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Bell Proposing Usage-Based Billing
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Apr 16, 2009 01:32 AM
from the pay-the-man dept.
from the pay-the-man dept.
Idiomatick writes "Bell Canada is attempting to impose UBB on its wholesale customers. As Bell was given a last-mile monopoly in much of Canada by the government, they are required to follow rules set up by the CRTC; this includes leasing their lines to competitive ISPs. And they are given a directive by the CRTC to provide competitive speeds to said ISPs. Teksavvy has informed its customers that were this to go through, the current monthly cap would be quartered and the cost for exceeding it would be 'multiple times more than our current per Gigabyte rate of $0.25/GB on overages.' They have also helpfully included a link where you can send your comments/concerns to the CRTC directly."
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Do-over (Score:4, Interesting)
How much would it cost to rip up the ground and lay down more fiber? It seems like in most cases, a (natural?) monopoly results. When things get this bad, is there any chance that a new generation of telecommunications companies can spring up (perhaps with government subsidies to get them going)?
Re:Do-over (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not so much the cost that matters, it's the monopolies you mention. They are not natural though, they were formed from contracts that were drafted with precision greed and much forward contemplation of their potential future value. They did have a hundred years or so of prior telephony contracts to give them a good heads up. It'll be many years and many legal battles before your new generation get to turn their first clump of dirt.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
It'll be many years and many legal battles before your new generation get to turn their first clump of dirt.
Nah. This pile of crap that is the world economy will collapse much sooner.
Fun fact: The US is bankrupt since 1971 [wikipedia.org].
Its a Ponzi everybody knows about (Score:3, Insightful)
If ending the ponzi scheme you were roped into, screwed you worse than the procrastination keeping the ponzi scheme going - would you take the losses?
If you could prolong it beyond your lifetime would you take the loss?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>I live in an apartment.
An apartment is considered a "home". So yes you owe ~$110,000 towards the national debt. ($12 trillion divided by 110 million homes). And climbing to $150,000 before the next presidential election arrives. To give you some idea how much that is, I had $30,000 in college loans and even though I paid them off as quickly as possible, it still took 3 years. So figure 15 years total to payoff my share of the U.S. debt.
Of course our government won't actually pay it - th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that the top 1% own [ucsc.edu] about 40% of the financial wealth in the country, having them pay 90% of the income tax bill seems pretty reasonable to me.
When they get down to maybe owning 20% of the country's financial wealth, then maybe it's time to back off a bit on the taxes. But it doesn't seem to be slowing them down much.
And as a member of the top 20% of income, (who own over half the country's financial wealth) I pay a noticably higher percentage of my income than someone who is poor. And I think
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They are not natural though, they were formed from contracts that were drafted with precision greed and much forward contemplation of their potential future value.
Actually it is a natural monopoly. A natural monopoly has to do with the economics of the situation, not with who or how the contracts are given. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly [wikipedia.org]
Re:Do-over (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the new company would have to run new wires to the house. So you buy a house and want to go with a different phone provider in this scenario you'd probably end up with a house full of the other guys boxes that are inactive and eye sores.
In short, people like to think that competition is the cure for everything, but unfortunately it is not. Sometimes the nature of the game is that it is cheaper for the customer to give one company excessive profits then to have two companies competing and have the price still be higher but now the companies' are just breaking even (in an economical since, ie including "fair" return on investment). If things get out of hand governments regulate the natural monopolies and make them lease their backbone, or only charge fair prices. Other natural monopolies belong to the government because it makes the most sense, education (though that depends were you are I suppose), national defence (could you imagine time sharing a tank with your neighbours? Would be fun though).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There's no need to get the government involved. Last-mile natural monopolies (roads, power, water, communication) are among the few cases where co-ops happen to be ideal. They have all the advantages of local democratic control over infrastructure, and lack the ethical quandaries inherent in government due to the legitimization of force.
Many existing utilities, most notably electricity, are already managed in large part via co-ops. The trick is to recognize that the co-op is there to own the shared infrastr
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I know your point is that it doesn't seem to make much sense for a company in terms of profit but although the profits might not be the same as that of a natural monopoly, I think the profits of an oligopoly would still be attractive.
Actually it was completely the opposite. I was arguing that a natural monopoly exists (and a government allows it to exist) because it is in the best interests of the customers. You can only discount to get into the market for so long. Eventually you have to start paying for the infrastructure and need to earn a normal return on investment. Several infrastructures, with sets of administration overhead etc, is just going to be more expensive than one in some scenerios.
