The internet is dead in canada... 25gb cap for everybody

[sdifox]

This is rather cringe-worthy:

yeap fucking ridiculous.

I like this poster. I might just print it out.

 

[Jimmah]

I have no problem with metered useage, but it should be fair and reasonable not the gouging model they have now. I would gladly pay a connection fee, something along the lines of 5-10$ per month, and let me buy my own cable modem and not rent the ISP's (Rogers forces you to rent theirs for between 5-10$ monthly), I would gladly pay 5-15 cents/gigabyte. What we have right now is monopoly in most areas, price fixing in the rest.

 

[bignateyk]

All ISP's need to switch to a pay for what you use service like electricity or gas. And it needs to be deregulated just like electricity and gas so I can choose who I get my bandwidth from. Generation, transmission, and distribution all need to be separated just like electricity.

The current system where everyone thinks they should get unlimited bandwidth is stupid. So is the complete monopoly the telecom companies have.

 

[ShawnD1]

Utilities are often regulated by the government because they're natural monopolies. Would the Canadian cable companies agree to only a capped percentage of profits over their cost like many utilities are regulated? Answer: NO.

What makes internet less of a monopoly?
If you want water, 1 company owns the pipes.
If you want telephone service, 1 company owns the wires in the ground.
If you want internet, you have 1 DSL or 1 cable company to choose from.

 

[Lotheron]

All ISP's need to switch to a pay for what you use service like electricity or gas. And it needs to be deregulated just like electricity and gas so I can choose who I get my bandwidth from. Generation, transmission, and distribution all need to be separated just like electricity.

The current system where everyone thinks they should get unlimited bandwidth is stupid. So is the complete monopoly the telecom companies have.

The problem with this is that bandwidth, unlike electricity and gas is not a finite resource. It's damn near free and there is no limit to it. Economics works on the principle of scaricity of resources. There is no scarcity of bandwidth. The cost, for the providers, goes down every year to provide the same and more bandwidth than the previous. Do not believe the FUD.

While it's true that these companies do have costs that may rise such as payroll and utilities, etc, the amount of bandwidth that can run through their pipes is ever increasing and they are able to move more and more data for the same cost each year.

The only reason that this is even an issue is because of companies like Google and Netflix that use more than the status quo of bandwidth to provide their services over the internet, free to them. This means competition for the television providers in the way of reduced subscriptions. They are trying everything in their arsenal to prevent them from just being a dumb pipe.

 

[Phokus]

What makes internet less of a monopoly?
If you want water, 1 company owns the pipes.
If you want telephone service, 1 company owns the wires in the ground.
If you want internet, you have 1 DSL or 1 cable company to choose from.

That's what i'm basically saying, they are usually a monopoly.

 

[ShawnD1]

The problem with this is that bandwidth, unlike electricity and gas is not a finite resource.

That's not true at all. Just like a power generator can create 10MW of power as a maximum, a piece of switching equipment can handle 10GB/s as a maximum. Overloading the generator will lead to brownouts or unintended voltage drops and sometimes even frequency drops (that's really bad). Overloading a piece of switching equipment causes bandwidth throttling. Replacing power distribution equipment is expensive, but so is replacing communication equipment.

The lines themselves also have some kind of limit, but it seems like less of a problem. The same cable TV cables have been in the ground for 20+ years and they were installed before any of us even had internet, yet their speed continually increases because the switching equipment is always being replaced.

 

[ch33zw1z]

The 250 gb cap on comcast is not seeming so bad. lol

yea, seriously

 

[Ninjahedge]

I actually don't mind paying for what I use. But you cannot have a (unreasonable) cap, charge a fairly expensive fixed amount then charge extra when you go over. Want to do metered, make it 5 bux a month + usage. And the price better have correlation with cost.

Agreed.

Pay for what you get, not what they think you should.

It is like they are basingtheir expansion costs on the people that warrant an expansion without taking into account that as soon as you start charging for something that was unlimited, you will get reduced (more concientious) usage.

It is like the record company siting 14 billion albums lost, as if people would have BOUGHT EVERY SINGLE ONE if they could not download them. If people have to pay for >50G @peak, you will see peak usage diminish (and hopefully balance throughout the day/night).

The cell plans have been doing this for a while now, offering different usage bundles and metered after the bundle. This should be used for the internet connection as well.

The only caution is that they do not start subdividing things uop, such as "low ping direct" service or charging more for "features".

God forbid we have to pay more for "always on".

 

[Lotheron]

That's not true at all. Just like a power generator can create 10MW of power as a maximum, a piece of switching equipment can handle 10GB/s as a maximum. Overloading the generator will lead to brownouts or unintended voltage drops and sometimes even frequency drops (that's really bad). Overloading a piece of switching equipment causes bandwidth throttling. Replacing power distribution equipment is expensive, but so is replacing communication equipment.

The lines themselves also have some kind of limit, but it seems like less of a problem. The same cable TV cables have been in the ground for 20+ years and they were installed before any of us even had internet, yet their speed continually increases because the switching equipment is always being replaced.

You are correct that 1 switch can handle 10GB/s but can easily be doubled by both adding more switches and also by technological advances. These costs are very, VERY minimal compared to the subscription fees that they are collecting.

