the agreement with AT&T
You won't win. The politicians will just use eminent domain to take-away your land, give it to government (on the basis of "bettering the community"), and then lease that land to the corporations in question. Yes that's called "theft" but individual rights mean nothing in this ex-republic. It's how a mall in Jew Jersey was able to take-over private homes, tear them down, and build several stores (upheld by the Supreme Court as legal).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I can't believe that anybody actually believes in free market principles in 2009.
If free market principles were actually working the way that their evangelists have been claiming for the last 40 or 50 years, then last year's financial crisis should never have happened, because obviously financial services firms would value their reputation enough that they wouldn't engage in bad behavior.
How's that working out so far?
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
... here: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2008/dt2008-17.htm
and, well, blow me down, I'm almost proud to say that it is a damn reasonable decision. Based on what I read (an not what people are suggesting it means), all it really says is that....
T1 lines will no longer be 'controlled' services in 5 years time.... (i.e. the govt will no longer regulate T1 access).... but, on the up side....
for the forseeable future, ADSL service will be regulated, the price will continue to be 'fixed' using the same price structures as they ghave been for years (govt. regulated cost + 15%)... and competition will continue to have access to co-locate to continue servicing things...
further, the decision stipulates that the monopolies can not mandate the type of service on the local loop (i.e. Bell has n control over what types of service are operated on the 'last mile'....).
In essence, I can't see any degrading of the system by this decision.
I will NOT sign the petition, and, in fact, after reading the deciison, I am motivated to write in PRAISE of the CRTC.
gus
.. if only.
I'm also on Teksavvy. I get 200GB/month, and, as far as I've seen on the torrents, 500kB/s. Compare that with what I used to have at the same price, Rogers, with a 25GB/month cap and absolute maximum of 120kB/s. And there's no way in hell someone can convince me that any company's service (who likes money, anyway) can be worse than Rogers.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
I....I...I LIKE the metric system! *sob*
MTS Allstream, the company leading this campaign, is a bit of a hypocrite here. They don't share their fibre optic cable network with anyone. They won't let private businesses lease their fibre optic cable network. You can see their defence of this position on the CRTC website @ http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2009/2009-9.htm
Actually here in BC the infrastructure was built by BC Tel, a government owned telco. Then some free enterprisers got into power and announced that private industry is way more efficient and basically gave the company away to their friends. Now we see how much more efficient private industry is at lobbying away their competition.
I think they are making a pretty good profit from me. Close to $30 a month for a 26.6 Kbps internet connection. $30 a month for the phone line. $9 a month for call display (my wife is a bit paranoid and likes to know who is calling) $5 a month for not making enough long distance calls. And no bundles as they all include high speed and as I'm 30 miles from Vancouver...
The gas companies also gouge. Just west of us they have a 10 cent a litre transit levy on their gas, here we don't so the gas is 3 cents cheaper. That's 7 cents extra profit a litre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I'll give you a quick example of how our two major players operate. I'm speaking of Bell and Rogers.
Recently our Feds decided to sell off some spectrum. Since they had a small clue of what was about to happen, they reserved 25% of it and the rest was open to bid.
What did Rogers and Bell do? Well, it was like you or I sitting at the poker table with a $100.00 bankroll, against a high roller with 2 million.
Bell & Rogers just kept raising, like an auto bot on the bay...well, I'll bid 20...raise....OK, 25...raise.....OK 30...raise...ad-nauseum.
The goverment expected a few hundred million and were a bit surprised to rake in 8 BILLION dollars....Rogers and Bell?....meh....pocket change.
Oh, and now they are litigating over the reserved spectrum they were locked out of.
I apoligize for muddying the argument here (cell vs pipes) but it's the same idea. I do not have a citation handy but I believe Canada is ranked 4th or 5th in the developed world for price vs performance, re: internet and cell.
Pete
I sure hope it doesn't affect home phone service. I have mine with Teksavvy (along with my DSL) and I'm quite happy. Long distance in North America for $20 flat a month. And on top of that, really good rates to Europe (as cheap as most calling cards, but without the stupid rules that eat away the remaining balance).
