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[infinityBCRT]

I don't understand the first post... maybe I need to do some more reading but the quick googling I did led me to see that the law is to allow Bell/Rogers to charge 3rd party providers which use Bell's/Rogers' lines the same amount they charge their customers minus 15%. I don't this affects existing plans. If you're paying for hi speed extreme on Rogers to get a higher cap, I think it stays that way.

 

[Fatghost]

So does this only affect re-sellers like TekSavvy or will all plans at Bell change too?

What about the current caps on overage charges? Right now Rogers caps overages at 50 bucks, I hit the 50 bucks every month...will the caps be removed?


And I'm writing my MP an email and physical letter and suggest everyone else do the same.


I'm really pissed now, but if nothing else, Bell and Rogers better fucking raise their dividends nicely this year because if I get fucked as a Canadian I better be rewarded as a shareholder.

Otherwise I'm going to the next annual shareholder meeting with some rotten eggs and a list of targets.

 

[LCfiner]

So does this only affect re-sellers like TekSavvy or will all plans at Bell change too?

What about the current caps on overage charges? Right now Rogers caps overages at 50 bucks, I hit the 50 bucks every month...will the caps be removed?


And I'm writing my MP an email and physical letter and suggest everyone else do the same.


I'm really pissed now, but if nothing else, Bell and Rogers better fucking raise their dividends nicely this year because if I get fucked as a Canadian I better be rewarded as a shareholder.

Otherwise I'm going to the next annual shareholder meeting with some rotten eggs and a list of targets.

yes, it affects resellers. teksavvy wrote a statement to this effect.

 

[Vamphuntr]

Well, it's a very generous 60GB in Quebec. I guess they knew that if they had it set at 25GB there that they'd incite another separatist movement.

Nice! I'm in QC. Crisis averted for me as I already have a 60GB plan.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Quoting for the next page.. anyone know?

Rogers has filed a tariff which would introduce UBB which will be equal to Rogers' current retail packages (80GB for 15/1, etc)

Expect this to happen in the summer.

 

[Ether_Snake]

BTW what can I expect to pay with Videotron for the equivalent of the 60gb cap deal with Bell? 40$-something?

edit: And how come is it that Bell's stock is doing so well for the past year? I know NOBODY who doesn't HATE THEM. Everyone I know laughs when I say I'm with Bell, everyone says don't sign with them, etc. So what's the deal? Are they cooking the books??

 

[LCfiner]

BTW what can I expect to pay with Videotron for the equivalent of the 60gb cap deal with Bell? 40$-something?

they have a website, y'know.

but, yeah, around 40 to 50.

 

[Moussi]

Im with Cogeco atm. I live alone and I use 50 GB a month. Will this shit affect me as well?

 

[Gilby]

What the hell? This is the first I've heard of this. This seems like the type of thing that calls for a protest.

 

[Slavik81]

Which creates an interesting situation. Say you want to watch Sixteen Candles. If you stream it legally from Netflix, you're basically paying twice for it (Netflix subscription + ISP sub).

If you pirate it you only pay once.

The ISPs win either way. :/

This is not even slightly accurate. You pay Netflix for the content and your ISP for delivery. You aren't 'paying twice' for the same thing with that any more than you are paying twice when you buy something online and have to pay shipping fees.

Further, even before now you still had to pay for internet. They've raised prices, yes, but it's not like internet was free before.

Don't listen to those net neutrality people, they are crazy commies!

Usage-based billing and net neutrality are unrelated concepts. They both have to do with the internet. That's about the extent of it.

 

[Big Chungus]

Will there be less wireless hotspots among cities?

 

[Lard]

What the hell? This is the first I've heard of this. This seems like the type of thing that calls for a protest.

Or a beheading

 

[Zabka]

You Canadians need a fucking Communist revolution like, RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

 

[Veins]

Or a beheading

Streamed live on the Internet!

 

[Hey You]

How does this affect Shaw customers?

 

[M3Freak]

I emailed my MP.

I can't believe I'm contemplating voting NDP for the next elections, but I totally will unless something is done about this.

Contemplating? I told my MP I most definitely will never vote Liberal again unless they take a policy stand against this decision, and also publicly state the CRTC decision must be rescinded or struck down by parliament.

I'm voting NDP this time around. I don't have a choice - they support Net Neutrality and do not support UBB.

 

[Slavik81]

How does this affect Shaw customers?

