Canadian internet access gets shittier

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Canadian internet access gets shittier

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Internet service in Canada is absolute, unmoderated poo poo. Maybe not quite as bad as the Australians, but we don't have the excuse of geographical isolation. And our cell phone service and costs ARE EVEN WORSE. The CRTC used to do good work, and I do still support its existence as a television regulator, but clearly it's not doing its job when it comes to non-broadcast telecommunications. We're getting gouged by natural oligopolies, and without government intervention there's nothing that can be done about it.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2010 20:26

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:31

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Parachute Underwear posted:

I would really love to start using Netflix but with a family of four living here and sharing the connection, we just can't afford it.

This, right here, is why this poo poo needs to change.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2010 21:56

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

MA-Horus posted:

This poo poo has got to stop. But it won't as long as ISPs keep bitching "bluu bluu our customers are using too much bandwidth". I remember when Cogeco started first capping and cutting off at the limit, then switched to usage-based billing.

YES stop your customers from using the service they're over-paying for, wonderful idea. That will cause them to be loyal customers.

I think the big barrier is that SOMEBODY needs to price out exactly how much it costs them to provide it. As long as they can claim that they need to meter, and carefully avoid how much their profit margin per GB is, they'll get sympathy from people who think that bits should cost money. If somebody can prove that Rogers pays 0.01 cents per GB, and we pay two bucks a GB, then you just need to tell the public that Rogers get a 2000% markup. Pull out a number like that and they'll rampage through the streets..

# ¿ Nov 1, 2010 01:51

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Hmm, might have found something that covers that. From Ars:

quote:

In the middle of the controversy, TWC boss Glenn Britt told BusinessWeek something similar, though with less edible imagery. "We need a viable model to be able to support the infrastructure of the broadband business," he said. "We made a mistake early on by not defining our business based on the consumption dimension."

This basic argument has a compelling logic�pay for what you consume�and it came with a side order of "implied apocalypse." Unless a major shift in pricing happens in the near future, TWC's Internet business won't be "viable" and the infrastructure won't keep pace with demand.

This key assertion underlies numerous industry experiments with consumption pricing (AT&T just wrapped up a trial of its own tight data caps in a few test markets, and other ISPs have mooted the idea for years). Few consumers are in a position to judge such claims; maybe the sky is falling. Maybe home Internet use is unsustainable without far more caps or far less data. Maybe those Netflix and Hulu users really are pigs at the broadband trough.

But there's reason to doubt. Big ISPs usually rely on peered connections to other major ISPs, connections which incur no per-bit cost. As for the cables in the ground, they've been there for years. The equipment back at the headend must be installed once, after which it runs for years. Cable node splits and DOCSIS hardware upgrades are relatively cheap. Requesting one additional bit does not necessarily incur any additional charge to the ISP.

If most Internet costs are fixed (and the National Broadband Plan agrees that they are), and if bandwidth is dirt cheap, what "charges" are heavy Internet users ringing up for ISPs like Time Warner? As a New York Times writer summed it up in the middle of last year's debate:

quote:
I tried to explore the marginal costs with Mr. Hobbs. When someone decides to spend a day doing nothing but downloading every Jerry Lewis movie from BitTorrent, Time Warner doesn�t have to write a bigger check to anyone. Rather, as best as I can figure it, the costs are all about building the network equipment and buying long-haul bandwidth for peak capacity.

If that is true, the question of what is "fair" is somewhat more abstract than just saying someone who uses more should pay more. After all, people who watch more hours of cable television don�t pay more than those who don�t.

Mr. Hobbs declined to react to my hypothesis about how costs are almost all fixed costs.

Industry figures claim that costs are always going up, but critics disagree:

quote:

"Hogwash," says Free Press research director S. Derek Turner. "Their OpEx [Operating Expenses, which includes labor] is not growing; if anything, it's steady. Their CapEx is decreasing both in overall terms and as a percentage of revenue."

Turner has little patience for the "woe is me" arguments that ISPs trot out to defend a shift to data caps or per-bit pricing. Free Press, a constant critic of the big ISPs, says it has no philosophical problem with a move to a consumption model for broadband�but such a shift should accurately reflect costs, not serve as an excuse to gouge customers by companies already swimming in cash.

TWC's data capping trial in 2009 featured "literally ridiculous overage amounts that had no relation to underlying costs," Turner said. And the danger isn't just to consumer pocketbooks, it's to the entire Internet ecosystem. Who will start using the next high-bandwidth YouTube or Netflix when doing so results in big fees? If not done right, consumption pricing "will cripple innovation."

Turner concedes that networks cost money to build and maintain, but he argues that the costs are wildly overstated. For instance, Comcast is one of the ISPs furthest along with DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades, which do require a labor-intensive card swap at the headend and new modems in people's homes. But even as it makes this investment, the company's OpEx and CapEx are declining. As for node splits, many are "virtual" these days and don't require much labor.

Bandwidth has become dirt cheap; despite the fear-mongering about the "exaflood" and the "zettaflood" and (presumably) the "yottaflood," bandwidth costs drop significantly every year. As the National Broadband Plan noted earlier this year, international bandwidth has grown by 66 percent each year for the last five years�but the cost of IP transit has dropped 22 percent a year at the same time.

Congestion can happen even on networks with tremendous bandwidth, but consumption pricing doesn't generally care about congestion (if it did, ISPs could exempt all traffic in the middle of the night, for instance, when congestion is generally absent).

So why the push for consumption pricing? Turner has his own theory.

"This is nothing more than greed," he says. "The industry may be maturing, and therefore margins aren't rapidly increasing the way they were." Consumption pricing could be a way to boost margins. As for ISP complaints that heavy users cost them more money, those are just "excuses that they give."

