New CRTC ruling handcuffs smaller internet service providers.

[zz000ter]

The "cost" of bandwidth is hard to determine but if you look at various hosting services you will see that they charge about FIVE CENTS per gigabyte. The actual behind the scenes cost is much lower.

Consider that GoDaddy gives you unlimited bandwidth for hosting even on their $8 monthly plans!

Now consider the Bell Fibe 6 which costs $32.
You get 25 gigs download.

The bandwidth is worth at most $1.25!

Overage fees are $1.00 to $2.50 per gig up to max $30

Or you can purchase the Usage Insurance plan
For only $5/month, the Usage Insurance plan gives you 40 GB of extra Internet usage, so you'll never have to worry about how much you upload and download.

These are absurdly high profit margins!

 

[Cassini]

I'm not sure that's true, doggee. I am sure that the CRTC spends a good deal of time and thought trying to protect established Canadian players, which amounts to limiting competition. Trouble is thay also have a mandate to see that we consumers are served properly and to some extent that demands competition. And so because of them, there is only one cable TV/internet provider in each market, while—also because of them—there's any number of choices on the Bell wires to buy your phone or WWW from. I'd be happier with an agency that had one job; to make sure we Canadians had good, available, affordable communications reaching every part of the country. Let some one else worry about who's making profits.

Canada is big. There can only be one company that owns the wires, because there are too few customers relative to the land area that needs to be served. Some areas of Canada took forever to get phone service, because even with a monopoly, the phone companies didn't think it worthwhile. A century later, the same issues apply to DSL, Cable TV, and Cell Phone service in outlying areas.

The anomaly is that Bell must share their wires, but Cogeco does not have too. We need both the "wire" companies being forced to share, so other companies can compete on the services that run over the wires. Additionally, some transparency needs to be brought to the area of charges. Both Bell and the Cable companies are highly creative in the area of service charges.

 

[blackrock13]

I read the thread title a little too fast and got CRTC rules on Handcuffs for small service providers. Wha?

 

[fuji]

The fact they have to pay the overages at retail rates is horrendously unfair. They buy bandwidth in bulk, they should be able to get bulk rates.

Bell's retail rates include the costs of collections, tech support, billing, etc., none of which services they are providing to the smaller ISP's, who have to do all of those things AND pay the retail rates.

Ridiculous.

The CRTC really is completely and totally owned by Bell, Rogers, and Telus with the net result that we as Canadians pay about double what we should for access to the internet.

 

[Cassini]

I just checked the price of a dedicated T1 link. $499/month.

Bell can charge alot for extra bandwidth and get away with it.

 

[69suds]

This site has been around for a long time. It tracks bandwidth by carrier in North America.

http://www.dslreports.com/reviews

 

[luckyjackson]

fucking crtc, in bed with bell and defacto with Rogers. zzzoooter is right, this is a shot at netflix.

I'm with 3web, they're a Rogers reseller. Excellent service, even when something goes wrong (which only happened once in the three years I've been with them), and NO LIMITS. Cheaper to boot.

I thought the big companies had to allow a semblance of competition, but I guess not.

 

[Sam Rothstein]

Here is a site that tells you which providers are in your area and compares prices:
http://www.canadianisp.ca/cgi-bin/ispsearch.cgi?f=Search&p=ON

 

[Keebler Elf]

Here is a site that tells you which providers are in your area and compares prices:
http://www.canadianisp.ca/cgi-bin/ispsearch.cgi?f=Search&p=ON

Thanks, that's a great site!