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Canada CRTC Rules Against Usage Based Billing

Posted by samzenpus on from the internet-buffet dept.

iONiUM writes "In a somewhat surprising end to the ongoing fight between large ISPs (a duopoly in Canada), and independent ISPs, the CRTC has ruled in favor of the small ISPs. This means that independent ISPs can continue to have unlimited plans offered to customers. From the article: 'Under the CRTC’s new capacity-based approach, large telephone and cable companies will sell wholesale bandwidth to independent ISPs on a monthly basis. Independent ISPs will have to determine in advance the amount they need to serve their retail customers and then manage network capacity until they are able to purchase more. Alternatively, large companies can continue to charge independent ISPs a flat monthly fee for wholesale access, regardless of how much bandwidth their customers use. Both billing options give independent ISPs the ability to design service plans and charge their own customers as they see fit.' Score one for the citizens."

12 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Duopoly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    No, there are certainly more than two major Internet providers in Canada.

    Shaw, Telus, Rogers, Bell, Cogeco, MTS, etc.

    That said, good decision.

    1. Re:Duopoly? by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 4, Informative

      In any given area, there's one company that owns the phone lines (say, Bell) and one other company that owns the cable lines (say, Rogers). That's it. Any Internet access you can get runs over their last mile lines or is horribly expensive and/or slow (satellite, wireless).

      --
      Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
    2. Re:Duopoly? by realityimpaired · · Score: 4, Informative

      How many of those ISPs have overlapping service areas?

      Shaw, Rogers, Cogeco, and Videotron have divvied up the territories for cable service, and don't overlap service areas.
      Similarly, Telus, Bell, MTS, and Aliant have divvied up the territories for landline service, and also don't overlap service areas.

      It's only in the mobile telephone area that there's overlap between companies like Bell/Telus, and even that isn't *real* overlap, as they're sharing each others' towers.

      So yeah. For Internet service, there is a duopoly. You're either buying cable service from one of the cable companies, or you're buying landline phone service from one of the phone companies, and the only way to choose which cable/phone company it is is to move to a different part of the country.

    3. Re:Duopoly? by BobNET · · Score: 5, Informative

      Spell TekSavvy right and link to it so others can bask in its awesomeness!

    4. Re:Duopoly? by penguinstorm · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not going to change the fact that in virtually every market *except Toronto* you're buying your connection from your phone company or your cable company directly. Toronto seems to be the only city with the critical mass and regulatory structure to allow third party providers to survive and flourish. It hasn't happened here in Vancouver.

      --
      Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
    5. Re:Duopoly? by Maow · · Score: 5, Informative

      allow third party providers to survive and flourish. It hasn't happened here in Vancouver.

      I'm in Vancouver, and *enjoying* my first Shaw-free month with TekSavvy as ISP over Shaw's cable lines (I own my cable modem).

      They're certainly worth checking out, if for no other reason than $30 / month is what a 7.5 Mbps connection is actually worth.

      Note, at 17:25 on a tuesday afternoon I'm getting SpeedTest.net score of 30ms ping, 19.24 Mbps download, and, 0.48 Mbps upload speeds.

      Shaw is, of course, still making money on the last mile, but a lot less than when I used them directly.

      TL;DR: it's up to *us* to make the 3rd parties flourish: change ISPs today.

  2. If I'm not mistaken.... by mark-t · · Score: 5, Informative
    ... there's absolutely nothing in this ruling that actually prohibits UBB... it only prohibits charging more than the amount that was agreed to. Simply put, once a customer has used up the bandwidth that they've paid for in a money, they will have to go and buy more.

    It cuts out the suprise bills at the end when you find out just how much bandwidth you really used last month, but it doesn't really stop ISP's from charging consumers based on how much bandwidth they actually use, or, more specifically, they intend to use.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    1. Re:If I'm not mistaken.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is not about whether a Canadian ISP can bill you, as a consumer, according to how much you use. They can and they do.

      This ruling is about whether a large ISP (such as Bell), that controls the network itself, can force its own pricing plans onto smaller ISPs that have to lease bandwidth on lines controlled by the big guys. The answer is now no, they cannot do so; the small ISPs are free to create their own plans for their own customers.

  3. teksavvy going under by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    see this :
    http://teksavvynews.ca/index.php
    Chatham, Ontario, November 15, 2011 â" TekSavvy Solutions Inc. (âoeTekSavvyâ), one of Canadaâ(TM)s leading independent internet service providers, is disappointed with the rates for the wholesale high-speed services that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (âoeCRTCâ) approved today. The rates are for services that Internet service providers need to purchase from the large telephone and cable companies, such as Bell and Rogers, in order to provide Internet access services to their own retail customers.

    In Telecom Regulatory Policies CRTC 2011-703 and 2011-704 issued today the CRTC implemented new rate structures and rates for wholesale services.

    TekSavvy is pleased with the rate structure adopted, but the actual rates will increase the cost of Internet for Canadian consumers.

    âoeThe CRTC decision is a step back for consumers. The rates approved by the Commission today will make it much harder for independent ISPs to competeâ, said Marc Gaudrault, TekSavvyâ(TM)s CEO. âoeThis is an unfortunate development for telecommunications competition in Canadaâ, he added.

    -30-

  4. Michael Geist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The CRTC's UBB Decision: Bell Loses But Do Consumers Win?

  5. 14.6GiB per $ by harryjohnston · · Score: 3, Informative

    If I've done my math right, then for Bell-based customers this works out as roughly 14.6GiB per dollar, or seven cents per gigabyte, assuming the network is always congested. The actual cost depends on the peak to off-peak traffic ratio and on how much congestion is considered acceptable, but this provides a minimum.

    Folks who want, say, 5Mbs free-and-clear (no congestion and no data cap) would be paying Bell $110.65 per month plus a $14.11 access fee. That's more than I'd prefer to pay myself, but it isn't out of reach.

    However, it isn't clear to me exactly what this is buying. I suspect it doesn't include actual internet connectivity, but is just what the retail ISP is paying for Bell to get the traffic from the customer to the ISP. So you need to add the ISPs internal costs, profit margin, any applicable taxes, and whatever wholesale internet rates the ISP pays. I strongly suspect that by the time you've added all this up, 5Mbs free-and-clear is still going to be too expensive for most people.

  6. Re:Happily using TekSavvy by Maow · · Score: 3, Informative

    Unfortunately their CRM software could not catch you on the way out with a special promotion

    I don't understand.

    Rogers' customer retention tried to keep my mobile business, but I just hated them far too much.

    Shaw didn't try retention deal and I wanted to be rid of them anyway. Had they matched TekSavvy's deal, I'd still not have stayed since Shaw would likely have continued to up the price every few months.

    Unfortunately, TekSavvy screwed up my order, which I didn't find out about until connection day.

    Fortunately, Wind includes unlimited internet for my $40 / month, so I tethered with them until TekSavvy waived their $50 connection fee (and, double bonus, the first month's fee too!).

    All in all, I feel good about who I do business with now, and how rare is *that*?