So, yeah, I think we have it there. Their costs are primarily fixed, and there's no good reason for per-gig pricing. Except, of course, big profits.

And since they're Canadian ISPs, they can gouge their asses off.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2010 03:00

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Kreeblah posted:

Everything I've ever heard about the CRTC when it comes to telecommunications basically boils down to, "Well, they're loving us again, but it's run by ex-Bell/Rogers/Telus execs, so we can't do anything." So, I've always wondered: has there ever been any movement up there to reform how people are selected to be on it or how it's run or something?

99% of people haven't the faintest clue what it is or what it's for. Of the 1%, I suspect that many will be swayed by that "well, water is metered, electricity is metered, why shouldn't internet?" The fact that electricity needs to be generated and water needs to be pumped is the difference, but I think the only way people will get that is if somebody gives an actual number for how much it costs THEM.

The other big problem is that neither of the two big parties are necessarily going to want to push on this thing. The Tories won't because they're constitutionally incapable of criticizing a business, ever. And the Grits won't because until very recently they relied on telecommunications companies for a LOT of campaign money. It doesn't really work that way now, but habits die hard.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2010 05:06

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

The Gunslinger posted:

I mean, on some level this is true but not with regards to Internet. The truth is that this issue won't affect the overwhelming majority of Canadians who just use Facebook and maybe download some lovely telesyncs through some limewire clone. People aren't apathetic, they are just ignorant. It's hard to get people to march on parliament when they are seemingly unaffected by the issue in question. It will definitely affect them in the future but they won't really find out until it's too late. People are simply too ignorant to understand how this can harm innovation going forward. I try to dumb it down for my family when we get together once in awhile but their eyes just kind of glaze over unless I use very broad talking points and stick to things like "internet/cell phone bills are too much!".

You'd be surprised. Not so much about the "bills are too much!" thing, but about bandwidth usage. "Regular people" ARE using more bandwidth as they start using things like streaming services; netflix alone can chew up one of those 'lite' offerings in a day or so.

But, yeah, that's why I was focusing on percentages. People aren't going to understand if you break down all the different technical issues involved or the threats to innovation. They WILL pay attention if you say "they're charging you A THOUSAND TIMES what they pay themselves". Canadians tend to get a hair in their butts about perceived "fairness", and nobody's too fond of the big telecoms.

The problem is that the innovation stuff should be aimed at a more educated audience, but most Canadian elites could give a poo poo about innovation. Our R&D spending has gone DOWN, and continues to go down. Our corps just want to dig poo poo out of the ground, and our banks want to finance digging poo poo out of the ground. You don't need innovation for that, you need big machinery, strong backs, and a province or two that's willing to look the other way when it comes to the environment. "Innovation" is just a buzzwords intended to get progressives off the backs of the telecoms.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2010 17:00

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Martytoof posted:

I think handing out exemptions on a per-app basis would almost be worse than what we have now. Sure maybe now you can stream netflix without worrying about your cap, but what happens when the next big bandwidth heavy service comes to town? Also if you think they're stingy about bandwidth caps now, just wait until "UNLIMITED NETFLIX AND LAST.FM _{_{_{10gb general bitcap}}}*" plans hit.

* "what's the problem now? why would you possibly need more than 10gb now that you can stream netflix all you want!"

Yeah, that's how they'd kill net neutrality.

(Or WILL kill net neutrality. :smith:

)

# ¿ Nov 18, 2010 20:56

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Septimus posted:

A political party whose goal is to reform the CRTC would gain alot of traction right about now.

NDP is Not Very Happy about this, and they've been pushing this issue for a while. They aren't likely to form a government anytime soon, but if the Libs get in, they'll almost certainly need the dippers to create a stable government.

As for the Big Two...Tories will almost certainly go with the big corps on this one*, so it's really down to the Liberals. There, it depends. If things worked the way they USED to, there'd be no shot in hell, since the Liberals got massive campaign donations from the telcos. But since you CAN'T get massive donations from corps anymore, the libs might be willing to relent if the public pushes them hard and the NDP stands firm. They won't fix the CRTC's inherent flaws, but they can change the policy directions it's given.

*(Then again, it IS possible the Tories might relent. This is Tony Clement's file, and he's been surprisingly reasonable on these issues. Won't help if the PMO is dictating things, but if he's given some room, there might be some flexibility.)

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 01:18

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

orange lime posted:

We need some kind of sound bite that will get a lot of air play and that will actually make Canadians get ANGRY at the situation. Something like the aforementioned "Rogers, Bell and Telus charge you FIVE THOUSAND TIMES what it costs them for internet access" would be good but it's still a little too academic -- most people don't really understand how you put a value on something like bandwidth and connectivity anyway.

Something that appeals to the Canadian sense of national pride. An implication that the USA is taking over is always good, though in this case it's unfortunately the case that the USA is BETTER than we are. Maybe that's enough?

All this information is out there -- peering arrangements, comparisons to the rest of the world, anticompetitive actions, misuse of government funds. Where can this get publicized, where people will actually see it? It needs to get on the CBC for a good long time and keep coming up.

And how can we start planting the idea of a nationalized fiber network into the MPs' heads? There's got to be some comparison to the Northwest Passage or the Trans-Canada highway or the Rideau Canal or the St. Lawrence seaway or something, some way of suggesting that the next step in tying the country together is a canadian communications network owned 100% by the people of Canada.

And ripped straight from the telco's fat greasy fingers, of course.

Some combination of the concepts might work. The "five thousand times" bit is good because it's a big number that means you don't have to delve into "a dollar a gig" vs. "a cent a gig". Use the word "dollar" and people just think "what's the big deal about a dollar?" and don't realize how it adds up.

And bringing up services might work because Canadians hate feeling backwards compared to Americans. Talking about how the Americans have all these great services that we won't get "because Bell and Rogers can't handle the competition" may well tick people off too.

