Topic: =/\= internet freedom and americans

[Sirgod]

Ahh ok, here is what I was thinking of Bonk.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/canada-gets-first-bitter-dose-of-metered-internet-billing.ars

200GB to 25GB: Canada gets first, bitter dose of metered Internet

Metered Internet usage (also called "Usage-Based Billing") is coming to Canada, and it's going to cost Internet users. While an advance guard of Canadians are expressing creative outrage at the prospect of having to pay inflated prices for Internet use charged by the gigabyte, the consequences probably haven't set in for most consumers. Now, however, independent Canadian ISPs are publishing their revised data plans, and they aren't pretty.

"Like our customers, and Canadian internet users everywhere, we are not happy with this new development," wrote the Ontario-based indie ISP TekSavvy in a recent e-mail message to its subscribers.

But like it or not, the Canadian Radio-Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved UBB for the incumbent carrier Bell Canada in September. Competitive ISPs, which connect to Canada's top telco for last-mile copper connections to customers, will also be metered by Bell. Even though the CRTC gave these ISPs a 15 percent discount this month (TekSavvy asked for 50 percent), it's still going to mean a real adjustment for consumers.
This is going to hurt

Starting on March 1, Ontario TekSavvy members who subscribed to the 5Mbps plan have a new usage cap of 25GB, "substantially down from the 200GB or unlimited deals TekSavvy was able to offer before the CRTC's decision to impose usage based billing," the message added.

By way of comparison, Comcast here in the United States has a 250GB data cap. Looks like lots of Canadians can kiss that kind of high ceiling goodbye. And going over will cost you: according to TekSavvy, the CRTC put data overage rates at CAN $1.90 per gigabyte for most of Canada, and $2.35 for the country's French-speaking region.

Bottom line: no more unlimited buffet. TekSavvy users who bought the "High Speed Internet Premium" plan at $31.95 now get 175GB less per month.

"Extensive web surfing, sharing music, video streaming, downloading and playing games, online shopping and email," could put users over the 25GB cap, TekSavvy warns. Also, watch out "power users that use multiple computers, smartphones, and game consoles at the same time."
You need "protection"

Here's the "good" news: TekSavvy users can now buy "insurance," defined as "a recurring subscription fee that provides you with additional monthly usage." For Ontario it's $4.75 for 40GB of additional data (sorry, but the unused data can't be forwarded to the next month).

There are also "usage vault" plans—payments made in advance for extra data. Consumers can buy vault data for $1.90/GB up to 300GB in any month.

Where once TekSavvy consumers could purchase High Speed Internet Premium at a monthly base usage of 200GB for $31.95 a month, now they can get about half of that data (if they buy two units of insurance) at $41.45 a month.

Very questionable

Starting to hate this? TekSavvy hates it, too.

"The ostensible, theoretical reason behind UBB is to conserve capacity, but that issue is very questionable," noted the ISP's CEO Rocky Gaudrault on TekSavvy's news page. "One certain result though, is that Bell will make much more profit on its Internet service, and discourage Canadians from watching TV and movies on the internet instead of CTV, which Bell now owns."

Given these dramatic changes, and the fact that ISPs around the world have made clear they wouldn't mind implementing similar schemes, it's no wonder that high-bandwidth businesses are fighting back. Last week, for instance, Netflix started publishing graphs of ISP performance in both the US and Canada, and it plans to update them monthly.

Netflix is also stepping up the war of words against ISPs who try to implement low caps and high overage fees:

"Wired ISPs have large fixed costs of building and maintaining their last mile network of residential cable and fiber. The ISPs' costs, however, to deliver a marginal gigabyte, which is about an hour of viewing, from one of our regional interchange points over their last mile wired network to the consumer is less than a penny, and falling, so there is no reason that pay-per-gigabyte is economically necessary. Moreover, at $1 per gigabyte over wired networks, it would be grossly overpriced."

