Usage-Based Internet Billing is Dead

[jon]

According to this article, the federal government will quash the CRTC's usage-based billing ruling if it can't convince the CRTC to reverse itself:
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Har ... story.html

"The CRTC should be under no illusion. The prime minister and the minister of industry will reverse this decision unless the CRTC does it itself," a senior government source, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday evening.

[skyvalleyradio]

It's about time the federal government actually did something that people want. The CRTC are always far too willing to give the Telecom giants whatever they want - evven if it means screwing us consumers over and over.

[Dan Sys]

Just received this message in my in-box:


Statement from the Chairman of the CRTC on usage-based billing

OTTAWA-GATINEAU, February 3, 2011 —The Chairman of the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Konrad von
Finckenstein, Q.C., today made the following statement in an appearance
before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology of the
House of Commons:

“Our decisions were set to take effect on March 1, 2011. We have since
received from Bell Canada a request that we delay the implementation date
by 60 days. A party from our last proceeding, Vaxination Informatique, has
also filed a request for a delay.

In light of these requests and the evident concerns expressed by
Canadians, the Commission has decided to:

Delay the implementation of usage-based billing for wholesale customers by
at least 60 days.
Launch, of our own motion, a review of our decision to verify that:
it protects consumers
those who use the Internet heavily pay for their excess use, and
Small ISPs retain maximum flexibility and continue to be a key source of
innovation in the industry.
I would like to reiterate the Commission’s view that usage-based billing
is a legitimate principle for pricing Internet services. We are convinced
that Internet services are no different than other public utilities, and
the vast majority of Internet users should not be asked to subsidize a
small minority of heavy users. For us, it is a question of fundamental
fairness. Let me restate: ordinary users should not be forced to subsidize
heavy users.

In addition, we want to be absolutely certain that the modalities we have
established are the most flexible under the circumstances and do not
hinder innovation or harm Small ISPs.

A document outlining the terms of the review will be posted on our website
this coming Monday.”

- 30 -

Media Relations:
MediaRelations, Tel: 819-997-9403, Fax: 819-997-4245

General Inquiries:
http://support.crtc.gc.ca/CRTCSubmissio ... spx?lang=e
Tel: 819-997-0313, TDD: 819-994-0423, Fax: 819-994-0218
Toll-free # 1-877-249-CRTC (2782)
TDD - Toll-free # 1-877-909-CRTC (2782)
Ask a question or make a complaint
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/RapidsCCM/Register.asp?lang=E

[TRENT310]

I received that email at 2:13PM, so you re posted it pretty rapidly.

There's the other email from the Industry Canada mailing list that showed up an hour and a half ago from Tony Clement too.

[BossRadio]

Splendid.

Good as the news is, I still expect a triple-folded piece of dead tree from the cable barons in my mailbox soon. Full color ooh-shiny; an eye popping font proclaiming how frigging wonderful our media moguls are for 'helping Canadians by listening', and 'holding the line'.

Righhhhhhtt. Things are good.
It's like that wonderful calm vibe hens at roost possess after a shocked, buckshot riddled, egg stealing badger is sent crashing back into the bush in full gonzo retreat. Yes, the henhouse is peaceful now, but make bet: the noise eminating from down in the den isn't coming from Mr.Happy. We haven't seen or heard the last of this snarling,cantakerous and (money) hungry bugger just yet.

End of rant.

[PMC]

I expect the caps will be there, because someone has to pay for the infrastructure that is required to stop network congestion, which occurs when capacity is reached.

In the original internet, data from a page, was moved in fractions of a second. Now movies are streamed for hours. If every internet user was watching a movie, the network would slow to crawl, and time everybody out

The caps will get raised based on the monthly rate for the connection. I believe the current caps are to low, expecially on mobile devices.

[Mike Cleaver]

NONE of the big telcos or cable companies have ever offered proof of network congestion, except in their own figures provided to the CRTC.
The telcos also forget to mention that it was taxpayers who built the telephone land line system initially when the telcos were municipally or provincially owed.
Telus, Bell, Shaw and Rogers are all money grubbing monopolistic greedy bastards which lie through their teeth in an attempt to justify their usurious rates, making up "statistics" to justify their actions.
Check their "per gigabyte" charges versus the actual cost per gigabyte.
And see how Canada's wired and wireless "service" providers stack up against the rest of the civilized world.
We're offered the highest prices for the least amount of bandwidth at the slowest possible rates.
And listening and reading the latest CRTC babblings shows these morons have absolutely no concept of present day communications or how they actually work.
I'll bet none of them are computer literate, rather relying on their "executive assistants" to find and print out whatever they want.

[skyvalleyradio]

too true Mike! My favourite quote from Konrad V F regarding this issue: "why should the majority of Internet users pay for the FEW high-bandwidth users!" Talk about out of touch! You should see how much bandwidth my 10 yr old grand-daughter can gobble in a 24-hr period and i would consider her a 'light-duty' user compared to high school students I've discussed this with. The CRTC needs a serious reality check of just who they should be serving - us lowlife bandwidth-gobbling taxpayers who pay their salaries or the fat-ass Telecoms like Hell, Shaw-dy and (don't)Telus.

[PMC]

Michael Geist has a point about the CRTC's Konrad VF http://www.michaelgeist.ca/ and the network data being seen as a declining commodity, simlar to conventional utilities, and it isn't.

Sky and Mike, ask the Harper government to put money into the network... it is a productive tool for the population to use... business and consumer... I won't hold my breath