I'm not sure about the "digital Northwest passage" stuff, though. The problem with advocating a nationalized network is that you'll have much of the (Telecom-owned) Canadian media screaming about FREE MARKETS!! to all and sundry. It's guaranteed that Macleans, CTV, and the Sun chain will absolutely lose their poo poo, and the privately owned television networks will follow suit. They'll do that no matter WHAT you do, of course, but a nationalization policy makes it more likely that the public will go along with it.

A better strategy might well be regulation. Set some ground rules about exactly how much telecoms can charge. A fixed number won't work, but some multiplier of their cost-per-gigabyte might. At the very least, the CRTC should be mandated to look into whether the lack of competition is driving up bit prices. If you look at the decision:

quote:

9. The Commission notes that carriers� retail UBB rates are market-based and are not subject to prior Commission approval � that is, they are forborne from regulation. The Commission also notes that the flat-rate component of the carriers� retail Internet service rates recovers most, if not all, of the associated retail UBB costs. In the Commission�s view, this situation provides carriers with the flexibility to adjust or waive retail UBB rates on a promotional basis.

10. However, the Commission considers that, for competitors, carriers� wholesale UBB rates are an additional, direct, and unavoidable cost that competitors will need to recover from rates paid by their retail customers. The Commission also considers that wholesale UBB charges will result in additional customer care costs for competitors, including a review of the relevant carrier�s wholesale usage records and associated UBB charges.

11. Further, the Commission notes its view in Telecom Regulatory Policy 2010-632 that services provided by smaller competitors bring pricing discipline, innovation, and consumer choice to the retail Internet service market. The Commission considers that, in the absence of a discount on carriers� wholesale UBB rates relative to their comparable retail UBB rates, smaller competitors� ability to continue to differentiate their retail Internet services would be unduly impaired.

12. In light of the above, the Commission concludes that wholesale UBB rates should be established at a discount relative to carriers� comparable retail UBB rates and that, in the absence of such a discount, the wholesale UBB rates would not be just and reasonable, contrary to subsection 27(1) of the Telecommunications Act (the Act).

This whole section shows that the CRTC is open to the idea that the telecoms could end up engaging in anti-competitive gouging. But look at the bit I bolded again.

quote:

The Commission notes that carriers� retail UBB rates are market-based and are not subject to prior Commission approval � that is, they are forborne from regulation. The Commission also notes that the flat-rate component of the carriers� retail Internet service rates recovers most, if not all, of the associated retail UBB costs.

Two things jump out here. First, the CRTC is, apparently, NOT allowed to regulate retail UBB rates. So even if they think that the rates are too high for their intended purpose as a traffic management tool, they believe that they are prevented from acting upon that decision by Government policy. Well, that's simple enough to fix. Change the Government, change the policy. Tell the CRTC that they're free and clear to regulate UBB rates in cases where competition isn't doing the job, and you may see them bring down UBB rates to sane levels.

That other bit about how "flat rate components recover the costs" may be really important too, though. Right now, the telecoms' biggest argument is that most people are within their bitcaps. Now a LOT of that is because they've been engaging in aggressive market segmentation to try to ensure that you get bumped up to a pricier plan if you're downloading more than your current plan allows. Rogers bumped me up for about a year for free, for example, when UBB first showed up here, because I was exceeding the plan I was currently on. As long as they keep doing that, this CRTC note might prevail.

But that isn't what's happening, is it? Regional monopolists like Bell are aggressively cutting transfer caps. If people start getting routinely billed for extra transfer, then it might be possible to go back to the CRTC and tell them that flat rates are NOT recovering the costs, and that they should reconsider their decision in light of these new facts. If it's under a new Government that's setting new policies, they may well change their minds.

Right now, though, the most important thing is to keep that "stop the meter" stuff front and center in the minds of the public and the media. The telecoms KNOW that this stuff could be a real headache for them, and they might relent in cutting caps, or even increase them, if it looks like they've got a brewing PR nightmare on the way. And if Netflix sacks up and starts making noises about anti-competitive behavior on the part of the big television providers, that could REALLY put the fear of God in 'em, since the public will react VERY nastily to the idea that Bell and Rogers aren't playing fair.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 07:46

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Okay, here's one I just saw on DSL reports that could make a KILLER ad.

quote:

Show a Bell Canada tech walk in (uninvited!) to your home, and proceed to attach an oversized public pay-telephone to your laptop computer. User scratches their head, bewildered, but then shrugs it off and continues to use the Internet...

Moments later the person's YouTube video is abruptly interrupted. An old fashion 1920's telephone operator voice piercingly squawks out from the pay-phone speaker "This is the Bell Canada operator. Please deposit $2 dollars to continue your video play back. Thank you". The user drops in several coins to the pay-phone. Now goes to download some music for their MP3 player, suddenly that stops. "This is the Bell Canada operator. Please deposit $2 dollars to continue your music download. Thank you.". Getting a little visibly annoyed he/she drops in more coins to the pay-phone. Now decides to play an online game, just as that starts: "This is the Bell Canada operator. Please deposit $2 dollars to continue your game. Thank you". User now fuming, opens wallet looking for yet more coins.

Now zoom out, show dozens, then hundreds and then thousands of Canadians on their computers, endlessly dropping coins into these attached pay-phones on their sides of their computer, in a zombie like state (all you hear are the voices of Bell operators saying to please insert coins, overlapping one another, and growing exponentially in number).

Then a black screen, and a voice over, "Welcome the future of the Internet in Canada. Welcome to NOW".

That tagline blows, but the image is GLORIOUS, and likely to fire up the boomers that remember lovely pay phone long distance.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 08:26

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

What's bizarre and enraging about that is that low-traffic users pay a fuckton more per gigabyte. Not only do they pay higher overages, but their flat-rate cost per gig is far higher if you work it out.

