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    Canadian internet getting metered billing

    As someone asked, "Would it make sense to pay electricity by the kilowatt if electricity cost nothing to produce and all the cost is in the fixed transport infrastructure?"

    I just signed the petition at Stop The Meter petition at: http://StopTheMeter.ca

    Here is what they say:
    The CRTC just decided to let your Internet Service Provider put a meter on your
    Internet!

    Bell Canada and other big telecom companies can now freely impose usage-based
    billing on independent Internet Service Providers (indie ISPs) and YOU. Big Telecom
    companies are obviously trying to gouge consumers, control the Internet market, and
    ensure that consumers continue to subscribe to their television services.

    This means we're looking at a future where ISPs will charge per byte, the way they
    do with smart phones. If we allow this to happen Canadians will have no choice but
    to pay more for less Internet.

    This will crush innovative services, Canada's digital competitiveness, and your
    wallet.

    We need to stand up for the Internet.
    There's a more in depth explanation here: http://tinyurl.com/6gxazyt
    Of course ars technica has a great article with some funny videos:
    http://tinyurl.com/5vxlno8

    This one is especially funny to me.
    Actually it would be funny if it really was a parody, but it's not a parody, and it's not funny.

    When you consider bandwidth, the price of internet in Canada and the US is already the highest in the world. Here is a great study about that: http://tinyurl.com/yk66bn5 Now it looks like Canada is going to drop right off the charts. I might be going back to Fidonet for 56k unlimited.

    BTW: I just looked at the contract with my ISP. I pay $34.95 per month (10 gig traffic limit; overusage charge at $10.00 per gig.) This is for a (kinda) 1.5Mbps service. Taking up my calculator I see that downloading a DVD costs about $14. After about 2 and half DVDs the next one costs me $40. Internet radio (128kbps) costs $0.20 per hour for the first 173 hours and $0.57 per hour after that. This is already completely unacceptable. Luckily at the moment they don't bother metering. Hopefully they never will.






    #2
    Re: Canadian internet getting metered billing

    LOL
    I loved it that the characters looked like puppets being moved by unseen strings!

    woodsmoke

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      #3
      Re: Canadian internet getting metered billing

      It looks like things are heading in the right direction. See here. But we have a long, long, way to go.

      We're still rank as one of the world's worst internet participants, and I've been listening all week to corporate types explaining why it should remain so. It's amazing how these people will talk about possible "congestion" without talking about expanding capacity. It's like talking about road traffic congestion without talking about how to fix that. Charging more money does not light up more fibre.

      I would suggest that the only way to solve this problem is either through free enterprise or government control. The system (I won't start name calling) that we have now is just not equipped for this.


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