Bell Proposing Usage-Based Billing 238
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."
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??
Re:You canadians need a regulator with some teeth (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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).
Re:Christ this shit is funny. (Score:3, Insightful)
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: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).
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:sounds entirely reasonable (Score:1, Insightful)
Because bandwidth isn't finite, as long as the pipe is there and lit the difference in cost for using 100% of the bandwidth compared to 0.1% is practically nothing. Unlike other utilities no resource is being consumed.
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.
Re:Do-over (Score:2, Insightful)
"bestest" ??
Oh hell YEAH, this IS the appropriate situation to use that word!
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.
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.
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.
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:Greed at its finest.... (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 account... Guess what I noticed when I checked it?
Your monthly usage limit is: 60 GB (61,440 MB)
Additional usage costs:$ 1.50 per GB (1 GB = 1024 MB)
You have to love their EULA that basically states, "we can change this whenever the hell we damn feel like it. Too frickin' bad!"
A) When I first got my account there was no limit.
B) Currently or maybe I should say previously if you exceeded your limit you were given a warning and then disconnected.
C) Now or in the future it looks like they plan to charge you 1.50$ per GB extra. Isn't that nice. Also note that it is 6 TIMES the price of what Teksavvy is charging now for the same service.
Complete bullshit. This is how I find out also, on some obscure web page that no one really checks, which they just created. So underhanded.
I HATE telecommunications in Canada. The CRTC really needs to grow some balls for a change.