[acangiano]

I'll provide one data point of how this affects Canadian internet users.

I currently have no caps with TekSavvy and pay $39 a month. Starting from March 1st, I will pay $31.95/mo with a 25 GB cap. Any gigabyte over the limit will cost about 2 bucks.

Now, you can buy a block at discounted prices. According to TekSavvy, based on my internet usage, I will need to buy at least a 275 GB extra block. Believe it or not, I don't torrent. I simply like to watch NetFlix, HD movies from iTunes, lots of educational videos online, and backup data in the cloud.

That 275 GB block costs $55/mo. So I suddenly go from paying $39 for unlimited data to paying $86.95 per month, and having to be careful about what I download and what not.

Oh, and the first thing I need to do is stop backing up my data, videos, and photos in the cloud. That's pretty much out of the question with the risk of paying $2 per extra GB. I'm buying an additional external hard drive instead.

How is that for innovation?

[neonfunk]

I actually agree with metering; I think it's the only fair measure. Granted, the metering you describe sounds atrocious, and there'll probably be a long messy transition to the point where our internet bill is more like our electric bill.

But imagine this: on mobile networks, instead of voice minutes, text messages, data caps, fees for tethering, and every other scheme the Telcos are concocting right now (with regard to charging for individual services), we instead have a single measure of our usage — data — and our bill starts at something reasonable like $5 or $10 a month.

The problem with "unlimited" in my view is that it conditions us to think that said resource really is unlimited, versus, say, electricity where we are incentivized to be aware of our usage. Now, if they're going to charge $2 per GB above some arbitrary cap — that's clearly absurd. But to start the bill very low (for the basic connection), and then charge, say, 10¢ or 15¢ per GB? Sign me up.

[lsc]

Metering only makes sense if the costs vary with usage. In the case of DSL, the vast majority of the cost is the cost of maintaining the copper pair to your house, and that cost largely doesn't change, regardless of usage.

Now, if the line from the CO (where the DSL terminates) to the internet was a significant bit of the cost, I'd agree with you. But my understanding is that the line from the CO to the 'net is a very small cost compared to the cost of all those copper pairs.

You also have a point when it comes to shared-loop technologies like cable. Metering is probably the most fair way to decide who gets what percentage of the limited fixed loop. (and probably the best way to get the telco to add more capacity when a loop becomes overloaded)

I'm just saying, the last-mile has many situations where running the connection, regardless of how much you use that connection, dominates the cost. And in those cases, "unlimited" (up to your port speed) billing makes a whole lot of sense.

[zmmmmm]

> Metering only makes sense if the costs vary with usage ... in the case of DSL, the vast majority of the cost is the cost of maintaining the copper pair to your house, and that cost largely doesn't change, regardless of usage.

That's a somewhat naive view of things. It only works if all the upstream equipment has infinite capacity. If you (and others like you) use 275GB instead of 10GB then it absolutely does cause more equipment to have to be installed upstream, which I don't think is an insignificant cost.

I'm like the GP - I wish every connection was metered, the problem is not metering, but the rate which invariably seems to be way above what is reasonable. Metering seems to always just be a cynical strategy to exploit naive users who don't know how much bandwidth they consume (bill shock, etc) rather than a rational economic way of sharing a limited resource.

[patrickgzill]

It is not at all naive, it is very accurate.

After the connection hits the DSLAM it goes onto fiber, which starts at 1 Gbps capacity and goes up to either 40Gbps or 100Gbps per port. Only in the smallest markets would they use a T3/DS3 connection.

Actual bandwidth costs for 200GB (which is about 1Mbps) over the course of a month are about $1 USD in almost any major US city.

Even assuming 4x the cost for Canada's smaller market size, we are talking about a ($4 into $55 upcharge) 13 times markup once the cost of the basic connection, tech support, marketing, etc. is covered by the initial $31.95.

[vacri]

Sounds like a bargain. There's a business opportunity for you!

[nikster]

I think this hits on the real, underlying issue: There is no free market competition in internet access. In the case of Canada it appears one state-owned company owns all the physical lines, and that company is starting to meter access.

So, a sensible approach by the government would be to review the actual access costs - whether it's $2 / 100GB or some other figure - then fix the price at that level. Review it every year. Fair for all. I am sure the guy using 275GB/month wouldn't mind paying $4 for it.

Unlimited access is unrealistic, as is gauging the public for 10x the fair value _when you're a monopolist_.

[napierzaza]

Bandwidth is sold in bulk, pennies by the gigabyte. Not dollars. It's not just covering their costs, it's obscene.

[danbmil99]

good argument for a real marketplace, instead of anti-capitalist net neutrality zealots on the one hand, and robber-baron monopolists on the other.

