Canada Minister Says Internet Billing Ruling Flawed

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Don't let the politicians fool you into thinking this was their idea, the immense pressure you guys put on them is the reason behind this sudden change of heart. Thanks to Dave C. and Matt A. for the heads up!

A Canadian regulatory ruling that effectively stops small Internet providers from offering unlimited downloading must be revised, Industry Minister Tony Clement said on the social networking site Twitter. "True. CRTC must go back to the drawing board," Clement wrote late Wednesday when asked whether he would overturn the decision if the regulator does not back down.
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At least they've taken notice, don't think they will do the right thing though, unless the Canadians keep the pressure on. Still amazed this happened in Canada before here in the US.
 
All I can say is that Shaw better not be allowed to continue with their plans for this crap either....

I've gone like 5GB - last check was 102.9 but I've still got a day to go - over my amazingly high 100GB limit (which, by the way was dropped from 150GB).
 
Don't kid yourself. It's coming. From recent history though they will not take this approach, they will do it slowly, piece by piece until one day you look around and the rope is around are necks. They will avoid this frontal attack because it gains attention and unites opposition.
 
TBH, I don't have a problem with "caps"....but they HAVE to be realistic....

you can't give someone 15mbps and set a cap at 100GB....that's just ridiculous...the idea of a cap is to stop EXCESSIVE downloading...make it 200GB - anything over that, on this plan, I would consider "excessive".

To think we'll always continue living without caps is a fairly tale, but at least make them something that people can actually work with.
 
I have a 30/2 mbps connection and my cap is 120GB (d/u combined). I watch a modest amount of tv shows / movies, music, whatever... and I usually get very close to my limit and sometimes exceed it.

I can easily see someone busting that low limit very very fast.

For most consumers, lower limits are fine, but then their connections are slower too. If I'm paying good money for a fast connection, I was you to respect me and give me a good amount of download capacity.
 
I like how they want to cap usage and at the same time don't have to provide the services advertised.:rolleyes:
 
Bandwidth limits are ridiculous for residential connections. There is usually enough infrastructure to accommodate the users, so why the limits? Wireless broadband is one thing, those networks have limited capacity, but fiber lines and hard-wired lines on the ground should not be having this problem.

Bandwidth caps are just an excuse for telecoms not to upgrade their networks.
 
Like I said in the other thread if they want metered service it should be like water and power. Pay per GB usage just like kilowatt or gallon.

They don't want this because a vast number of customers only use a tiny bit each month for emails and web browsing and pay the same as everyone else. These greedy assholes want their cake and eat it too.
 
Dr.LaRd said:
TBH, I don't have a problem with "caps"....but they HAVE to be realistic....

you can't give someone 15mbps and set a cap at 100GB....that's just ridiculous...the idea of a cap is to stop EXCESSIVE downloading...make it 200GB - anything over that, on this plan, I would consider "excessive".

To think we'll always continue living without caps is a fairly tale, but at least make them something that people can actually work with.
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I got your point but "excessive" is going to be harder to define as every day goes by. It used to be the large p2p down loader sucking up all the bandwidth because who else would need all that data? Now, my wife is watching a movie on netflix, no my daughter is watching Dora on netflix, my son is getting his .5-1.0 hours of computer gaming after he does his homework, my wife is on the laptop doing her coupon thing while facebook'ing and I come home from work and decide to kill some zombies or or whatever to chill out a bit before dinner. Are we being excessive? We are not doing this all day, we may peak out for an hour a day. Are we cheating the system or are we using what we are paying for? If it only costs my ISP 1-3 cents per GB to send it to my house why should we as consumers ever agree to pay 1-2 dollars for it? The truth is they can make real money off of cable programming but they cannot make real money off of internet bandwidth because it is so inexpensive. Unless they charge us a lot more than they pay to get it to us.

