So I got an email from my ISP today:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Teksavvy Communications Inc
Dear Valued Customer,
We are writing to you today as many activities are underway to shape/reshape Internet use as you all know it. Over the last year some of you have been made aware and/or have seen activities on throttling in the news or in your daily lives. Another proceeding relating to the Internet in Canada required Telecom providers (Bell/Telus/etc.) to provide ISPs with wholesale service speeds that match those that they offer to their own retail customers. Specifically, Bell has been directed by the CRTC to provide matching speeds which would allow us all to have more flexibility in our day to day online requirements. Instead of adhering to these directives, Bell decided to take this issue to the federal Cabinet and at the same time file a tariff application with the CRTC proposing to introduce Usage Based Billing (UBB) on its wholesale customer accounts.
What does this mean for you, the consumer?
Bell provides TekSavvy with last mile, wholesale DSL access services, which TekSavvy uses to provide you with your Internet access. If Bell were to be allowed to introduce UBB on this service, a cap of 60GB would be imposed on all of its users, with very heavy penalties per Gigabyte afterwards (multiple times more than our current per Gigabyte rate of $0.25/GB on overages). This would inherently all but remove Unlimited internet services in Ontario/Quebec and potentially cause large increases in internet costs from month to month.
If you'd like to make your comments/concerns known about what Bell is attempting to do, please do so here:
Submit a telecom-related request |
The TL;DR version is that Bell Canada provides last mile service to all DSL providers in Ontario and Quebec. Bell has already implemented bandwidth throttling on third party customers, and justifies this by claiming that it's okay because they do it to their own customers too. The CRTC has basically told Bell to butt out, but Bell has decided to not only attempt to appeal this, but is also moving to implement usage-based billing for third party subscribers. In other words, rather than actually trying to compete with these grassroots ISPs, Bell has decided to force everyone to offer the exact same service they do.
As may already be apparent, I have major issues with this. Bell's internet pricing is practically price gouging to begin with, and now that the CRTC has told them to share their toys, they've decided that rather than actually compete in a fair market, they'll simply hamstring the competition until nobody's able to offer superior service to theirs. I understand that the network itself belongs to Bell, but even so I think this is poor sportsmanship at best, and at worst may even be monopolistic.
This discussion is pertinent to Canadians, but isn't meant to be exclusive.
For reference:
My ISP
Bell Canada
Note that even though Bell's standard DSL service is available at speeds up to 7mbps, Teksavvy is only able to offer up to 5mbps. This is in direct contradiction to the CRTC ruling referenced above.
Max internet is based on a fibre optic network and isn't relevant to the discussion.