Help Canada not get screwed by our ISPs
Out of context: Reply #61
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- zarkonite0
This CRTC ruling doesn't change much for most people, and it certainly doesn't mean higher costs for everyone.
Right now all the major ISPs (Telus, Bell, Rogers) have plans with data caps and metered internet usage. What this ruling means is that the second-tier ISPs, those who don't own any infrastructure and are simply renting it out from the big three, now have to pay for their usage. Prior to this there was a flat access fee enforced by law, this was put into place to help competition along and boost an emerging market... which is probably not needed anymore at this point, the idea was that smaller ISPs could provide service in areas where the big telcos didn't think it was economically viable to do so but I'm pretty sure that between Telus, Rogers, Bell, Shaw, Videotron, Cogeco, etc. the country has all the internet access it needs.
Here's the current problem the CRTC is trying to solve: if a Tier-2 ISP starts using too much bandwidth in a certain area and since the Tier-1 ISP can't charge extra to the Tier-2 ISP for their abusive usage, who do you think ends up paying? That's right, the Tier-1 users. This flat rate that a Tier-2 gives its users, is being subsidized by Tier-1 users.
That's not to say that I don't think ALL the ISPs are going way overboard with their metered charges, but that's another debate entirely that this whole "save the internet" campaign has missed an opportunity to talk about the real problem, total cost being charged to access the net in Canada.
- Shaw dropped the cap on my plan from 170GB to 100GB using this as a flimsy excuse.ETM