The only good thing here is that as more people use it, and fewer people are confused by the technology the more people who become outraged when they figure out how we are getting fleeced. As it is they bundle everything together so it is the same price for two services, phone, internet cable, as just any two. Line sharing would be nice but my town dropping in fiber would be even better if it bypassed the cable companies. Crap, the town could run it and keep the profits and everyone besides the cable companies would win. And screw them anyway.
 
am i the only one here that see data transfer as a fixed cost?
once you have the infrastructure set up you only have to pay for maintance and power which all should be a fix cost to them
 
let's be honest here, the minster doesn't care at all. He just cares about something else instead....

the minster is only saying this because if they did not, it will be used as part of an election campaign against them since their opposition oppose the metered billing. Considering an election will take place this year, and this being fresh on the minds of many ppl (357k signatures now) that's a heck of alot of potential votes to lose
 
Without going into detail, I have emailed 304 MP's a few times and have gotten a few replies and one phone call. I have come to the conclusion that 90%, that's conservative, have no idea how the internet broadband works and that is why we are in the predicament were going through. The other is all MP's have to follow Party lines or their endorsement which must be signed by party officials will not be signed, if not they cannot run for the Party. It's so bad that at one riding last election the locals picked their candidate and the officials decide he was to much of an independent thinker, they parachuted some guy in from some other part of the country to run in that riding. They call this democracy and free elections. To other countries of the world who are told that Democracy is the way, look a little deeper, things aren't always as they seem but its better then some other forms of government. I have come to realize its easy to wave the word Democracy around, its just that their are many forms of it.
Hopefully the people who have spent time and effort to let as many people be aware of what was happening,receive some reward for their efforts.
 
bacon said:
Like I said in the other thread if they want metered service it should be like water and power. Pay per GB usage just like kilowatt or gallon.

They don't want this because a vast number of customers only use a tiny bit each month for emails and web browsing and pay the same as everyone else. These greedy assholes want their cake and eat it too.
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This.

I can see the argument for not allowing smaller providers that simply rent the larger providers networks not to allow unlimited usage on the networks they don't own, but come on, despite the argument, this is clearly a money grab. I hope Harper sends the CRTC to hell, so I can buy some internet from a smaller provider. Allowing this rule would effectively kill the ability of new startup telecom companies to enter the market.
 
Kevstra said:
This.

I can see the argument for not allowing smaller providers that simply rent the larger providers networks not to allow unlimited usage on the networks they don't own, but come on, despite the argument, this is clearly a money grab. I hope Harper sends the CRTC to hell, so I can buy some internet from a smaller provider. Allowing this rule would effectively kill the ability of new startup telecom companies to enter the market.
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i don't see it as a valid argument
if i download 100GB a month but at a speed of say 40KB/s no one will see their speed affected by that "huge" amount of download since the data is just trickling down to me

the bandwidth capacity of their server is a rate. say their server can handle a capacity of 1000Gbps and you have 1000 ppl downloading at 1Gbps and if the 1001th tries to download something else then ppl will see a slow connection
but because of this they already cap your download/upload rate

the telecom is just trying to turn the ppl that don't use the internet much against the "high" users
 
Dr.LaRd said:
TBH, I don't have a problem with "caps"....but they HAVE to be realistic....

you can't give someone 15mbps and set a cap at 100GB....that's just ridiculous...the idea of a cap is to stop EXCESSIVE downloading...make it 200GB - anything over that, on this plan, I would consider "excessive".

To think we'll always continue living without caps is a fairly tale, but at least make them something that people can actually work with.
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i could live with caps but i think some government regulating will be needed like power and water ect... Because people are driven by profits and greed and companies want all they can get away with.

gimme gimme gimme.....
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i wish power was still regulated where i'm from
after they deregulated power price have spiked up so much
Posted via Mobile Device
 
Kenjuta said:
am i the only one here that see data transfer as a fixed cost?
once you have the infrastructure set up you only have to pay for maintance and power which all should be a fix cost to them
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That's because you'd don't run an ISP.

All network traffic is billed per byte. ALL of it. The only people who don't pay per byte are the end users like us. Your ISP? Pays per byte, even if they're some small time DSL operator. Your cable guys? pay per byte once the traffic leaves their system.

And if they just charged you the cost of power and employees you'd still be on dial up.

Seriously, it's not a fucking charity. They're in it to make money. They'll charge what the users will put up with. The problem is lack of competition in some areas where effective monopolies allow them to unilaterally screw consumers.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
ianken said:
That's because you'd don't run an ISP.

All network traffic is billed per byte. ALL of it. The only people who don't pay per byte are the end users like us. Your ISP? Pays per byte, even if they're some small time DSL operator. Your cable guys? pay per byte once the traffic leaves their system.