It doesn't. You already are under a system like this, so there are no big changes.

 

[Grayman]

It doesn't. You already are under a system like this, so there are no big changes.

bu-but my outrage?!

I was going to do something about this. I was going to write a letter even.

 

[Zzoram]

BTW what can I expect to pay with Videotron for the equivalent of the 60gb cap deal with Bell? 40$-something?

edit: And how come is it that Bell's stock is doing so well for the past year? I know NOBODY who doesn't HATE THEM. Everyone I know laughs when I say I'm with Bell, everyone says don't sign with them, etc. So what's the deal? Are they cooking the books??

The deal is no competition. Rogers and Bell both treat customers crappy because you have no other options. They keep raising prices and reducing download caps while laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[Minsc]

Probably been posted, but Netflix isn't happy:

Wired ISPs have large fixed costs of building and maintaining their last mile network of residential cable and fiber. The ISPs’ costs, however, to deliver a marginal gigabyte, which is about an hour of viewing, from one of our regional interchange points over their last mile wired network to the consumer is less than a penny, and falling, so there is no reason that pay-per-gigabyte is economically necessary. Moreover, at $1 per gigabyte over wired networks, it would be grossly overpriced.

So even if a customer used like 2TBs/month, they'd probably still be making a profit.

Bandwidth is the new gold. I wonder what is a bigger rip off though, ink prices per gallon (what is it like $15+ for a few mL?) or $1 per GB... this is probably even more of a ripoff than ink cartridges.

 

[big_z]

Guys ubb is needed to keep these companies afloat. it costs less than a cent per GB and 1-3 cents for the resellers. There is no way they can make a profit with such a small mark up.

/suicide

 

[Zombie James]

How much of a profit is that? 10,000%?

 

[Discotheque]

bu-but my outrage?!

I was going to do something about this. I was going to write a letter even.

Wow way to be smug. This is something to be pissed off about. But you're just demonstrating the apathy that Canadians have been known of having for far too long. We've got some of the shittiest wireless phone plans in the world and now they're planning on holding internet subscriptions back in the stone ages too.

CRTC's fault because they are headed by some former executives of Bell and Rogers. And the government allows these a-holes to run amok and screw the consumer.

blah blah communism blah. Ride now!

 

[krae_man]

Probably been posted, but Netflix isn't happy:



So even if a customer used like 2TBs/month, they'd probably still be making a profit.

Bandwidth is the new gold. I wonder what is a bigger rip off though, ink prices per gallon (what is it like $15+ for a few mL?) or $1 per GB... this is probably even more of a ripoff than ink cartridges.

It's about time they spoke up. When they first launched in Canada they were all like "No, bandwidth caps are not a threat to our business model. Canadians please pay for our service and buy our stock to make it go up in price"

They should have called out Rogers cap lowering the day they launched from the get go.

 

[water_wendi]

Probably been posted, but Netflix isn't happy:



So even if a customer used like 2TBs/month, they'd probably still be making a profit.

Bandwidth is the new gold. I wonder what is a bigger rip off though, ink prices per gallon (what is it like $15+ for a few mL?) or $1 per GB... this is probably even more of a ripoff than ink cartridges.

When bandwidth caps are present everywhere all these online DD sites are going to be hurt big time.

 

[M3d10n]

Usage-based billing and net neutrality are unrelated concepts. They both have to do with the internet. That's about the extent of it.

Yeah, net-neutrality is about denying access or charging different fees based on the specific content or internet address being accessed. Nothing to do with bandwidth.

And I agree that usage-based billing in itself isn't wrong. I don't like it, but I see no wrong in ISPs charging for bandwidth as the electrical company charges for electricity (bandwidth is similar to dam-generated electricity). However, the electrical company doesn't sell their own branded electrical appliances that don't add to your monthly bill.

The problem is that many ISPs actually do.

Many ISPs are also TV providers, and see internet video streaming as a competitor to their own products. So by using small caps and high over-limit fees, they can route users to their own content services (which don't count towards the caps).

While offering uncapped access to their internal network *is* within their right (since it doesn't use the backbone and in theory costs the ISP less money), artificially inflating bandwidth prices to discourage access to competitors' services is obviously a sneaky form of anti-competition.

 

[Complex Shadow]

seriously this is some really stupid shit. at first i would just joke about canada's shitty internet caps and cost, but this is just embarrassing. it makes me want to move to another country.