There is a concept called minimum effi
Re:Do-over (Score:5, Interesting)
What happened was that after a few years they were the cheapest, fastest and all around bestest internet provider in the country. This forced the biggest and the baddest to sharply drop their prices and start laying FTTH to simply stay in business at all.
Now, about 5 years after this started happening, Slovenia is the 7th in the world in FTTH adoption right behind Scandinavia and Asia.
Fun fact: It's about half cheaper to get 20/20 FTTH here than it is to get 1024/256 ADSL.
Parent
Canada Big, Slovenia Small (Score:5, Insightful)
I think cost of doing the same in Canada would be astronomical. But then again, US national debt is more than the number of stars in the Universe, so astronomical is not what it used to be.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Do-over (Score:5, Insightful)
This should be compared to e.g. roads, railways, waterways, airports and other major pieces of infrastructure. As such it is best owned by the government or a government-appointed company that takes care of the maintenance only, and is not providing services. All users pay a certain fee, based on a flat fare or per use or whatever. I say here government, it may also be a public non-profit that is set up for this very purpose.
For example the government builds and maintain roads, and charges a vehicle tax to use them.
An airport, often also government run, charges the aircraft that want to land there a certain fee, possibly depending on size of the aircraft.
So it would be the government that builds/maintains the cables, and then rents it out for the ISP to provide services on it. Or maybe even telephone companies, or TV services. All the government should do is lay a digital cable, and other companies can connect to it with their digital services (and provide end-point equipment such as set-top box for the TV, modem for an Internet connection or telephone set). The cable just provides a way to get those bits from a to b regardless of what those bits are for. The only limits may be the legality of content, and the bandwidth demanded.
It is not doable, also not desirable, to lay more than one set of the same infrastructure. Coax or telephone cables may be replaced by fibre for example, but it is not a good idea to put two sets of coax (TV cable) in the ground.
The competition should not come from more sets of cables here, like there is only one road network but it is operated by various bus companies, minibus operators, taxis, rikshaws, and private cars. They all pay a certain fee to be licensed to use the road, and maybe tolls for use of certain tunnels or bridges. That's how cables should work as well.
The problem is of course that lots of cables were laid by private companies, though often government sponsored, when it was thought that it all should be privately owned and run. That legacy we have now basically all over the world, and this is why they are talking about a "third channel" and thinking of ways to do Internet over electricity cables just to get more competition. It is just patchwork. Cables should be publicly owned like the roads and other major pieces of infrastructure, become a common carrier, and sell no more than their transport service to wholesale customers. Just like the telephone companies sell telephone calls (data transport) to anyone, regardless of whether you are just having a nice chat with your mum, trying to close a business deal, or are having a bout of telephone sex. The call costs the same, and everyone is allowed to make as many of them as their line allows (which is usually one at the time but more lines can be rented if you need it).
Parent
Re:Do-over (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about fiber or infrastructure or anything like that. It's about Bell playing dirty and dodging the anti-monopoly laws that were specifically enacted to keep Bell under control.
Every single move is a direct attack to shut out resellers and competitors. With this particular predatory billing strategy, they are guaranteeing that any DSL reseller goes out of business because the "wholesale" cost is greater than their own 1st-tier retail service. At the same time, the low caps proposed are ensuring that their users won't be able to ditch their $200/month DTV and phone bills in favor of IPTV and VoIP.
You guys in the states see the same bullshit, although it is not _quite_ as dramatic (yet) because you still have a handful of telecoms fighting over the market. Up here Bell is god, and has been for nearly a century, because every time they've been split up or shoo'd out of an area, they have bought back their shares in the newly-formed companies that replaced them. The few conglomerates they don't own outright, they collude with, like Rogers and Videotron. There is no real competition.
Bell is so ominous up here, many people mistakenly believe it is a crown corporation run by the government. The CRTC, which is supposed to be a media watchdog, is Bell's lap dog. Let me put it to you this way: If the Bush family ran a telco the way they ran a country, Bell Canada would be the result.
Parent
Thats it... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thats it... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm moving to.. oh. Well fuck them!
Move to Japan! The AWESOME internet choices are endless!
1000Mbit fibre Optic for $50/mo after a $300 setup fee (this service is pretty new)
Unlimited usage... no caps... no filters
OR
100Mbit fibre optic for $60~70 a month no setup fee
Unlimited usage... no caps... no filters
OR
50Mbit ADSL for $30 a month.. no setup fee
Unlimited usage... no caps... no filters
OR
3.0Mbit (down... only about 1Mbit up) wireless internet anywhere through the cell network for varying prices based on data usage...
