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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."
In Canada we have no competition for apparently 6 reasons:
- Previous governments gave a monopoly to friends who supported them. Where these monopolies have collided they don't compete.
- We have no working anti-monopoly laws in Canada preventing collusion and other anti-competitive behavior. Technically we do but please tell me the last time a company was fined and how little they might have been fined.
- The CRTC (our FCC) is the tool that previous governments used to give their friends these monopolies and thus the CRTC will enforce the monopolies behavior not prevent it.
- Any competition that poses an actual threat will be bought out.
- The present government is a minority government and thus is focused on other fish that need frying such as keeping power and maybe finagling a majority. How many bytes people can download is not on their radar for now.
- Many of the telco monopolies also are media giants thus they control what the pubic thinks about this stuff.
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.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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.
Are you a shill, or some sort of moron? I live in Canada. I am directly affected by this. In France for the price I pay monthly, I could get a line which is 10 times faster than mine is along with unlimited phone calls to a bunch of places and HDTV. The speed of my internet line, 3 Mbps, has not increased in the past 7 years I have lived in downtown Montreal, which is about as urban as it gets in Canada. The price I pay for that same service, though, has increased quite significantly (at least 20%). Why was Bell able to offer unlimited access plans 5 years ago, and now they can't? Should they not have upgraded their lines since then? Everyone I know that uses the services of Bell hates their guts because they are complete scumbags.
Have you bothered checking the pricing schemes Bell offers? Check their lowest offering. It says it's 20$/month in Quebec, but it's 25 if you don't have a phone or satellite service deal with them already. Oh, and the speed is 500 kbps with a 1G data cap. They were able to offer unlimited at 3 Mbps 6 or 7 years ago for 30$ a month. I guess poor people don't do much but change their status on Facebook.
Please go back under the rock you came from. For same money that I pay, people in Europe and Asia are getting unlimited data plans with speeds that approach the speed of my LAN.
Bell already HAD usage base fees. This isn't about what Bell is allowed to do to their own customers. This is about what Bell is allowed to do to people who are NOT their customers. Bell is now allowed to demand bandwidth usage from third parties that use their lines, and tax those third parties. That is, TekSavvy connects their modem to a Bell copper line, and then wires that modem to their backbone. And Bell gets to hold a gun to your head and say you cannot download more GB than WE allow our customers or else it's not fair to us! Please at least read the summary.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
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.
That's absolutely right, if the market determines the going rate for bandwidth. Bandwidth is, after all, a finite resource; however, there is no competition and hence there are no market forces at play in this situation. That's where this whole can of worms came from in the first place. The whole industry is regulated because of the excessively high barriers to entry for new competitors. It's not going to be an ideal situation but it would be less bad if it was regulated well instead of being regulated by the CRTC.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
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.
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.
Seriously, Americans and Canadians are the biggest bunch of pussies in the world. Everyday we get to read stories like this and listen to everyone complain how unfair it is and how the government is doing whatever big business wants, yet YOU DO NOTHING!
Oh, sign this online petition. Are you kidding me? Get a fucking backbone and do something about it!
Do you watch the news?
France is the perfect example. The government does something the people don't want and they take to the streets in mass to force change. Meanwhile, your media skews the stories to ensure you side with the French government so as you don't get the same idea. Like always, you lap it up like good little lemmings.
Seriously, what must happen before you stand up for yourselves?
**disclaimer, I was arrested twice during peaceful protests, but at least I didn't sit on my ass while my government took my rights like you lazy fucks.