[vacri]

"In the case of DSL, the vast majority of the cost is the cost of maintaining the copper pair to your house, and that cost largely doesn't change, regardless of usage."

Pure nonsense. ISPs have to pay data by volume to upstream providers.

[nikster]

"ISPs have to pay data by volume to upstream providers"

Yes, they do. The question is how much. Chances are it's nowhere near $2.... charging whatever you want is fair game in a free market, but not when you're a monopolist.

[jarek]

Which absolutely does not rule out the possibility that the data cost is much smaller than the cost of maintaining the copper. Do you have the numbers?

[vacri]

I do not at the moment - I perhaps phrased it poorly - but the cost of the in-ground copper wire is but one part of the costs of an ISP - datacenters, call centres, exchanges + dslams, specialist staff, CEO's bonus pay, so on and so forth. To paint the cost of DSL as almost entirely maintenance of the in-ground copper is nonsense.

[Dylan16807]

Well, that's going into the company to provide you with that in-ground wire. It's in the base cost, not affected by how much data you use, which was the main point. Marginal data is cheap.

[jacquesm]

A basic 20 Mbit connection goes for about $75 in Europe, that's 1.1 ct / Gigabyte (if my back-of-the-envelope math is correct). 40 Mbit goes for about $100 / month.

Metered is out, flat-rate is the future. The only hold-outs will be the mobile carriers and even there I already see flat-rate offerings.

$5 or $10 / month would not work due to fixed costs and write-off on equipment higher than that. But once the equipment is paid for you might as well use it to its full ability without being penalized further.

[Ras_]

N. Europe:

I have 110/10M (cable-tv network) in Finland for $53. More widely available 24/1M DSL goes for $46. Usage caps are unheard of in cabled internet.

Cheap, non-capped mobile internet has recently exploded - caps will be introduced. Our biggest telco TeliaSonera has only capped versions since the launch of iPhone (they were were forced and willing to pay extra). Other companies haven't introduced restrictions, but since Android-based smartphones became popular in 2010 and currently log the most data usage per unit, this will soon change.

Mobile internet is also very popular with plain computers by using 3G usb-dongles, which telcos give free of charge when you sign up for 12/24 months. Typical offer is uncapped 384k for $6.7 or 1M for $12 (actual rates vary often due to congestion - p2p users are a major pain in the butt with 3G networks). These are available nationwide with no geological price differentiation.

In Sweden broadband is quite much cheaper. The government has been heavily involved in building fiber with subsidies, tax breaks and legal requirements to municipal providers. (IT Bill 2000) http://www.broad-band.gr/content/events/docs/Swedish_broadba...

[antihero]

In the UK you can get Virgin 50MB with no caps for about £30~/month.

[Swannie]

It's not perfect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Media#Bandwidth_throttli...

But it's a good way of solving some of the challenges. But more and more people will start hitting that throttling soon, as people start using LoveFilm streaming, etc.

[antihero]

You don't get throttled if you have XXL, though.

[wildmXranat]

Your intentions are good, but I would not put that much faith int telcos. Almost every high-speed line is one of many that are oversold. The traffic that people have been paying for in past years, is just starting to be utilized. There are many years of pure profit in Bell's coffers.

The piece of pie in Canadian market didn't shrink, it evolved slightly out of bounds of Bell and Rogers oligopoly, and UBB attempts to push you back into that fold.

What's even worse, there can't be any competition as firms are not allowed to lay competing cable infrastructure.

[Bud]

The idea that metering is or will be "fair" as applied by rapacious telecoms is beyond hilarious.

You honestly think the rate will be within an order of magnitude of your guess? Pardon me while I get a hernia from laughter.

[kcdenman]

The telecoms will be as rapacious as the rules of the game allow them to be. As with all metered utilities the price needs to be regulated so that the consumer avoids abusive pricing. The question to be answered periodically will be how much does a GB cost for the telecom to provide a customer and what is a fair profit to sustain infrastructure development.

Without a meter system in place the flat rate will penalize small bandwidth users and let high bandwidth users get the bargain.

I agree that if the pricing were completely up to the telecoms they would ravage our wallets until we are eating ramen noodles 7 days a week. However, given their position of power they will have to openly defend their claims to raising unit prices in court.

[caf]

The problem with "just pay for data" is that mobile voice calls use such a tiny amount of data that either the cost of voice would have to drop by several orders of magnitude, or the price of data would have to be so astronomical as to make web browsing unaffordable.

This is the problem that telcos have been struggling with in terms of mobile data for years - they don't want to give up their fat margins on voice, but the actual bytes used by voice calls is trivial.

[moultano]

It seems that you are paying for two things with your bill, the ubiquity of the network, and the marginal amount of data you use. It seems reasonable that the capital build out be paid for with a fixed monthly bill, while the marginal amount of data usage be metered on top. They don't necessarily have to lose their margins on voice, just build that into the fixed monthly cost.