 

[WEGGLES]

When bandwidth caps are present everywhere all these online DD sites are going to be hurt big time.

I emailed Gabe Newell about this, maybe Steam will do something about this too? One could hope.

The more people know about this horeshit the better.

Right now, most people don't realise what's going on and don't care :[

Yeah, net-neutrality is about denying access or charging different fees based on the specific content or internet address being accessed. Nothing to do with bandwidth.

What about Netflix streaming eating my bandwidth... but Bell's own Streaming service (free with satelite TV subscription) NOT eating my bandwidth? That just isn't right.

 

[TouchMyBox]

 

[Discotheque]

lol you're gonna get raped. What were you doing?

 

[Lard]

I emailed Gabe Newell about this, maybe Steam will do something about this too? One could hope.

The more people know about this horeshit the better.

Right now, most people don't realise what's going on and don't care :[

I have seriously wondered what Sony, MS and Nintendo would do if they decided to team together to take on telcos because it was hurting their business.

 

[gutter_trash]

I'm with Videotron, so to Bell

 

[TouchMyBox]

lol you're gonna get raped. What were you doing?

I haven't been doing too much downloading, actually. My father downloads a bunch of crap, but I probably did half of that just with buying and updating a few steam/GoG/PS3 games, downloading podcasts, watching youtube and whatnot. There aren't even any TV shows I'm watching at the moment other than V.

Also, I switched the phone service to VOIP.ms, but that uses minimal bandwidth.

 

[Discotheque]

Probably steam. I buy quite a few games but I hold off on downloading them (not because of bandwidth but because of my hard-drive/changing tastes).

No more TF2 updates for you I guess.

 

[Slavik81]

What about Netflix streaming eating my bandwidth... but Bell's own Streaming service (free with satelite TV subscription) NOT eating my bandwidth? That just isn't right.

Using different billing schemes for the same type of data from different providers would probably be a network neutrality thing.

More importantly, it should probably be a anti-trust issue for leveraging their oligopoly in one industry to gain an unfair advantage in another.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Probably steam. I buy quite a few games but I hold off on downloading them (not because of bandwidth but because of my hard-drive/changing tastes).

No more TF2 updates for you I guess.

There's been what, 800MB of TF2 updates in the last 7 days?

Edit: Now that I look at it, even a 25GB daily cap would be rather restrictive.

 

[Stoffinator]

Rogers has filed a tariff which would introduce UBB which will be equal to Rogers' current retail packages (80GB for 15/1, etc)

Expect this to happen in the summer.

Now wouldn't it be smart for Rogers, to not go with this plan and try to nab Bell's customers? I'm sure many would jump ship if Rogers didn't offer a cap (or at least a high one).

 

[Stripper13]

That's fucking horrible. Yesterday I would have told you Australia had the worst Internet in the world.

But to put it in perspective, I used 100gb in 8 days and was shaped - now I am on track to hit 250-300gb this month. I just don't see the justification in offering all of these unlimited or extreme caps and then turning around and going for a UBB system. Unless these companies were bleeding Money there is zero reason for legislation to be put in place to pass on overpriced charges to customers. Just make sure you canadians speak up about this. Everyone, media (I know it is owned by telco's), friends, family, politicians and businesses need to know about this asap - if you open your mouth for this shit, they will just keep feeding it to you.

Also for anyone in this thread (there were a few I seen) that are saying "well I only use this much bandwidth - never come close to the cap" etc, keep in mind it will only get worse if this ends up accepted and supported by your dollars. More importantly, if you ever end up sharing your Internet, or using multiple devices, or living with multiple people - you'll see just how little 25, 60 or even 200gb can be.

 

[Zombie James]

Now wouldn't it be smart for Rogers, to not go with this plan and try to nab Bell's customers? I'm sure many would jump ship if Rogers didn't offer a cap (or at least a high one).

That's not how competition works in Canada. If someone makes their service worse, they all follow.

 

[Veins]

There's been what, 800MB of TF2 updates in the last 7 days?

Edit: Now that I look at it, even a 25GB daily cap would be rather restrictive.

Wow, what are you downloading all the time?

 

[TouchMyBox]

Now wouldn't it be smart for Rogers, to not go with this plan and try to nab Bell's customers? I'm sure many would jump ship if Rogers didn't offer a cap (or at least a high one).

