Canada, let's not allow our internet to become like what Australia's used to be

[Firestorm]

This is a good a 5000th post as any.

As you may know, the CRTC ruled in favour of Bell enforcing Usage Based Billing on the companies it wholesales its lines to (Teksavvy, Acanac, etc.). This also enables Rogers, Telus, and Shaw to do the same to their customers and wholesalers. As of today, the only major telecom company that doesn't have bandwidth caps is Telus - and that's only because they haven't activated monitoring yet on their higher speed lines. This means every ISP in Canada may have bandwidth caps in the future - whether they want to or not.

This is not about piracy. Bandwidth caps stifles innovation. Period. We cannot expect to be able to use innovations like Netflix for streaming video, CBC Radio 3 for streaming independant Canadian music, Steam for digitally distributing video games and patches, with the medium being artifically neutered like this.

The "it costs money" argument holds no water here for ISPs. They have money granted from our taxes to expand their infrastructure. They make billions of dollars in profit a year. The reason for bandwidth caps are not money. It is to protect their existing businesses. Rogers made caps smaller the day after Netflix announced Canadian service in favour of its own Video on Demand service and cable service. Bell throttled bittorrent, the distribution technology of choice for CBC and not its Video on Demand service. Shaw started enforcing caps the same month it bought CanWest Global.

Right now OpenMedia.ca is doing a major push to get the CRTC and Tony Clement - the Industry Minister - to look at their decision again. They are an advocacy group that can get things down. Please support their efforts by signing the petition and telling your friends both about it and what is happening to our internet.

http://openmedia.ca/meter

Tony Clement has replied saying that he is paying attention to this but he won't be able to reply until the appeal period is over. Keep hammering the message home in the meantime. Canadians are not happy.

I'm someone who often has CBC Radio 3 in the background all day and have downloaded 90GB of Steam games in a month before. I am on Telus and I'll admit I was ignorant to the fact that there even were strictly enforced bandwidth caps in most of the country until last year or so. I especially didn't realize how small they were (2GB on some of the slower cable plans and 80GB on standard plans?!). I don't want to have to start moderating my usage because companies want to protect their television business. The internet is a great platform for innovation. Let's keep it that way.

Updates as of December 9th, 2010
Over 21,000 people have signed
City Councillor Puts Forward Groundbreaking Motion to Stop Usage-Based Internet Billing
Donation Drive to take petition to the next step with full page ads

The Vancouver Sun just ran a story on it

It will also affect Vancouver city itself, which live-streams its council meetings and is increasingly moving into web-based forms of communication.

 

[Articuno64]

I signed the petition.

I'm currently working on a new technology for developing and publishing games via the web. The Internet is full of opportunities for innovation, but it is hard work. It is hard enough without having to worry about whether the average user will have the bandwidth to use your service. Just think of how many Canadian entrepreneurs could be held back by this.

The pushback seems to be pretty strong so far, so let's hope something comes of it.

 

[Morm]

This is pretty atrocious and, in my opinion, one of the downfalls of capitalism: Greed. Is this a correct assessment: the top of the heap internet providers are basically bleeding outrageously from their underlings and as such, that favor is being passed on to consumers.

It sounds kind of like Xbox Live and why Valve is leaving in favor of PS3 (or so I've heard): Those with CPU versions get updates on L4d2 and etc for free, whereas on xbox live you have to pay like $10 bucks for new levels and features others get for free. This, of course, on top of the $60 or so yearly fee JUST TO USE xbox live in conjunction with your normal internet fees. Just another cash grab and for no other reason that they can. Seems to me that companies with huge monopolies like that are getting away with this sort of thing more and more.

If this shit flies, I demand no more taxes be given to these fucks in order to expand infrastructure. I'm signing this shit AND contacting my MLA.

 

[MrIndigo]

This is amusing, because it's actually the reverse of what we're trying to do here. We learned our lesson.


It's not, as such, the fault of greed. Companies have a duty to do the most they can to increase profits. The directors are bound to do so. The problem is the way these companies were set up as State-sponsored monopolies in the first place.

 

[Morm]

I dunno, at some point can't millions or billions in pure profit be enough to warrant them just fucking off?

 

[billymills]

As you may know, the CRTC ruled in favour of Bell enforcing Usage Based Billing on the companies it wholesales its lines to (Teksavvy, Acanac, etc.). This also enables Rogers, Telus, and Shaw to do the same to their customers and wholesalers. As of today, the only major telecom company that doesn't have bandwidth caps is Telus - and that's only because they haven't activated monitoring yet on their higher speed lines. This means every ISP in Canada may have bandwidth caps in the future - whether they want to or not.

Never thought I'd be glad to be on Telus...

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

^I agree. Previously its never given me any real benefits.

 

[Firestorm]

Due to how our population is spread, I see the reasoning for the state-sponsored oligopoly. Otherwise, there's no incentive to serve those outside our major cities and we're talking about essential services for a functioning democracy. The problem is with this money should come much better regulation and we're not seeing it right now.

Rogers just announced that it will be imposing the same caps on its wholesalers that it currently does on its own customers starting July 1st, 2011 (Happy Canada Day!). This means Teksavvy, Acanac, 3Web, etc will no longer be possible alternatives.

Rogers caps its Lite speed at 15 GB. As someone pointed out on another board I'm on, he installed Call of Duty Modern Warfare and it requires 18GB in patches before playing online.

Another good example of the issues with this I saw in a Facebook comment on OpenMedia's page:

One of my big concerns apart from the others listed, is the upcoming push to cloud based computing. We will be "forced" to access programs and our own files via online storage. That will significantly increase the amount of traffic up and d...own the pipe to your computer. The providers know this as much as anyone, and this move to UBB will allow them to charge for every byte of our data transferred. We get double billed, essentially: once when we upload a file and again we download it to retrieve it from the cloud to work on it, or try to regain ownership. We will also get billed the entire time we're access cloud based applications, sending traffic back and forth. Skype, YouTube and other traffic-intensive uses will become very expensive for end users. Providers know this and they're eagerly rubbing their hands together. This will be the single biggest opportunity for them to increase revenue in a long time.

Never thought I'd be glad to be on Telus...

Shaw also doesn't really enforce its caps yet in most cities. They're currently trying it in Edmonton and will likely expand soon. People in Ontario and Quebec are completely screwed right now though. Bell Aliant in the Maritimes is still unlimited as well.

 

[Morm]

Providers know this and they're eagerly rubbing their hands together. This will be the single biggest opportunity for them to increase revenue in a long time.

So in other words my assessment of greed and them needing to just fuck off is pretty spot on then. Also Microsoft's Xbox Live was just a mere shadow of the retardedness that is to come. I wonder if this means a crackdown at companies using internet on computers? Maybe they'll assign chits or something for lunch hour porn viewing or something.