If Bell was charging a flat rate per gig, it'd be different. (Though not that much more so.) But instead they're clearly exploiting this to gouge the living hell out of the very group that this poo poo is supposed to benefit.

Edit: That said, how the hell do we know that the network can't handle 500 gigs a month at current costs/capacity? We have no reason whatsoever to take what the telcos say seriously. Certainly it isn't last mile problems; as far as I've read, DOCSIS 3 and the various fibre-to-the-home solutions can handle that without breaking a metaphorical sweat, and I doubt it'd be necessarily terribly onerous for a lot of DSL setups.

Sure, it might be backbone, but then it just raises the question of what the gently caress they DID with all the government money they were handed to improve their networks, and why Shaw appeared to function without noticeable congestion before they put down their own bit caps.

Re-Edit: Don't necessarily buy that "using nothing" line, either. It's not 2004 anymore, regular users can easily suck down a SHITTON of bandwidth using streaming services. That includes Gramma looking at funny cat videos.

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Jan 27, 2011

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 17:44

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Bonzo posted:

In my experience, MPs NEVER reply to emails. Anytime I've done so I get a reply from their assistant. The 1st reply is a basic canned response they send everyone. AFter that it's just endlessly arguing with someone who could care less about your issue and they will lead you on all kinds of wild goose chases to get you to shut up.

If you request to speak directly to the MP they will tell you to write some written request which I'm sure is then ignored.

Well, it depends. They DO pay attention to hand-written letters, but going and making an appointment at the constituency office is still probably the best way to get heard. It depends on the MP, of course.

univbee posted:

Not only is this no longer the case (isn't it closer to like 35 gigs now?), that's per user. What if you're a family with 3 kids? Or college roommates? Or just happened to get a certain digital download PC game for yourself (or even as a gift)? It's also an average, meaning 50% of people use more. Appealing to the status quo/lowest common denominator has resulted in fantastic policies like No Child Left Behind and is in no way something to strive for.

Yeah, ranting about P2P is entirely wrongheaded in 2011. P2P isn't the issue. Streaming video and downloaded content (Steam and the like) is. And if you don't think casual users have an appetite for streaming video, you're nuts.

Edit: And upfront costs have nothing to do with the higher overage costs for low-bandwidth accounts. If you're on a high-bandwidth account, you pay about a buck per extra gig. If you're on a low-bandwidth account (Rogers lite and the like) you can end up paying between three and five. There is NO justification for that beyond monopolist segmentation. None.

Re-Edit: Oh, and I'm not sure what sustained usage vs. non-sustained issues has to do with UBB? P2P gets the poo poo traffic-shaped out of it during periods of high usage, you know that. That's justifiable, though probably irrelevant in the age of streaming content. But people get punished under UBB for usage during high- and low-usage periods alike.

The logical thing to do THERE would be to have variable pricing depending on time of day, so that bandwidth during peak is more expensive than bandwidth during low-usage periods. Reward people for waiting on their Steam downloads until the middle of the night.

But, then again, the real solution is this VVVVVVV. Upgrade the loving network. Japan did it, we can do it. Maybe not for all of the country at once, but we're highly, highly urbanized and concentrated. Focus on the densest areas and move outward from there.

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jan 27, 2011

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 19:00

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Well, again, that comes down to the government. The Tories are never going to back that, not when they're closely aligned with the American Republicans (who have legislated that sort of thing out of existence) and are pretty hardcore pro-corporates.

(Clement being an exception is the only reason there's even a PRAYER of change.)

The Libs MIGHT, if you can convince the fossils running the party that the old days of Bell showing up with big bags of money are gone for good, and if the NDP is pushing hard as part of a coalition. But it'll definitely take a governmental change.

As for the people...again, frame it as a nationalistic/economic thing and you might get traction. Canadians won't like being told that they have the shittiest, priciest internet in the world, and won't like it when you say that it's dragging down our economy. People are STILL freaked out about jobs, especially in places like Toronto where the recession never really ended, and saying "this is choking job-creating entrepreneurial innovation" will probably help get people on-side.

But, again, the problem is that we've had a number of cozy telecom monopolies and oligopolies for a while now. Canadians are USED to that. It's going to take a hard push for them to change.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 19:29

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

orange lime posted:

What motivation do they have to decrease their costs? You already pay exactly what they want you to, and they're the only game in town. There is literally no reason for them to do anything that benefits you because what do they get out of it?

Yeah, this is what's bugging me. UBB as an ITMP measure might make sense if they were up against some sort of hard physical limit, like spectrum or some such thing. But that's not the problem. The PROBLEM is that they under-anticipated demand in the age of ubiquitous streaming and downloadable media.

So they could invest in upgrades. But will they? HELL no! Why WOULD they? Over-capacity will just provide incentives to gouge customers and resellers THAT much more. If they DID increase their capacity, it would just make it that much more likely that the resellers could successfully go to the CRTC and say that they're charging too much to be justifiable as a traffic-management measure, which could mean that the CRTC forces them to drop the rates or revisits the reseller-UBB decision.

And because they're all part of cozy oligopolies (except in Saskatchewan, which is probably going to end up with the best internet in Canada thanks to SaskTel), there won't be competition. It'll NEVER increase. We will have 25-60 gig caps FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. Your loving KIDS will have those caps.

(Until they start exploiting it to channel you towards "free" websites. Which is the end-point for all this, of course. Once the Canadian public gets used to caps, they'll start discriminating on wired connections just as they do with wireless.)

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 17:24

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Thanks, I hope that the OpenMedia guys are bandying this about. It's a good counter to the "heavy users should pay more" line.

(Another response might simply be "We don't charge cable users by the program. Why charge internet users by the byte?")