Yeah, it honestly surprised me that they had such bone-headed timing.

They should have welcomed DSL customers with open arms and cuddle with them for a year and then degrade their service to shit, compared to bell's absolute shit, ensuring that the customers who jumped over stay as they are the lesser shit of the two.

Wow, what are you downloading all the time?

I guess having 8 computers (5 desktops, 3 laptops) takes it's toll especially when I open steam on all of them. Also I have to use FTP a lot and download a plethora of isos for school. My personal usage I figure is about half of the connection's total.

Also, since I'm the only person in my circle of friends who has a linux router that knows how to forward ports properly, I'm always the one hosting servers when we're gaming.

 

[Entropia]

Curious for the cable change, how does it affect rural areas where Rogers doesn't exist?

 

[WEGGLES]

Now wouldn't it be smart for Rogers, to not go with this plan and try to nab Bell's customers? I'm sure many would jump ship if Rogers didn't offer a cap (or at least a high one).

My family wouldn't... my mom uses her @sympatico email, so losing that is out of the question. :\

I wish I was joking.

 

[Veins]

Yeah, it honestly surprised me that they had such bone-headed timing.

They should have welcomed DSL customers with open arms and cuddle with them for a year and then degrade their service to shit, compared to bell's absolute shit, ensuring that the customers who jumped over stay as they are the lesser shit of the two.



I guess having 8 computers (5 desktops, 3 laptops) takes it's toll especially when I open steam on all of them. Also I have to use FTP a lot and download a plethora of isos for school. My personal usage I figure is about half of the connection's total.

Ah. You could let steam update one computer and transfer it across using the backup feature rather than updating all 8 from the internet. Are you going to be affected by these caps? I would hate to imagine suffering at Uni due to not being able to download everything I needed for the course.

 

[someguyinahat]

This pic is especially funny because neither Pandora nor hulu are even available in Canada.

 

[Stoffinator]

My family wouldn't... my mom uses her @sympatico email, so losing that is out of the question. :\

I wish I was joking.

But this issue probably won't bother your mom. Because she probably doesn't even use 5gigs a month correct? It be different if people see the difference on their bills.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Ah. You could let steam update one computer and transfer it across using the backup feature rather than updating all 8 from the internet. Are you going to be affected by these caps? I would hate to imagine suffering at Uni due to not being able to download everything I needed for the course.

I do that for transferring whole games over, but I can't be bothered to for sub 1 GB patches. I'm on teksavvy cable so it's not gonna affect me yet, I can use the school's network to do a lot of the stuff I need to do for school, but I just do it at home right now since I'm paying premium for an unlimited connection.

This pic is especially funny because neither Pandora nor hulu are even available in Canada.

Unless you're me

My family wouldn't... my mom uses her @sympatico email, so losing that is out of the question. :\

I wish I was joking.

My grandmother pays AOL over $20 a month for the 30 or so minutes a month she connects to the internet via 56K modem out of fear of losing her AOL email address.

 

[Rich!]

Woah, theres my plans of possibly moving to Canada up in smoke. I occasionally write music and produce tracks with a guy further up north in the UK. We do it all online, which involves constant streaming of audio and video for conversation, transfers of FLAC and WAV audio, and other stuff.

I reguarly hit 20gb a day when doing this - and then I have Steam games and video streaming from youtube/etc on top. Thank fuck for my awesome uncapped 50mb/s connection. Not the fastest there is, but at least I'm not restricted like a prostitute being raped by an eighty ton elephant.

 

[WEGGLES]

But this issue probably won't bother your mom. Because she probably doesn't even use 5gigs a month correct? It be different if people see the difference on their bills.

Well, I currently live at home so... when steam sales crop up... I'm buying games I won't even possibly be able to play for months.

Though, I'm getting close to moving out.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Woah, theres my plans of possibly moving to Canada up in smoke. I occasionally write music and produce tracks with a guy further up north in the UK. We do it all online, which involves constant streaming of audio and video for conversation, transfers of FLAC and WAV audio, and other stuff.

I reguarly hit 20gb a day when doing this - and then I have Steam games and video streaming from youtube/etc on top. Thank fuck for my awesome uncapped 50mb/s connection. Not the fastest there is, but at least I'm not restricted like a prostitute being raped by an eighty ton elephant.

You might want to look into Vancouver who passed a motion to ban UBB.

Whether they actually have any authority to do that or not is another matter.