The big question now is how these kind of billing changes will impact 'Net consumption patterns. Many subscribers use minimal data, but that's changing as Internet video becomes the norm. If these new plans simply discourage data hogs from backing up their 120GB pirated movie collection over the 'Net every night, there's no sleep to be lost. But if they scare consumers away from legitimate non-ISP affiliated movie and content sharing sites, that should be a firebell concern to consumers, entrepreneurs, and regulators.

And not only in Canada.
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Anyways, I was wrong on my time line a bit. This was from January , 2011. So just a little over a month had passed then.

stephen

[marstone]

Now AT&T did something like that with wireless.  They did a market use analysis and found that most users use X amount of capacity a month.  That only a smaller percentage uses the large amounts.  So they dropped the rate for the low end users, and increased costs on those that use bandwidth up.  It makes sense that the low end users shouldn't be supporting the high end users with their fees.  But kind of sucks as I am on the upper end (but was grandfathered in with a plan from my old carrier).

[Sirgod]

I hear that. I've often wanted to get in on one of the wireless internet plans, but until I find a good unlimited for under 100 bucks a month, I'll stick with Sat Con.

Stephen

[Bonk]

I did hear about that, but I'm unaffected. There's too much money to be made in bilking the parents of teenage urbanites to service the entire public.

Most of these capped plans apply to 3G and 4G wireless networks. I have looked at them and it would cost me literally thousands of dollars per month do on 3G what I can do on dial-up for $29.

I was shocked when marstone told me he was doing some large downloads tests for me over 3G. I was worried he would get hit with a bill for hundreds of dollars. That would happen here. We're talking oh $15/GB roughly? Or worse. The contracts here read like a deal with the devil. I think they are. Rogers and Bell are out of control here, completely out of control and the Canadian public allows it for some mysterious reason. I hate to think we are such suckers.

edit: The beauty part of the deal for Bell and Rogers is that once you sign, they don't have to actually provide any service. They can just walk away with your money, and if they don't get it they report you to their goons. Our conservative government condones this criminal behaviour under the guise of free enterprise. It is robbery of the Canadian people pure and simple. No socialist government would ever allow such a travesty to happen. And please, go read up the CCF and Tommy Douglas and western Social Credit before commenting on what socialism means in Canada... it is not the devil himself as helmethead and his american republican friends would have you believe... ok that's it I'm out of this thread for good... I can't keep it in. I broke the rules. Sorry guys. It is just that Rogers the criminal organisation is condoned by our own government just makes my blood boil. I can see it all, right down to the bone, it drives me mad. I cannot think about it or they win. I can only think about SFC. There is no sense in speaking out. I don't control as many guns, pure and simple. The corruption goes right to the top. I have no idea why we tolerate it.

Now, the day they try and cap my dial-up connection, then I will be loud. But maybe not, Who knows.

Hey, wait a minute... it seems we are forgetting the origins of the internet in this discussion. American origins. Government. How did that change, when did it become wrong for a government to serve and act in the best interests of its people? (again, purely rhetorical, I know the answer.)

And I don't want you to feel like I'm picking on you marstone, just exploring the discussion here. (And I'll grant you #2 to some extent... except to note that Canada is really a very narrow strip of people along the 49th. But yeah, our smallest provinces are larger than most european countries.

Too much control? Look into exactly who controls root DNS. Perspective is gained through observation. Here comes the bad word.... it is not socialism, but rather the farthest thing from it that is responsible for the already existing tight control that you fear.

Not saying what is right or who is wrong, that is all relative, (at least I tell myself that lie to stay sane) I'm simply making observations. And for the sake of SFC, here I will stop exploring this discussion. 

[stoneyface]

i am on several irc networks and know a ton of canadians who were affected by the recent metered internet scam going on in canada. there was a huge HUGE uproar over it and it was forced to be rethunk. yes, i said rethunk. sue me.
just like at&t's experiment, it was killed because of customer outrage. nothing kills a bad business plan faster than most of your customer base saying, i will cancel your service if this continues. most reasonable (not intelligent) services will quickly backskid to keep customers.

i feel it is only a matter of time at this point. corporations run the world and soon they will be dictating net allocation.