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 17:35

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

fishmech posted:

Stop believing the lie that they HAVE bandwidth problems! Where's the proof they have any kind of need for upgrades?

I don't. But even if they do at some point in the future, they now have no incentive to do anything about it except jack prices.

(You're entirely right about how UBB does jack-poo poo for congestion, though. In fact, it would make congestion WORSE, since it discourages people from taking the effort to download things in the middle of the night when congestion is minimal.)

Also, Nitr0, all you're doing is making the case for either tight regulation or nationalization. Saying "Bell and Telus own the backbones" just raises the question of why the gently caress we're allowing a pair of private corporations to exploit this monopoly, especially in light of the massive public funding they've enjoyed to BUILD these networks.

But that doesn't change the fact that fishmech is absolutely right about UBB and congestion.

Edit:

Nitr0 posted:

Different companies, different countries, different network strategies. To simply assume that every isp is the exact same is a little naive, no?

well, yes, because Canadian companies have to use totally different cables and routers. They need to work in both french and english, you see.

(NO, it's NOT different, it's the same bloody business using the same bloody techniques.)

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 28, 2011

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 23:29

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Nitr0 posted:

Good question. Perhaps you should talk to your MP.

I have. But that doesn't change Bell's responsibility for their behavior, or how disingenuous their arguments are. Part of the job of convincing the Government (or any future Liberal/NDP) government that this is wrongheaded is demonstrating that Bell et al are acting like classical monopolists and/or trusts. The only way you can break down the bullshit "market forces will win out" line is if you demonstrate that THE MARKET ISN'T FUNCTIONING HERE.

Otherwise, all you're doing by blaming the government is sounding like one of those idiot lolbs who thinks that blaming the government is some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card for corporate malfeasance. And I'm sure you wouldn't want to do THAT.

Nitr0 posted:

A nice link from Cisco that I grabbed from another ISP forum I frequent.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/Cisco_VNI_Usage_WP.html

31% increase in traffic over the last year... drat.

Wait, weren't you just talking about how "Canada is different?"

drcru posted:

Do people watch George Strombo still?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rUsRCyS6PU

He made a nice plea last night apparently.

Quoting for new page. Or, hell, we can embed now, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rUsRCyS6PU
(If embedding in this thread is a problem, mods, let me know and I'll pull it.)

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jan 29, 2011

# ¿ Jan 29, 2011 00:46

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

cowofwar posted:

You just posted a quote saying that Telus is dumping $500,000,000 into some useless wireless services. If their backend needed upgrades it would get priority. The fact that they're spending infrastructure money on wireless services suggests that they have tons of excess capacity on the wired end.

Not necessarily. It could be because wireless is essentially a license to print money thanks to the insanely high data costs they charge. (And premium differentiated services, like Facebook et al.)

That's another reason why this bothers me; this could simply be a way of pushing people onto wireless where they can REALLY gently caress you.

Nitr0 posted:

Their wireless and wireline are tied hand in hand. How do you think those towers are being fed?

What is this "last mile" you speak of, sirrah?

(Come on. You can do better than this.)

quote:

It is, but internet traffic will become fairly consistent now that more streaming video content is being allowed on Netflix, iTunes, etc and more and more people switch their cable and dsl services for online streaming video.

Okay, so it ISN'T then. (Since you didn't really say why, and it sure as hell isn't because we have to stuff extra "u"s into the datastream.)

# ¿ Jan 29, 2011 04:15

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Oxyclean posted:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r25187382-New-Rogers-TPIA-rates-UBB-by-July-1

Rogers
Ultra-Lite Service:
2GBs cap
20$
5$ per gig over.

I think this is only a proposal, but poo poo, I've never seen a scam that bad. Who isn't going to go over 2GB in a month? Unless you only check your mail a few times a month, the flat fee of 20$ is still really high.

It's absolutely a scam. People think "well, I don't use the internet that much", and then go over when they watch what they THINK is a relatively small amount of streaming video.

It's proof positive that UBB has nothing to do with ITMP at all. It's just a monopoly squeezing us suckers.

fishmech posted:

Wait, they're actually doing that up there on top of still having roaming charges for leaving your "home area" and charging extra for calling long distance on a cell phone (both of which have been gone from all major US carriers for a decade, I might add)?

Let me make this perfectly and abundantly clear. WE HAVE THE WORST TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD. No, really. We went from being leaders in connectivity and speed to being absolutely poo poo over the last ten years or so.

A lot of that has to do with the directions given the CRTC by Maxime Bernier back when he was Industry Minister, but the lion's share is simply because our telecom monopolies were never broken up like their American counterparts. They have a death grip on anything that has to do with media or communications, and they're becoming more vertically integrated by the moment. It's pathetic.

(Well, that, and because the Canadian business community could give a poo poo about broadband connectivity, because they've enthusiastically redirected our economy into digging poo poo out of the ground and selling it abroad for practically nothing. You don't need good telecommunications for that. You just need big trucks, big pipelines, and a population that shuts up and does what it's loving told.)

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jan 30, 2011

# ¿ Jan 30, 2011 07:11

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Wait, all that's from GorillaNet? Or the rural one? You seem to be mixing up your quotes.

(As well as your point. We aren't talking about 200GB caps, here. Chop off that last zero, THAT'S what we're talking about.)

Edit: And the fact that that rural provider admits to overselling does not absolve them of overselling. If you get bumped from a flight because Air Canada oversold it thinking "all the passengers won't show up", you aren't going to be mollified when they admit to it. You're going to be PISSED. And rightly so.

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jan 30, 2011

# ¿ Jan 30, 2011 22:37

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Dudebro posted:

New facebook page for this rally, just a placeholder for now.