And those top 3 also usually include free IP phones and some sort of video download service... optional Video On Demand services etc.etc...
Why does the US suck so bad?
Parent
Re:Thats it... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.highlandilnews.com/index.html [highlandilnews.com]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Watch it, dude, that's socialism! Don't you see? Your township is now on the slippery slope to becoming a pinko commune filled with evil godless heathens hell bent on destroying the American way of life! Soon enough, you'll be French, and then what'll you do??
Re:Thats it... (Score:4, Funny)
Soon enough, you'll be French, and then what'll you do?
Enjoy the cheese and wine and complain about the English?
Parent
Why does the US suck so bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because here they can charge people until they cry. The market currently supports it, so it will continue.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The bandwidth ain't the only reason I'd like to move there, if you get what I mean.
Would the other reason have something to do with tentacles?
Re:Thats it... (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah. The AWESOME porn choices are endless!
You can get used school girls' panties at vending machines, and act like it's totally normal.
OR Buy mangas with shitting dick-nipples in them, and act like it's totally normal.
OR Can play "Say the tongue-twister correctly and get loads of money. Say it wrong, and get a kick in the balls." on live countrywide TV, and act like it's totally normal.
no one here would call any of that normal...
... and yeah... some of the porn/sex biz stuff is pretty messed up. And some of the TV shows are kind of crazy... but F-ing hilarious!
except the being crushed into the train and the studying...
OR leave your car, bike, and apartment/house unlocked all day and have it all be there when you get back and act love the country for it.
OR see about a gazillion hot girls on my way to and from work everyday and love the city for it.
OR recycle 75% of your garbage and use economical ecological public transit every day... and love the country for it.
OR have a decent sized house that really wasn't that expensive but is still only 30 minutes commute from anywhere in the city... and wonder why people who pay $5000 a month for an apartment are so retarded.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
OR
Pay $5000 for a 30 m2 apartment, share it with 5 other people, so you can pay the rent, and act like it's totally normal.
Not true. More like $800/month for a nice 40 m2 apartment [flickr.com], for myself alone. Oh, and that price includes 30Mbps fiber optics. Unlimited and unfiltered, of course.
It's also probably worth noting that our IT-job salaries are much higher here than they would be if we were working in the USA.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah. The AWESOME porn choices are endless!
You can get used school girls' panties at vending machines, and act like it's totally normal.
OR Buy mangas with shitting dick-nipples in them, and act like it's totally normal.
too bad that there is a law against showing genitals in porn...
You canadians need a regulator with some teeth (Score:5, Informative)
No wholesale provider here in Australia could impose such charges on 3rd party ISPs in this way, if they did, the ACCC would put a stop to that. (at least as far as fixed line DSL goes)
Re:You canadians need a regulator with some teeth (Score:4, Insightful)
Australia??? The land where Telescum is the provider of crappy broadband experience, and where Optus sucks??
Where the Government has plans to engage in gagging free speech at a level that will make Himmler jealous?
Seriously??
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Not to say the situation is at all that great here, Telstra have a monopoly, especially in Mobile phones (Leave any major city and you'll only get Telstra coverage)
Re:You canadians need a regulator with some teeth (Score:5, Informative)
Australia? Where you get charged $150 a gigabyte for excess usage? As detailed in the light grey text in smaller font underneath the plan? Yeah, we're doing great.
Telstra: Additional usage charged at $0.15/MB [bigpond.com].
Optus: Excess Data: $0.15/MB up to 2 GB then Speed Limited to 64 kbps [broadbandguide.com.au]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You canadians need a regulator with some teeth (Score:5, Informative)
I am paying AU$50 per month and getting 25GB (10GB peak and 15GB off peak) per month with no excess usage charges ever. If I exceed the 25GB, I get shaped back down to 64kbps for the rest of the month. Only idiots who sign up with Tel$tra BigPond or Optarse get hit with crap like that, there are options available (no matter what bit of gear your phone line is hooked up to) that have no excess usage fees ever. (pretty much all of them do have the "you get x amount per month and then get shaped down to 64k or 128k for the rest of the month" though)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I was paying almost half that with Teksavvy when I lived in Toronto (up to last year). I was on the "premium" plan, which gave me 100GB/mo. I can't remember what the charge was for exceeding that, but it was reasonable. Their other non-premuum plan had unlimited usage, but used transit/peer connections or something that weren't as good (i.e. higher or variable latency).
In Australia, if you have DSL but not ADSL2+, many people have 384kbs upstream or less (yes, I'm one of them), which is just ridiculous.
