(no subject)

[desirmasque.livejournal.com]

I just have to throw this gem out there;

"What is so undemocratic about allowing a few companies to control the Internet?"
- Tom Pentefountas


Let me tell you a story.  Once upon a time, in a land far far away (Canada), a long long time ago (2010) there was this company, and it was an evil company.  It enjoyed being a monopoly  for a very long time but eventually gained some competition, and it also enjoyed charging an arm and leg for it's services (phone, satellite, internet, cell phone) and hiring incompetent fools as their tech and customer care reps. This companies name is Bell.

Well one day, Bell decided they wanted impose a Usage Based Billing (UBB) mandate, and so they took their proposal to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and it was passed  Not only would this would effectively force all independent ISP's to follow suit and charge similar and outrageous prices (thereby eliminating competition) but would make unlimited internet plans impossible, and potentially double charge customers.

Luckily, people spoke up.  Because of some pretty heavy public pressure, the CRTC was forced to backtrack.  At the beginning 50 000 people signed, but that steadily grew to 500 000 people who signed a petition by Open Media to 'Stop the Meter' and only with this did Ottawa sit up and take notice. 

However yesterday ended the ten-day CRTC review commission for the UBB mandate, with a variety of voices being heard from a couple different corners. In one corner, accompanied by multiple rows of lawyers and ruthless lobbyists is Bell, who were very much for UBB and mainly arguing the point of congestion. But then we have the other, smaller, companies like Shaw, Primus and Telus who more-or-less looked at Bell and said, "Are you on crack? What congestion?" which kinda killed that argument.  Of course we have the public internet corner with groups like Open Media and CIPPIC who argue for affordable internet pricing, broadband expansion, transparency audits functional separations (things that you know, make sense). And we have the CNOC who, at this point, seem to be the middle man and have the stuck-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place stance with their proposal that independent ISP's should only pay for max network capacity during peak hours (95th percentile proposal).

Here is where we meet Mr. Pentefountas.  Mr. Pentefountas is not only the Conservative appointee to the CRTC, but he's also the vice-chairman of the review commission!  As the review went on, and Bell's argument of congestion was basically thrown out the window, the vice-chairman became increasingly hostile towards the public interest groups and uttered that lovely line from above to a group of stunned panelists.

As the review wrapped up this week and rebuttals were heard, it became clear Bell was down.  They were forced to table their idea for a volume-based proposal after their reviewed price was announced (down to 17.8 cents from 19.5 cents per gigebyte) and was still rejected. 

Sadly, this story doesn't have a happy ending.  Now that the stages are set; the points have been made and the arguments heard, we are stuck with the classic evil-giant companies vs the average joe/small business fight.  Everybody knows how this one goes.

There is the very real chance that whenever the CRTC comes to a decision (likely in September), they could side with Bell.  With that, many people won't be able to afford the internet.  I know I won't be able to.  If I were to sign up with Bell today, their regular plan is 60GB for $40 (before taxes) with a max speed of 7mbps (if you're area can get that/weather permitting because it's DSL/etc.).  I use 60GB in the first week of the month, as I'm sure a lot of people do nowadays, which is why I have an unlimited plan.  I did my research, looked around and found a $40 unlimited and unbundled plan from an independent company.  So I pay the same amount, or less, than 90% of Bell's customers but I get unlimited and they get 60GB...and the company I use buys their bandwidth from Bell.  Hm... talk about price gouging.

So I ask; with there being a good chance of affordable internet in Canada going the way of the dinosaurs... what are we, the average joe, supposed to do?  What can we do?  How do you fight the big-bad corporations if they win?

Comments

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

If Frontier, my provider pulled that, I would advise looking into satellite high speed internet, would do away with it, go to a public library, or use dial-up with AOL (it can be free here in the US). If I went the satellite high speed way, I would tell the phone company to go f themselves in hell, and use Vonage, if available, and call it a day. Prices will lower if enough people refuse to use it.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

You VOIP won't work well over satellite.

The latency would kill it.

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

I have heard complaints about lag on WoW from people who use Wild Blue. I had assumed that it was just a "being in the mountains thing," or a crappy installation job. Providers here tend to throw things together, and get onto the next job. No pride man, no pride.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say. Welcome to TP!

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, in a land far far away (Canada), a long long time ago (2010) there was this company, and it was an evil company. It enjoyed being a monopoly for a very long time but eventually gained some competition, and it also enjoyed charging an arm and leg for it's services (phone, satellite, internet, cell phone) and hiring incompetent fools as their tech and customer care reps. This companies name is Bell.

Sounds like you're a little paranoid here.

So I pay the same amount, or less, than 90% of Bell's customers but I get unlimited and they get 60GB...and the company I use buys their bandwidth from Bell. Hm... talk about price gouging.

Sounds like stupid customers to me.

How do you fight the big-bad corporations if they win?

Don't be their customer.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Surprised? Would be a shock if he doesn't do what he does.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Stay classy.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Brilliant logic, I feel enlightened. Well done, arm-chair warrior!

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

There are just 3 electric companies in my country. There's been a scandal lately because they've agreed to pump up the prices well above their real market level. The government is trying to do something about it but it meets huge resistance from this cartel.