The simple fact is that the costs to provide these services are going down and the prices are going up. I'm not saying that costs are not rising, what I'm saying is that each GB transfered costs less and less each year to provide to the customer.

It's true in the sense that bandwidth does not have to be mined or gathered, it just exists. There is no limit to it, we will never run out. It's renewable and requires very little maintenance compared to other utilities. It is not a scare resource, it is very abundant and very cheap.

Again, Do not believe the FUD.

 

[Lotheron]

For the record I'm not arguing against Usage based billing, or any of the above. I'm arguing against stupid low caps for the sake of restricting competition from other content providers. Don't, for a second, think that that is not THE number one reason that these talks are even happening.

Also 250GB is reasonable in my opinion. 25GB is not.

 

[silverpig]

I guess this is good: Federal Liberals oppose UBB

It’s official: #LPC opposes CRTC's decision on #UBB. Take action here: http://lpc.ca/67j #cdnpoli

 

[ShawnD1]

The only caution is that they do not start subdividing things uop, such as "low ping direct" service or charging more for "features".

God forbid we have to pay more for "always on".

I wouldn't mind too much if you could pay extra to get ping priority or get a small discount for signing up for lower priority. Honestly, lots of people really don't care about ping, so they won't care if their connections are lower down in priority. People who play on Xbox Live might pay $5 for top ping priority while guys who are just browsing forums and downloading youtube videos don't care what their ping is as long as the bandwidth is all there.

I think of it like how I manage my computer's CPU demand. The joystick-to-mouse (joy2key) program I use on my media computer needs to be responsive, so it has high priority. Movies that I'm playing should never skip frames or sound, so those are above normal priority. Video encoding is not time critical and I certainly don't want it to lag my video or my mouse, so video encoding is always done at low priority. Assigning priority allows for the most efficient use of resources.


What the industry needs is some regulation. Setting up pay for priority structure is fine, but there needs to be someone watching the whole thing and making sure they aren't screwing us. iirc, the CRTC is supposed to be that regulatory agency, but they constantly fuck everything up.

 

[Ninjahedge]

You think they would do a simple thing and simply scale back on BW?

I know they keep advertising as "blazing fast", but many downloads are no longer hampered by the end users connecction speed, but by the supplier.

What would be a reasonable speed to cap at? Live HDTV streaming? 1080p? 780p?

What is the use of blazing fast speeds if you can only use them for a few days before you have to either stop or pay through the nose?

 

[Ninjahedge]

Shaun, the main problem is that they get to decide the cost.

You think it costs the telephone companies any chartable amount for Text Messaging?

How much do they charge for "unlimited" texting? $5 to $10 a month??!?

You think if you got ping priority that they would not price it as "buisness package" or something else that sounds like they have the right to charge more for it (or forced bundles like Ping Priority along with 10 phone lines etc etc)

That is what I am worrying about....

 

[MikeyLSU]

Going by an average download speed of 15Mb/second or roughly 1.5MB/sec you will get about 4.5 hours of internet at full speed if using this 25GB cap.

That is pathetic. How can anyone advertise allways on, monthly service if you really are only getting 4.5 hours per month.

 

[yllus]

Looks like Mr. Clement has had a word with the boss. With some established history of going against the wishes of our established telecom industry, I'm guessing at the very least that the CRTC will be ordered to either raise the cap from 25 GB or give wholesale customers like Teksavvy better than a 15% discount.

PM orders review of Internet billing

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has ordered a review of the CRTC’s Internet usage-based billing decision, which has ignited anger among consumers, citizens’ groups and business.

On Monday, Industry Minister Tony Clement said he was looking closely at the decision, after a formal appeal of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s decision was filed to cabinet.

The decision, which allows large Internet providers such as Bell Canada to charge more to smaller providers who lease space on their networks, has prompted a storm of criticism among those concerned that it will lead to higher Internet prices for Canadians and discourage innovation from businesses.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, took to Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, saying: “We're very concerned about CRTC's decision on usage-based billing and its impact on consumers. PM has asked for a review of the decision.”

 

[silverpig]

How about we fix the bloody CRTC? They're here for US not Bell/Rogers/Telus.

 

[Jadow]

crap man, better get that bang bros and massage creep site dump downloaded fast.

 

[meltdown75]

go Harper!!!

:hmm:

 

[OCGuy]

If you want internet, you have 1 DSL or 1 cable company to choose from.

Not really. There is satellite and cell-tower tethering now as well.

 

[Scouzer]

Not really. There is satellite and cell-tower tethering now as well.

As if those are landline comparable.

 

[StinkyPinky]

25GB is a joke.

That's what? A couple of Steam games, a few hours You Tube, and that's about it.

I'm not against caps as some people abuse the system and download like 1900GB a month or something retarded. I would think 300GB is a decent amount. That's 10 gigs a day....quite reasonable.

 

[Phokus]

Not really. There is satellite and cell-tower tethering now as well.

Only you could post something so stupid.

 

[God Mode]

25gb is absurd. My bet is they'll slowly raise limits and people will eat it up and think its a good deal. The day I get a 25gb limit is the day I stop using the computer for leisure and take up knitting.