Consequence of CRTC regulations (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Consequence of CRTC regulations (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. For wholesale DSL, "Bell" is two different companies. One division (Nexxia?) owns the last mile and is the reseller to wholesale DSL providers. The other division, "Sympatico", is Bell's internet retailer.
The CRTC can only mandate what the 'last-mile' division of Bell does. Sympatico is free to do whatever it wants. The Sympatico tail is wagging the Nexxia dog.
The CRTC needs to keep Nexxia on a leash and allow for proper competition between Sympatico (DSL retailer) and all the other DSL retailers that get wholesale access to the last-mile network.
Parent
Why, Oh Why! (Score:2)
Why are they constantly attempting this, even tho users will always be mad?
And with these high prices too ... If the per gb price would even be something sensible! I transfer probably over 1Tb a month (backups, video feeds etc), so 0.25 would endup being 250euros per month for me ... Many times what i currently pay
Or come and live in SA.... (Score:2, Informative)
Go kill progress (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything these days are done on the internet from entertainment to doing taxes.
In some countries the goverment are even investing money in internet connectivity to provide better connections to more people.
But when you then start to charge by usage then you'll see people stop using it and development slows down.
One would think it was better for the country as a whole to have people to embrace the technology rather than do bean counting on their internet traffic.
Sounds like blackmail (Score:2)
That's a nice internet you have there.
It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.
sounds entirely reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
If this had been the model from the very start (when modems ruled the earth), it would be taken as normal. It's only because the data volumes of users have been low, that it's not worth billing per megabyte. However now we have the "power users" (read: bandwidth hogs) bleating on, as if someone's taking away their candy.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's not true. Bandwidth is most definitely finite.
The marginal cost is a steps function. For example, on a 100Mbps Ethernet network with 5 computers with each computer using 10Mbps, it's free for any single computer to use 25Mbps if necessary. But if all the computers start trying to use 25Mbps, there is a significant cost to allow that.
Solar Power is another example where your created commodity is 'free', but finite.
Makes sense in the long run? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ultimately I think Internet access may well be another utility like water or electricity. It sort of makes sense to pay for what you use, so to speak.
But the charge should be so low that you need to really strain your connection a lot to feel it, and at the same time normal monthly fees need to go away.
I don't like the idea, but it makes sense economically. It costs energy to move packets around and keep networks running. The more you use the more you should pay.
But having some crazy base fee and then some punitive extra usage fee on top of that... No thanks.
Usage based is fine if you're an honest ISP (Score:5, Insightful)
- That means charge a very low initial access fee. Say $5-$10 max per month
- Don't force customers to pay for 20GB/month if they're not using it
- Don't force customers to predict how much they'll be using period then take their money anyway if they don't use it
- Do not charge a ridiculous amount beyond the cap. Charge a fixed rate per GB and keep it reasonable
ISPs and phone companies have had it too good for too long oversubscribing and overcharging for people using way under their quota. This move isn't to make things fair - it's to gouge heavy users. I don't pay $10 for my first 5 litres of petrol then $400 for my next 5 litres. One reason is that I could go to the competition. ISPs typically have monopoly, near monopoly or at best duopoly. They are NOT playing fair.
Re:Usage based is fine if you're an honest ISP (Score:5, Informative)
Another thing that Bell has been doing is shaping. They have been shaping Teksavvy's customers for years now. Which I think is another fairly clear abuse of monopoly power. Teksavvy is completely against the practice, had they their own lines they would not throttle torrent users or anything like that...
Parent
Re:Usage based is fine if you're an honest ISP (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. UBB actually makes a lot of sense, but the UBB structure they're proposing is wrong. If you're going to bill on usage, bill on usage; don't set up some arbitrary cap at which the rate goes insane.
I don't think it's a matter of gouging heavy users, though. Not exactly, anyway. The problem is that the carriers sized their infrastructure on the assumption that the subscriber base would grow a lot, but the data transferred per subscriber would not grow as much as it has. They didn't see mass-scale P2P file sharing coming along, let alone YouTube coming along and replacing cable TV.
So now they have a big, expensive, inadequate infrastructure (and an inadequate pricing model to go with it). The depreciation schedules they based their plans on require that infrastructure to last a long time before it gets replaced, but it's already being overwhelmed.
I think what they're really trying to do is less to gouge heavy users, and more to discourage heavy use entirely, so that they can continue to limp along on their old infrastructure long enough for it to pay for itself.
In other words, they screwed up their market forecasts, and now they want everybody do without improved service until they make their money back based on those flawed forecasts.