There are just 3 mobile operators in my country. Many of their services are 2 times more expensive than those in the rest of Europe. What's worse, they fake bills and put extra fees on things they shouldn't take money for. It's not what the market wants, it's what those three have agreed on.

There's just 1 firm importing gas into my country (owned by the Russian Gazprom). There were some others earlier, but this one took the whole market via various tricks and some government support. Currently the gas prices are rising here, while gas and oil prices worldwide are falling. There's no logic in this other than the monopolist position of said gas importer. The government is trying to take some measures but it's meeting the huge resistance of the mother company in Russia.

Now, tell me. How does "Don't be their customer" apply here? I should stop being their customer by:

A) Quitting electricity, mobile phones and gas and moving to live in a cave in the mountains;
-or-
B) Moving to another country?

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Not so paranoid. Until the mid 2000s Bell had a monopoly on the home phone business. If you wanted a home phone you had no choice but to use Bell. As for the high costs and incompetent and rude reps, it's absolutely true. Except for about two months after they did lose monopoly rights, when they began calling me weekly to remind me how much they valued me as a customer. That didn't last.

Don't be their customer.

What do you propose we do then if the CRTC sides with Bell? Did you read all of the OP? It's not just Bell that will be charging the usage based billing, ALL internet providers will be forced to. That will put the internet out of price range for many users. So, just not being Bell's customer is not a viable option.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised you weren't jumping on the government for basically granting Bell a monopoly over the transmission system, and then caving to their dumb request to set rates however they damned well pleased for those renting the system. There was a big element of political idiocy in the whole Bell scandal.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Someone's having a bad day. Turn that frown upside-down, sport!

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Get ahold of your MP and remind them that the CRTC is supposed to be accountable to all Canadians, not just corporate owners. The U.S. has similar challenges with Net Neutrality and such. Sadly there are always people who will want to corner the market and offer less for more cost.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

It's frightening to believe that the lessons of 100 years ago have been forgotten already.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Somehow this story reminds me of Going Postal.

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The Clacks, a monopolist corporation sending messages at a long distance through a system of light signals called the Clacks, has taken over the telecommunications market. They're dictating everything. So the city ruler appoints a unscrupulous but very industrious trickster to revive the old Post services and thus break the monopoly. He'll get a life pardon as a reward if he succeeds. But the fat cats at the Clacks won't let go of their monopoly so easily, so they do their best to sabotage the new undertaking in all possible ways. Eventually it all comes to a direct showdown between the "people's Post" and the "evil private corporation".

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

When did they start doing live-action Discworld movies?

...and are they any good?

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Moist von Lipwig is my favorite DW character in a long, loooooong time. "Making Money" was just awesome.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

i really must ponder if that person knows the meaning of the word 'democratic'?

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

I recall an issue that arose some time ago when modems were just taking off. The phone companies had designed the phone system based on assumptions about how long people would stay on the line during a phone call, assumptions that went out the window when people spent hours hooked up by modem to the internet. Unfortunately, local calls were regulated to be flat rate, all you can eat. Anyway, the phone companies had to spend a bunch of cash increasing capacity, but where do they get the money to pay for this? They could charge by usage or they could raise the flat rate for everyone. In the latter case, granny who makes three phone calls a month gets nailed with the same whopping bill as Dorky O'Geek, who spends most of his life tying up a phone line.

Personally, I think that usage based billing makes a lot of sense. People who make greater use of the network should pay more than the people who use it less. It's only fair.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

That's kinda the thing. They build the phone lines with the assumptions of how much bandwidth they need. When you're using the modems you need more bandwidth.

But rather than build more infrastructure to handle the increased bandwidth, they just kept their old infrastructure and charged people usage fees to make them use less bandwidth.

Usage fees are rarely put in place to cover the cost, it's put in place to force people to curb the current usage. They DON'T want to build new infrastructure to handle the increased use of bandwidth.

It only costs them money to build new infrastructure, which I rarely see them do.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

The problem is that UBB is never actually proportionate to the amount of data you're using. Costs per byte have dropped significantly, but consumer charge per byte has been increasing, and increases fastest where there are few or no hardware competitors (most of the country, for broadband). It's gouging.

I agree that you'd be right if the system worked competitively, but without competitive pressures, companies will naturally vastly overcharge in the name of last-mile costs, and then never actually do the last-mile upgrades - why bother when there's nobody competing?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

You have 24 DS0's in a DS1. A DS0 runs 64kb and supports one voice channel. Most line concentrators would allow for programming multiple channel banks to a single DS1. So in most areas the systems would concentrate 48 lines to 24 available timeslots(DS0).

This allowed for fewer built T-1 lines(DS-1 transported) and saved money for the telecom. The problem is the 25th line that would be picked up would not have a timeslots on the T-1 and get nothing.

Back in the day of party lines you'd essentially have this scenario but it kept basic phone bills cheap. Also local lines would be subsidized by business and long distance. We had subsidization internally to the utility but now we have people having to pay more of the true cost.

Oddly enough the old system helped the poor at the expense of the rich but since people got so caught up in regulating for competition the poor got screwed.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

This topic: YES.