Slashdot Mirror
Canada's CRTC Declares Broadband Internet Access a Basic Service (www.cbc.ca)
New submitter jbwiebe quotes a report from CBC.ca: The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has declared broadband internet a basic telecommunications service. In a ruling handed down today, the national regulator ordered the country's internet providers to begin working toward boosting internet service and speeds in rural and isolated areas. With today's ruling, CRTC has set new targets for internet service providers to offer customers in all parts of the country download speeds of at least 50 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of at least 10 Mbps, and to also offer the option of unlimited data. The CRTC estimates two million Canadian households, or roughly 18 per cent, don't have access to those speeds or data. The CRTC's goal is to reduce that to 10 per cent by 2021. To achieve that, the CRTC will require providers pay into a fund that's set to grow to $750 million over five years. The companies will be able to dip into that fund to help pay for the infrastructure needed to extend high-speed service to areas where it is not currently available. The fund is similar to one that subsidized the expansion of local landline telephone service in years past. Providers used to pay 0.53 per cent of their revenues, excluding broadband, into that fund. Now they'll pay the same rate on all revenues, including broadband.
What has the FCC ever done? The CRTC maintains an effective wholesale access regime (enabling providers like TekSavvy to exist), and has managed to piss off incumbent providers to no end with their wireless code (mandating, among other things, the end to 3+ year contracts) and television code (mandating skinny basic and pick-and-pay). The incumbents fought tooth and nail against those. The incumbents also screamed bloody murder when the CRTC mandated that all the next-gen networks (FTTH and fiber-fed DOCSIS) need to be available to wholesale providers, and they also raised a big ruckus when the CRTC recently dropped the wholesale rates by up to 90% recently...
Doubt it. In Canada we did this kind of thing with phone service. Everyone has phone service now, and the CRTC mandates that the owners of the lines must make the available at regulated wholesale prices to other companies that want to sell phone, long distance or Internet service. It seems to have worked out pretty well.
If you RTFA, you'll discover the little nugget of joy that the CRTC declined to regulate prices—again. So all those rural areas are going from terrible service to unaffordable service. I don't think the big telcos are that upset about this particular demand; they get money to overhaul their infrastructure (where needed) and can double-dip by charging their customers as much as they want afterward. It seems that this probably won't be changing any time soon.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
nah, teksavvy is one of the decent providers. I was with them while in their service area and NEVER had issues with them. Wish I could say the same about big red....
They'll get it back out of you somehow. Either by raising some other fee, or by reducing the quality of service.
If by reducing quality of service you mean increasing the quality of service, you're right. My notice from Teksavvy reduced my bill $9/month while simultaneously increasing my link speed 10%.
"Oh no... he found the