[knightstorm]

i feel it is only a matter of time at this point. corporations run the world and soon they will be dictating net allocation.

Better them than the bureaucrats.

[Bonk]

Better them than the bureaucrats.

There's a difference?    I have learned that PHBs are PHBs, regardless of the form the institution takes. (PHB = Pointy Haired Boss -> Dilbert cartoons)

A respected Polish scientist once told me... "at home, there is a very fine line between organised crime and government". I was mildly shocked. But as I age I see that to be the case here as well. The "elected" administration provides a safe cover and absolution from responsibility. More accurately, that line does not exist at all, it is more of a very broad gradient.

I know I said I wouldn't post in this thread again but Stoney's relation of the tale does not seem complete to me for a number of reasons (I don't think the story is over...)

1) They're still at it (Bell example, I'm sure Rogers is even more evil):
http://www.bell.ca/shopping/en_CA_NB.Mobile-Internet-500-MB/TS500.details
$30/500MB/Month plan ... note "Additional data: $0.05/MB" Holy crap... that's actually about $50/GB... smokins...

Lets try a larger plan (the largest)...
http://www.bell.ca/shopping/en_CA_NB.Mobile-Internetplan-5-GB/TS5.details
$65/5GB/Month and still charging $50/GB over that...

2) You can't cancel. They don't even have to provide any service. It is the wild west up here... no holds barred against the consumers.

They won't sign you up without a credit card, there is always a contract, you have to pay even if they do not provide you with any products or services. It is the perfect scam.

Rogers still believes I owe them $250 from about seven years ago... I will never pay, I will not pay for something I did not get. I smashed to phone to bits until the lithium battery smoked...  there was no service available, yet they still wanted me to pay, I could not cancel... they report me to the credit agencies (pure goons) Why do they take Roger's word but not mine? I have to pay to lodge an official objection with the credit reporting agencies... not gonna happen... so ingoring other factors this ruins my credit - not that I want any now after having observed the wage slavery system in action for long enough... nothing is worth it, nothing.

In summary:
You can't cancel.
They don't have to actually provide any products or services.
They are always right.
You word means nothing, theirs is gospel.
This robbery of the public is government sanctioned. (read: Chretien and Harper [Liberals and Tories])

In any sane society people that do this kind of thing would be in jail... but no, we harass and jail pot smokers selectively according to their politics. Oh you can smoke alright, but pay us and don't speak out... Harper's national security platform hinges almost entirely on such harassment... where is he getting the support for that? There is no way the majority of the Canadian population has hearts that black and souls that evil... no way. I refuse to believe it. Maybe they are that stupid though? Nah, they can't be, but they have been very effectively indoctrinated to this system making them blind to its criminal mechanisms and intent? Criminal. Yes, I consider my government criminal by the law of God. (I am not religious, but the standard stands)

Add into that that Rogers has barely escaped bankruptcy several times and been bailed out... (I could never get 5 cents on the dollar... no problem for Rogers though  )

Additionally, it is a piece of cake to get a phone or connection in someone else's name and rack up thousands of dollars on it within days. Why would they want to prevent that? They don't.

There are only certain telecommunications companies that can be trusted (eastlink, shaw), but they cannot compete against these tactics much longer.

$50/GB with no service guarantee or recourse. It is a wash.

[stoneyface]

* stoneyface_XC claps...

perfectly stated. as far as the "better than the bureaucrats" statement, who do you think the bureaucrats work for?

[Sirgod]

<snickers> themselves and there pocket books, But not wanting to turn this into a debate bro.

Stephen

[knightstorm]

* stoneyface_XC claps...

perfectly stated. as far as the "better than the bureaucrats" statement, who do you think the bureaucrats work for?

Corporate executives are accountable to their shareholders.  Bureaucrats are theoretically accountable to the taxpayers, but in practice accountable to noone.  If the government gets involved, at best it will run the telecommunications industry into the ground, at worst, it won't be content to simply police rates, and will start regulating content (I mean political speech).  I don't like the idea of getting gouged by metered internet, but government control is much more terrifying.