Also, this amazingly awesome gigantic argument against UBB.

http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1621527~7113613720f25003c7128aa38c32efe5/CRTC-2010-802-Vaxination-Petition.pdf

One guy wrote that? Seems at least equivalent to what a parliamentary committee would come up with. I'd like to think that some MPs will read that and do the right thing, but unfortunately politicians don't give off that vibe anymore.

MPs would be briefed on it by staff, presumably. Though what would REALLY happen is that either the Minister (that'd be Tony) would be briefed by Industry Minister officials, or the Prime Minister's Office would be briefed on it by someone at the cabinet minister's office.

What I'm reading of it is pretty devastating, though. Not only laying out the difference between what the ISPs get from Bell (last mile access, basically) and what end-users get from an ISP (everything else), but in pointing out that there's no difference in charge between 80GB and 300GB, which is just insane.

(As well as pointing out the Quebec/Ontario pricing difference, which could be enough to get the PMO to poo poo on this thing all on its own.)

The competition section is beautiful, too. Pointing out that the very justification given by the CRTC for allowing the indie ISPs to exist in the first place (preventing a monopoly) shows that a ITMP price-setting duopoly is anti-competitive is just brilliant, since it demostrates that the CRTC was not following the implications of its own rulings and, thus, is being anti-competitive. The "competition" question is key here; banging on THAT is just about the only way that you can possibly get the PMO to agree with you on this, since they don't want to be called "anti-competitive" and thus "anti-market". It'd alienate soft-right voters and the more lolbertarian elements of their base, and they really, really don't want that.

Edit: And holy poo poo, the measurement thing. Error rates of up to 20%? THAT'S something that could (and should) be exploited in PR on this issue. That they gently caress over Quebeckers is one thing; that they may gently caress over EVERYBODY by under- or over-counting traffic is something else entirely.

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Jan 31, 2011

# ¿ Jan 31, 2011 08:34

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Yeah, the tricky part is enraging Canadians about anything. It DOES happen, as we saw with prorogation and (arguably) adscam, but its kind of unpredictable. The only fairly reliable things are regional conflicts and that general Canadian sense of fairness, which is why the whole "charge two bucks for a cent of bandwidth" and "QC gets hosed over" bits are key.

(The 20% bit might fit there, too. Canadians aren't going to like the idea of Bell charging for illusory transfers.)

# ¿ Jan 31, 2011 08:50

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Viktor posted:

So looks like the liberals have weighed in, guess emailing my Liberal MP helped out

NDP thinks it's bullshit on rye, Tories are making the same noises that they did over Wind, and now the grits are calling it "anti-competitive".

If this doesn't get reversed, it'll be proof that Bell doesn't just have friends in the PMO, it has incriminating photos of people in the PMO.

Shumagorath posted:

Something for Rogers customers:
1) Go here: http://www.rogers.com/web/content/contactus
2) Click "Make a complaint" and select "Office of the President"
3) Fill in whatever for the manager's name (I used the name of certain PR scum from Bell)
4) Tell them about all the services you will pull if they announce UBB.

Uh, Rogers HAS UBB. I just went over my (too loving low) cap today thanks to the Winter Steam Sale. This is about ISPs that uses Rogers' "last mile" cable network, and they are pretty much not Rogers internet customers by definition.

(Maybe if you're a big TV watcher? Tell them you're cancelling playboy and all the other ripoff adult stations or something, that'd get their attention.)

Edit: Okay, that Yak thing is confusing. People are saying that they have their own DSLAMs and whatnot, but the actual Yak *site* says they're moving to UBB in March. Doesn't say anything about exceptions at all.

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Feb 1, 2011

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 07:57

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

8ender posted:

The thing that bothers me is that even if the CRTC ruling is overturned it really can't stop there or this will just keep coming back to haunt us. Really important basic infrastructure used by everyone in the country is locked up by a handful of megacorps right now, and they don't want to compete.

Unless the ruling governmental party grows some balls and takes that infrastructure back, rolling it into a regulated non-profit wholesaler or something like that, then the current infrastructure owners will just continue to try out new and exciting ways of crippling their wholesale clients. They're so vertically integrated now that you really can't fault them for it; It makes the most business sense for them to do everything they can to ensure that customers are using all of the pieces from their stack rather than substituting in any of their competitors services.

My wild-assed guess is that the Government will set some sort of limit for UBB charges for third parties, going way beyond the 15% discount we're seeing now. There's probably going to be a lot of hard questions about that "pay a cent, charge five bucks" thing.

The best thing might be if they focus on results, rather than method. Set a minimum standard for congestion and require the ISP itself to sort out how they go about solving it. Since UBB has NOTHING to do with congestion�that's why it's a scam�the small ISPs would have a lot of latitude to use traffic shaping or differentiated pricing or poo poo like that to ensure that congestion is minimal.

(Or, they WOULD, if congestion were actually an issue at all. Since it ISN'T�that's the other scam�TekSavvy et al could basically do whatever the gently caress they please.)

Edit: That nationalization thing would be good too, but there's not a chance in hell that the Tories would do it. A Lib/NDP coalition might. If that's what you want, then figure out which party is mostly likely to beat a Tory near where you are, and start helping out. Generally that's NDP west of Manitoba barring Vancouver, Liberal in Ontario and much of the East, and who the hell knows in Quebec since they've got like seven parties there now or something.

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Feb 1, 2011

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 08:10

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

From that CBC thing:

quote:

I am a Canadian living in the Philippines, I can make a call to Canada for less than 5 cents a minute, my internet with unlimited download is $20.00 a month. This is a 3rd world country, like most countries here in Asia, and they have the best and fastest internet compared to Canada and its cheap. Yes, the wages here are very low, so how do we compare??? The hardware costs almost the same here as it does in Canada. If they charged the same rates as in Canada the whole system would collapse in a matter of days as no body could afford it.
Obviously there is no competition in Canada. You people are getting SCREWED!!!