The CRTC has a history of making bad decisions. Almost always it's to the detriment to the people of Canada and to the benefit of a select few corporations, (Bell, Telus)
Well when the telco's were crown corporations things were much better. This experiment with privatization has been a massive failure. The private companies have found that it is cheaper to lobby for laws/regulations that create profits that is much more profitable then giving better service.
There are quite a few businesses that are better ran as nationalized businesses then private business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I live in Alberta and have petitioned through competitivebroadband as any concerned citizen should, however, I'm afraid the problem is much larger than this. As a user stated above, the wholesale ISP industry is dead anyways. The margins are so razor thin and the big companies just bully the reseller with their purchasing power (free modems, discounted rate plans, large scale commercial advertising, etc).
I moved to Calgary recently and was surprised to find my choices for an ISP were Shaw (cable) and Telus (DSL). There's a few independent companies like Terago and Radiant but they serve business only accounts. Upon further investigation I realized that Telus blocks alot of standard incomming ports so my choice was narrowed to Shaw alone and I pay something like $45 a month for standard high speed with no option of switching (ie if Shaw raises their price to $100 a month tomorrow I guess I will be paying $100 a month).
This is absolutely ridiculous and our government has been letting tech companies get away with this for decades (roger's GSM monopoly is another good example). What we really need is reform on the fundamental principals of the data backbone. Electronic information sharing is quite obviously a fundamental aspect of our lives that needs to be governed by the tax payers, period. I'm no finance minister so I don't know the complications of federalizing communication highways but I do know that the commercial (almost military) monopolization of the Canadian data structure cannot continue without some serious future economic complications.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Just wanted to say - dude, you rock!
Corruption and lobbying.
I thought that was the same thing? ...
its aboot respect, its aboot dignity
I'm living in your world, sadly. I'm done with both Bell and Rogers, may they roast forever in the hottest corners
of hell. But, they're the big players and the CRTC is a stacked deck. I signed the petition and circulated
it to all my friends.
The thing is, more than half a dozen of them work for Rogers! Can't wait to see what they do.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I wish you all the best in court. The world needs more people like you.
It's probably good for Bell Canada that guns are not nearly as legal in Canada as they are in the USA.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I sure hope it doesn't affect home phone service. I have mine with Teksavvy (along with my DSL) and I'm quite happy.
I have some bad news, then. I just got an email from Teksavvy support. This decision will affect home phone service as well as internet access. If this goes through, Teksavvy will be out of business.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Well that truly sucks. Maybe time to consider VOIP phone service. I really do not want to have to deal with Bell again.
Lies. I would do it in a very controlled manner.
I'd send out notification to every customer of every wholesaler that they could, for a limited time, get a special deal with Bell due to their ISP going out of business (you know, one of those "a few months free or highly discounted then pay through the nose for two / three years" deals). Bell has these customer lists because they ultimately have to set up the service. Such a deal would be extremely time limited (see below).
I'd then shut down the wholesalers' service in an extremely quick shutdown, like within one or two weeks of when most customers would have received our notification. I wouldn't give them time to send out a similar letter to people.
Effect: Much more money, many more direct customers, and zero competitors. It has the added benefit of being able to fire a majority of their Nexxus staff since the division would no longer exist, so count massive cost savings into the equation.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
You still need the IP part of VOIP for it to work, so you'd be stuck with Rogers/Shaw. I am considering an in person visit with my MP.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I don't know about Eastern Canada, but in the west all the providers except for Rogers used CDMA. Telus and one other company (can't remember which) is just STARTING to develop a competing GSM network. That's right, instead of sharing GSM networks with Rogers, they are building a SECOND completely REDUNDANT network just for competition reasons.
Telus offers TV over ADSL.
Bilge Rat, the metric system is the most long-standing, silly embarrassment the States (yes I am a States'er) has. We are one of what, TWO? TWO!??! countries still using imperial.
It's absurd.
Apparently being top dog means never having to do anything good for you.