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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."
With this, bot Bell and Rogers (the cable internet provider) have now both put steps in place to discourage people using Netflix, etc. NetFlix of course announced around September that they would be providing service in Canada. It's much reduced service from what's available in the US, but the available content will increase as time goes on. Rogers cut their bandwidth limits in half, and now Bell has gotten usage based billing, specifically to discourage people using TekSavvy et al, which used to have un-shaped, unlimited downloads.
You can run through the current bandwidth limits pretty quickly watching HD content.
Bell is doing this purely to maximize their profit and put the wholesalers who are trying to compete with them out of business.
The rates Bell has given to wholesalers of their GAS network are the exact same as their RETAIL rates for bandwidth. That means wholesalers have ZERO margins, and would have to actually incur costs to collect this usage charge on behalf of Bell. If there’s any errors, I'm sure it comes out of the wholesaler's pocket as well.
Wholesalers used to be able to compete against the big guys by having better bandwidth caps, better technical support, more flexable plans -- Bell has used UBB to level the playing field to where only they can win.
Why are the first 20 gigabytes after 60 so valuable ($1.12 per gig), then from 81 to 300 gigs are zero-cost? Because Bell has structured the system to screw over as many people as possible. They did an analysis of where the sweet spot is to collect as much money as possible from wholesale subscribers, then structured their rates to match.
We're a left-leaning country. I have a great fucking idea. Nationalize bell. I was never a fan of this privatization shit. Let's get this socialist bit working again, and have the government own the lines, and then companies like Teksaavy (or however it's spelled) just pay the government maintenance rates for access, then anyone can compete, since it's a government entity without an interest in the market AND NOT DIRECTLY OFFERING SERVICES that everyone's going to. Bell charging companies for access while still selling access to individuals is pretty fucking anti-competitive. That way, if an area wants better internet, you just talk to your MP and they put it on the list of infrastructure to be improved in the area.
I mean, fuck, taxpayers already paid for all the lines, so fuck Bell. Yes, I'm just a wee bit angry at this.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.