And if they just charged you the cost of power and employees you'd still be on dial up.

Seriously, it's not a fucking charity. They're in it to make money. They'll charge what the users will put up with. The problem is lack of competition in some areas where effective monopolies allow them to unilaterally screw consumers.
Posted via Mobile Device
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You're wrong. My ISP purchases bandwidth wholesale from Bell. What gives Bell the right to tell my ISP how to manage the bandwidth they've paid for? If a small ISP can offer unlimited plans and still make a nice profit, why can't Bell do the same? Are you Canadian?
 
Do they charge people who watch TV longer than other people more? No, and digital TV is all 0s and 1s just like internet data is so why this BS? GREED.
 
There's this whole push for everything to be "web-centric", and everything is becoming more bandwidth intensive, now the ISPs (who are part of this push) what to put a limit on just how much you can do with your life before they charge extra.

Makes me wonder if this was their plan all along. <---conspiracy theaory.:p

I for one do NOT welcome our new ISP Overlords!
 
Konrad Von Finckenstein gave everyone a good laugh trying to argue this nonsense last night. Teksavvy went back to selling their original services including unlimited. I don't believe this will be changing anytime soon. :)
 
ianken said:
That's because you'd don't run an ISP.

All network traffic is billed per byte. ALL of it. The only people who don't pay per byte are the end users like us. Your ISP? Pays per byte, even if they're some small time DSL operator. Your cable guys? pay per byte once the traffic leaves their system.

And if they just charged you the cost of power and employees you'd still be on dial up.

Seriously, it's not a fucking charity. They're in it to make money. They'll charge what the users will put up with. The problem is lack of competition in some areas where effective monopolies allow them to unilaterally screw consumers.
Posted via Mobile Device
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and I'm guessing you run an ISP?
What makes you think Telus or Bell pays per byte to transfer data?
Do you pay extra for transferring data from one computer on your network to another computer on your network? Nope
Now take this to a slightly larger scale for transferring data between you and your friend both on the same ISP. The data goes from your house to the ISP hub and then bounce around their network to the hub your friend is on and then to him. Same concept as before and I'm pretty sure that doesn't cost the ISP any money.

Only thing I'm not sure if you're transferring data to another ISP in your country and to another ISP in a different country
Not 100% sure but pretty sure they don't tax the ISP per byte to transfer data to them AND even if they do that means your ISP will tax them for transferring data back so in theory it should even out.

So unless you DO run your an ISP I stand correct
 
ISP's DO NOT pay per byte. We buy a back haul link (two actually) and our subscibers get to kick the shit out of it as hard as they can. If we utilize it 10% or 90% on average through the month we pay the same thing for it.
 
Ehren8879 said:
ISP's DO NOT pay per byte. We buy a back haul link (two actually) and our subscibers get to kick the shit out of it as hard as they can. If we utilize it 10% or 90% on average through the month we pay the same thing for it.
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^ exactly what I thought
I don't run an ISP but I do have a degree in Computer Engineering so I do know how ISP network works and from what I know it just doesn't make sense that it cost money to transfer data
Having more network utilization might increase power usage by a little which drives your power utility cost but the amount is insignificant
 
They need to sell it in one form or another, because right now they are advertising it one way and charging the opposite. You don't get billed for how much TV you actually consume, just how much of it is available. It's a flat rate which goes up with more 'packages/channels' you have. If they wish to advertise the net as an entertainment like TV and not a usage source such as hydro, water or a phone line then structure the pricing like of TV aka no limits. If it is to be the same as water, then change per little or high use and give up some of the reigns to be regulated.

This whole thing started when Bell cried that everybody should be paying it more money and the country should be using its billing plan. The CRTC (our FCC) made up of former Bell employees said sure ok! Unrelated directly but Bell is finalizing it's purchase of the other half of CTV (which I believe is somehow ABC owned? I mean check out TSN/ESPN's Sportscenter intro.)

One company owning all landlines/DSL, dish, celluar and tons of media (who did not report on the UBB stuff until Clement went to the CRTC) is not right. It would be like Fox owning your phone lines, or if NBC got ahold of cable....UH OH! :eek:
 
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