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CRTC To Allow Usage-Based Billing
Idiomatick writes "The CRTC ruled in favor this week for usage-based billing. Bell Canada was given a monopoly on lines in Canada, and in exchange they were made to resell to competitors at cost in order to have a functional market. The new CRTC ruling will allow Bell to charge their competitors more money based on individual customer usage. They are now able to implement a 60GB cap on a competitor's highest speed lines (charging $1.12/GB for overages). The effect on the market seems clear."
You might have a point if telecoms were competitive markets, usage was the biggest cost factor, and prices were in any way representative of costs. These are monopolies, peak capacity and running the lines are the real cost last time I checked and it'll probably result in virtually everyone paying more.
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I'd say there should be a law that in all advertising they need to include the long-term connection rate as well. Toss in the up rate if it's different (and with those lying shits, it always is).
That 14mbps connection would have to be labelled: 14/0.5mbps, 22kbps sustained -- since 60GB monthly is just that.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Most of that population lives in three cities, and 90% of it within a few kilometers of the American border. The capital costs are really not that high.
--srj/mmv
I just moved back to Canada after living the past 10 years in England -- when I first got there internet speeds, data rates, etc. were far behind what was available in Canada for a lot more money. 10 years later and I return to find that Canada seems like some sort of internet backwater with these severely limiting caps and astronomical prices -- the near monopolies have gamed the system well over the past 10 years. I paid the equivalent of $30 a month for a 10 meg down/1 meg up line with no total data cap. You would get shaped down to 3 meg download speed for 4 hours if you moved more than a couple of gigs over a 4 hour period which I found to be a fair system -- but that was it -- not protocol throttling, no monthly caps plus charges, etc. And that was the lowest tier package available -- the higher packages included 50 meg down with much more higher data movement before being temporarily shaped. And I always got my maximum line speed when it should have been available -- no doubt not everyone had perfect service, but I can only say that for myself it was a rock solid and reliable line.
In short, Canadians have been hosed severely over the last 10 years when it comes to internet services -- and we just got more hosed.
Thought thinks itself.