People in third world countries make fun of our cell phone plans, too.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 08:28

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Stanley Pain posted:

My MP is Peter Kent, totes the company line pretty hard core. I've sent him a bunch of my concerns and the responses I get back are pretty much what you'd expect for someone toting the company line.

You won't get a response that bucks the company line, but if enough of these things come in, it might get aired out in Caucus.

(Though, again, the only two orgs that really matter here are the PMO and Industry Canada. MPs don't know or do poo poo.)

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 23:44

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Funny that you mentioned Steam, because I just came across this on Reddit:

quote:

I'm sorry to hear about you losing Steam and I don't want to piss in your Timmy's, but this goes a little bit further than making you have to walk to buy videogames.

I'm in the US military and my wife's Canadian. During my last deployment, one of the easiest ways for her and I to keep in contact while she finished up her University degree in Ontario was webcam. She had Roger's internet and they've had this bullshit implemented for some time. So, she had some crap 25 Gb max rate and we hit that most every goddamn month just trying to stay in contact. (Yes, in hindsight we should have switched and whatever. That was then, this is now)

Now that I hear everyone in Ontario is going to have to deal with garbage like this is bullshit. Netflix/Steam users have my sympathy, but all those Canadian Forces guys out there, or people separated from their families who stay in touch via webcam/streaming methods are going to take this hit the hardest. I really, REALLY encourage you guys to fight this poo poo the best you can. It goes farther than movies, music, and video games.

Somebody needs to track this guy's wife down and put her on TV RIGHT loving NOW.

If we can get footage of (justifiably) Sad Soldier's Wife on the teevee, the CPC probably won't even wait until march to kill this.

Edit: He's resisting because he's American and she's Canadian, but hell with that. Nobody's gonna care that he's a yank.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 03:04

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Stanley Pain posted:

My figure is a rather generous one, but hey I'm also looking out for the poor corporations here as well. I want them to be able to afford the upgrades to their network. Even at 12 cents/GB; 1 TB of data would only be twelve bucks and not $1200. Wholesale rates are cheaper, but you're not going to get those as a consumer.

Thing is, you're still paying for access. Even the ultra-lite people are still forking over 25 bucks a month or something like that, and the "ULTRA HIGH SPEED" people are still paying sixty or seventy. That should be enough to pay for equipment upgrades and overhead.

(The problem is that it doesn't give you those big fat cable TV margins, and that's what the big telecoms are trying to protect.)

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 07:25

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

This shouldn't change things for Bell/Rogers customers at all. We've had caps for years.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 07:28

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

kuddles posted:

And as a surprise to nobody, the National Post editorial team is taking the stance that this will effect nobody, that we're all a bunch of whiners, and that Bell is only charging what it needs to in order to survive, as determined through their heavy research of asking a Bell spokesperson about it.

Yeeeaaaah, they clearly have no loving idea how the Internet works and think that bits need to be shipped out from the bit mines in deepest Africa (or something like that). The electricity comparison makes THAT obvious.

That Spark interview was crap, too. Hey, mister economics professor? You can't talk about how the market will solve all ills when there is no free market here. Bell et al have natural monopolies. Telecoms are the TEXTBOOK DEFINITION of natural monopolies. Competition is something you have to impose, or you won't get any.

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Feb 2, 2011

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 23:35

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Godinster posted:

Great news.

http://twitter.com/TonyClement_MP appears to have verified it.

I probably shouldn't have followed the link to Andrew Coyne. Jesus Christ, that guy's an absolute tool. How the gently caress is foreign competition going to do anything to a natural monopoly based on buried fiber under right-of-way? Is Google supposed to swoop down and set up a loving ansible or something?

It's somewhat gratifying to know that our marketeers are such utter dipshits, since it makes it easier to knock them down. But holy hell, it makes me embarrassed to share a country with this guy.

Edit: Here's a quote:

quote:

So yet AGAIN govt caves to loudest squawks. We'll all wind up paying more, for slower service, so a few bandwidth hogs can pay less..

I eagerly scoured his twitter feed to discover how monthly bills prevent evening-hour congestion, since not a soul has explained that to this day. No joy.

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Feb 3, 2011

# ¿ Feb 3, 2011 09:10

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Kreeblah posted:

People should suggest expensive road tolls to prevent rush hour congestion every time somebody tries that line. It's the same flawed concept, but it'd probably make more sense to people who don't really get this whole "internet" thing.

He said that he's "in favor of usage-based driving" in a different tweet.

So, yes, he's a right-wing nut that lucked into a bully pulpit thanks to a marginal ability to write and an enviable ability to make Useful Friends in High Places. (Just like most of these fucks.)

# ¿ Feb 3, 2011 20:29

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Oh, and Moist, you might want to bring up that question that nobody's answering: how is that a monthly cap will do anything for periodic congestion? People will still go bananas with streaming during the evening, contributing heavily to congestion, while being totally unaffected by the cap because they're off the computer at other times.

And if this is so necessary, why don't they have per-minute or per-byte charges for cable, too? It's the same pipe. For Cable and Bell's new IPTV thing, it uses up bandwidth just as much as the Internet does. Yet they're charging per-byte on the Internet and not on their content. Even if the lines were actually congested�which they aren't�its their television content that's taking up a lot of that bandwidth.

Edit: And, yes, bring up international comparisons. Make the point that Australia and New Zealand are the only other countries that have had this, and they have to transmit their data under the ocean. Canada doesn't have that sort of excuse. We just have exploitative monopolies.

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Feb 3, 2011

# ¿ Feb 3, 2011 20:35

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Oh, and for God's sake, if you get the opportunity BRING UP THE SOLDIER'S WIFE THAT CAN'T VIDEO-CHAT WITH HER HUSBAND.