Of course it was their screwup in the first place, and most of them (I don't know about Bell or Canada) got a lot of subsidies and tax breaks based on promises of fabulous networks. They then kept as much of that money as they could get away with while building out the cheap network they thought they could get away with. I therefore think they (their shareholders) should really be first in line to eat the costs of writing off the infrastructure they built in error.
Then they can go ahead and do UBB to create a revenue stream to get financing to build a proper network.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it? I can't find the precise post, but in a similar thread a few days back a slashdotter dug through a cable company (Time Warner?)'s financial filings. For their broadband business, they brought in $4 billion dollars last year, and their costs for it were around $230 million*. Let's assume, just to be nice to them, that those costs don't include employees and such, and let's be super-dooper-extra-nice and say that brings their total broadband costs to $2 billion.
Deadline for filing comments has passed (Score:5, Informative)
As I understand it, the deadline for filing comments on the UBB passed on midnight April 14th, 2009.
If you nevertheness wish to file (and high volume of comments, albeit late, may nevertheless be of interest to the CRTC), the commentary ought to fall under "Tariff", and an appropriate subject might be File Number #8740-B2-200904989 - Bell Canada - TN7181.
Keep in mind that this is DSLAM bandwidth (i.e. the "last mile" copper wire) that Bell proposes to impose this tariff on. It is not network bandwidth from an ISP to the backbone. Bell is obliged to sell DSLAM access on a wholesale basis to competitor ISPs. For interesting statistics, consider reading this: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20690166-The-Bell-Disclosure [dslreports.com] -- the statistics read, if I understand it (and there's a pretty decent chance I don't) the risk to a customer of having less than 100% bandwidth available at any one point is exceedingly low (i.e. less than 1% of it occurring for less than five minutes on any given day).
Interestingly, Bell has not disclosed how much money it has paid for Arbour Networks' deep packet inspection and bandwidth limiting hardware. I understand, informally and anecdotally (and, again, there's a decent chance I'm wrong), that the amount spent on the bandwidth limiting hardware greatly exceeds the cost of upgrading the DSLAMs to eliminate any risk of the above mentioned rare less-than-complete bandwidth. I would quite like to see more information on the cost of Arbour Networks' bandwidth limiting hardware, and the cost of upgrading DSLAMS. Hopefully the CRTC board does, too.
Lots of sound and fury... (Score:3, Interesting)
...from the Slashdot readership. Now can we do something about it?
Let's do something in the style of the Beagleboard. Design and build a bare board for ultra wide band radio, aimed squarely at establishing a mesh network. That is, design from the beginning for every node to simultaneously "connect" to multiple other nodes. Design for as much range as we can squeeze out of it, while still maintaining the ability to ramp up to as much usable bandwidth as possible as nodes get closer together.
I thought about suggesting a Beagledaughterboard. The Beagleboard has lots of pins available on its expansion header, and even more pins available on its LCD header that can be repurposed in software. Making it a Beagledaughterboard would mean there would be very few inquiries from random people wanting to know why the board they bought from Digikey doesn't work when they plug it into their Windows XP machine.
On the other hand, designing it as a USB2.0 highspeed client device would mean that it would work practically anywhere, given software support. The chips and parts required to speak USB2.0 are dirt cheap and trivially available. I'll volunteer to write the software drivers, if somebody will design the hardware.
So... where are the hardware people? I know damn well that lots of you read /. Anybody want to kick the phone company in the nuts? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Greed at its finest.... (Score:5, Interesting)
> If I switch to Rogers, Bell will lose me as a phone customer. I'll have no
> reason to not subscribe to a digital phone service from Rogers.
Make sure your port your number. When you port your number away from Bell, it triggers some magic retention-department panic. They'll call you several times asking how they can get your business back. Make sure you tell them exactly why you're no longer a Bell customer, maybe if enough people shout loud enough they'll eventually listen.
In my case, there was no DSLAM in the nearest CO; they suggested I get Bell WiMax. After I finished laughing at them, I explained that my new phone company had their own ADSL2+ DSLAM in that same CO, and that I was pleased-beyond-belief with the service I was receiving. The bits... they torrent!!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You may want to re-think that.
Its not a monopoly as the article suggests, but rather a duopoly. Rogers is just as bad. Its sort of like peoples complains about oil companies and price fixing. Bell and Rogers are *supposed* to be in competition with each other, but really both are happy with the way things are and they pretty much just mirror each other as far as it goes.
Case in point, Rogers recently changed the way I look at my bandwidth usage a week or so ago. They made a new web page under your user acco