New Internet Billing?

[funtimes 101]

Minister Clement has indicated that he has directed the CRTC to review and reverse their decision. He was backed up on this by our favourite Mr. Harper, who for once is championing the little guy.

 

Now this sound like good news, but few people realize that the providers that are buying the service from Bell, etc and reselling unlimited packages only account for under 15% of the internet market. The rest is controlled by Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw etc. and they ALL have varying caps already.

 

So even if they reverse their decision, over 85% of us are still being screwed (and not in the GOOD way that is provided from all the cute SP's on this forum).

[Guest jake_cdn]

You are right funtimes but what really scares me is (being the skeptic that I am) this opens the door to more granular billing from the ISPs. Today it is the cap on usage, tomorrow allowing this type of billing service will provide the major ISPs a pathway to billing services similar to the present cell phone packages that we have today. They all sound great but just like the video stores most of the revenue comes from late fees and for the ISPs it comes from usage charges.

 

Canada already has one of the most expensive cell billing schemes in the world and I would hate to see the same thing happen to the internet services by allowing this decision and removing any opportunity for competition.

 

By the way, my ISP has tried to offer services to me for reduced rates to increase my speed, provide greater reliability etc. What they are really trying to do is get me off the unlimited plan by offering a more attractive package from a marketing perspective. These new packages would push me into the pay for usage plans and the benefits are not enough. - Buyer Beware

[Boomer 33202]

I have to say that the speed at which the conservative government hopped on the bandwagon and stopped the decision concerns me. If the incumbents are forced to give away the bandwidth to the smaller ISPs then they may be unwilling to keep investing in the network. At some point the price then goes up with the sqeeze on capacity. These small and medium sized ISPs aren't capable pf building their own networks.

 

Secondly, if the whole issue of net neutrality isn't addressed now you're going to see the big companies favouring their own services. It won't matter if you get unlimited service with a small ISP if you're a Netficks user whose competing with the phone company ITV service.

 

Be careful what you wish for, and let the CRTC have another kick at the can. This shouldn't be all about politics.

[etasman2000 15994]

If the incumbents are forced to give away the bandwidth to the smaller ISPs then they may be unwilling to keep investing in the network.

 

1. the network infrastructure was subsidize by Canadian tax payers.

 

2. Canadian ISP are badly behind on the new IPv6 infrastructure. The current IPv4 just ran out of new IP addresses as of this month. This problem was known since 1998! The big 3 have been unwilling to invest a long time ago.

 

3. there is still a great deal of dark network i.e. capacity.

 

4. any private attempts of laying down new network especially in the rural areas, where the big 3 don't want to go (not enough monies), have been blocked by the big 3.

 

All in all i have no sympathies for the current incumbents.