You'll need to be general since nobody knows who this guy is, do a "stories going around" or "people on the Internet are talking about" or stuff like that, but bring it up if you can. Guaranteed that nobody's going to expect "YOU HATE THE TROOPS" from you hippy anti-Bell nerds, and it'll blow their heads off.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2011 20:42

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

The Gunslinger posted:

He's also correct in pointing out that without the CRTC we would have no independent ISPs. Still I don't think hes very well informed, I was watching the news and he claimed that Netflix is putting a huge strain on the Internet but seemingly ignores all of the IPTV stuff that the incumbents are doing. I thought his comment about 25GB of data being fine for a family was sheer nonsense. My family barely knows anything about downloading except maybe iTunes and they need a 60GB package otherwise they go over.

I still want to hear him answer directly why we are paying $1+ per gigabyte for something that costs pennies to deliver and was subsidized by the taxpayers and government in some cases.

I suspect it's simply because he hasn't seriously questioned what Bell et al are telling him, and is employing that intuitive-but-wrongheaded analogy between the Internet and water/electricity. It probably doesn't help that people keep saying "using up bandwidth" as if it were some sort of scarce resource. You don't use "up" bandwidth, but I can see the mistake.

(Oddly enough, it isn't even the gigahertz thing that made it clear he doesn't know what he's talking about. It was the "3D gaming" line. That shows that he really, really doesn't understand what uses bandwidth and what doesn't. He's just going on this notion that young nerds use up internets and old grammas don't.)

Nomenklatura fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Feb 4, 2011

# ¿ Feb 4, 2011 06:01

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Man, this shows just how full of poo poo Terrence Corcoran is on this:

quote:

Exactly why Japan and some Northern European countries have seemingly cheaper and fatter broadband service is a question I cannot answer. Maybe there is less competition in North America -- or maybe there is too much regulation.

WELL NO poo poo.

Except that it ain't just Japan and Northern European countries, is it? It's every other country on the face of the planet. Except Australia. And even they're probably moving away from it.

The saddest thing is that this is profoundly anti-business, but the Post isn't really pro-business in the first place; they're just water carriers for our minuscule selection of sectoral monopolists.

(This is a hilarious misrepresentation of Japan, by the by. The government pretty much forced the telecoms to provide decent Internet service. Funny how that works.)

# ¿ Feb 8, 2011 21:28

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Well, that sucked. Five minutes should cover it! :downs:

edit: the primus guy is wasting our time.

re-edit: wait, actually, he made a good point about handling their own damned bandwidth congestion issues.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2011 21:39

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

So yeah apparently Bell has been systematically overstating consumption.

quote:

Bell Canada has admitted to problems tracking Internet use for some customers.

This is embarrassing, given the company�s insistence on usage-based billing for its own clients and for other clients of other Internet service providers that rent its network.

Bell posted a message at its website yesterday, where clients log on to track their Internet usage.

�Please note that we have identified an issue that may cause Internet usage shown on the site to be overstated in some cases,� it said.

�In order to ensure we provide reliable information to all our clients, the usage tracker will be unavailable while we resolve the issue. We apologize for the inconvenience.�

I�ve heard from three Bell customers who said their Internet usage shown by the website�s tracker exceeded their actual usage.

Allan Taylor said he never went over 2.5 gigabytes a month, since he didn�t download movies, but was charged for exceeding his 25 GB limit.

Jerry Shulak said Bell�s Internet tracker showed him using 2.7 GB of data on Feb. 2, a day when he used 150 MB (megabytes) at most.

On Feb. 5, he drove the United States for a day and unplugged his phone line from the computer modem.

�Almost 500 MB of phantom data usage,� he says about Bell�s tracker.

Michael Stortini�s Internet usage never went over 0.72 GB a month, he said. Yet he was charged over $20 in fees last December for usage of 10.38 GB, despite no change in his Internet habits.

Bell showed his Internet use at 25.76 GB over the Christmas holiday period. Yet he was away from home for 12 days.

Only a small minority of customers was affected by the tracking errors, said Jason Laszlo, a Bell spokesman.

Well, he would, wouldn't he?

But now that we know that apparently the accuracy of their tracker is a crapshoot�which fits my experience with Rogers to a tee�one wonders just how vicious the questions are going to be on Thursday.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2011 08:51

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

8ender posted:

I've seen this brought up a few times on DSL Reports and its a very good point. Apparently the standards bodies that certify this sort of thing are essentially saying they're staying away from certifying any sort of bandwidth measuring device. It doesn't help that Bells own DPI hardware can apparently muck around with the numbers by dropping packets that are then still being counted towards the monthly total.

This news about Bell overstating consumption points to exactly why it shouldn't be done without standards in place. As others have said here if Bell wants bandwidth to be treated like electricity then they should be forced to go all the way. Measurement standards, no monthly flat rate, and regulated pricing since they're a monopoly. I want a sealed glass box on a pole outside my house just like my electricity metre that no one can touch.

Bell simply can't be allowed to have its cake and eat it too. I have no problem at all paying Teksavvy for every GB of my internet use as long as the prices are realistic (~$0.03-0.05 / GB) and I'm not paying $35 / month flat rate just to connect on top of that. Hell my internet bill would drop significantly even with $0.10 / GB, and I do north of 300GB every month.

I'd got the impression that their "throttling" technology also jacked your stated usage as well. And, yeah, there damned well should be standards. Never mind Bell, what if a local ISP completely fucks up their measurement, or if there's a disagreement in measurement between, say, Bell and TekSavvy?

# ¿ Feb 9, 2011 18:09

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:31

Nomenklatura: Dec 4, 2002; If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.

Not happy about this setup. Bell and Shaw being able to speak last gives them a MAJOR advantage for swaying the committee.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2011 22:34

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Canadian internet access gets shittier

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