[Swannie]

It's tricky though, because they have built out, and have to maintain, quite a large infrastructure to cope with voice alone. It extends from billing, through to terminating calls on other networks, running voice mail systems, etc.

There's arguably a lot of room for MVNOs only offering data. (In Australia DoDo offered such for the lowest price per GB).

[skymt]

Universal bandwidth metering would certainly incentivize moderation. For starters, it would immediately kill the Internet advertising industry, as just about every Internet user would moderate the bandwidth they spend on ads by installing Adblock Plus.

[zacharycohn]

You could look at nothing but google ads for a month and your bandwidth wouldn't be near what it'd be if you had just watched a single HD movie over netflix.

[petsos]

Picking the two extremes does not prove your point. A lot of people are pissed with ads right now. Imagine if they would have to pay for them too (even pennies).

[zacharycohn]

I wasn't picking extremes, simply pointing out how little ads would effect you.

Besides, doesn't Adblock work client-side? You'd still download and pay for the ads, you just wouldn't see them.

[cscheid]

Not when the ads come from different domains (which is the case for 99% of the annoying flash ads). Adblock stops all requests to these domains. Incidentally, this is also why Adblock is a hit with privacy-conscious people - it mitigates tracking through log file analysis.

[spankythemonk]

no. picture and flash ads are separate HTTP requests. AdBlock/FlashBlock work by not making those requests. You will save bandwidth, but as you have pointed out, it's a drop in the ocean compared to watching a HD movie or even a 10min youtube clip.

[barrkel]

Fixed prices for fixed sizes of data isn't efficient, economically speaking, because marginal costs are not proportional to marginal data transit; either the price is too low to prevent congestion at peak times, or it's too high and leaves pipes underutilized at off-peak times - and the times don't lend themselves to simplistic on-off peak analysis.

What you want is spot prices dependent on congestion, but that creates a different problem, opacity in pricing, where people will be fearful to use owing to uncertainty in how much it will cost.

I think the fairest mechanism is probably some kind of QoS by inverse usage: where congestion occurs, drop packets belonging to users who transfer the most. Unfortunately, I'd expect that to be computationally infeasible, as it would require fairly complex dynamic and stateful logic in routers to process the accounting and make decisions on a packet by packed basis fast enough.

[gyom]

I also agree with metering if we're charged prices that we consider reasonable (defined by the prices that most people are paying elsewhere in the world).

I'd like to pay for internet like I pay for electricity. We pay by the kW*h and that's it. I think it'd be nice to pay a higher rate for electricity / internet during the day if it meant that we'd pay a lower rate during the night.

I keep hearing about how europeans get the mobile phone services waaaay cheaper than we do here. Some guy in a TED Talk said that cell phones were common in poor regions of Africa. There's no way that these poor people are paying what I pay for texting on a mobile phone. :P

[teamonkey]

Yes.

I came to Canada from the UK and I reckon it's about 50% more expensive for DSL/cable data over here, but faster speeds are more common (in the cities at least). Usage caps are not unusual with the larger ISPs in the UK, nor is traffic shaping/blocking, but at least the carriers are obliged by law to resell to other ISPs at a reasonable rate.

Mobile phones are, IMO, in a completely different ballpark though. Canada is literally years behind Europe and the same companies that are monopolising the landline networks have been abusing their mobile monopoly for years. For the end user, the phones are old, the networks creaky, the contracts long and the cost astronomical.

A mobile contract costs 2-3 times what it would in the UK for less: Caller ID, voicemail etc. all come as standard in the UK, I don't know of any exceptions. Not only that, but a contract locks you in for 2-3 times as long and the phones still cost more.

[napierzaza]

Costa Rica, not as poor as Africa, gets 5$ a month for cell with infinite data.

[markbernard]

Metering just stifles innovation and lets the big ISPs make more money than they need to. It is a cash grab, plain and simple. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110126/03531712831/metere...

[napierzaza]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Bell hasn't upgraded its service, just the price. It's been pretending it's the users fault that things are slow but it keeps putting more users on the same network. They have no incentive to improve service, especially if the government agrees they can charge whatever they want.

[fluidcruft]

"we are incentivized"

Nice use of passive voice.

[wildmXranat]

Yep. Most online services that have a presence in Canadian market will start to see cuts in their revenue. I was using NetFlix, but no longer. Many of my friends and co-workers are not using Dropbox for backup anymore. It makes no sense. Many went back to good old fashioned portable drives.

In addition to purchasing less of online services, many people that I know refuse to buy anything from Bell and Rogers. No cable, no landline phone, no satellite tv. In fact, with the new mobile companies popping up in the last 12 months, you can save quite a bundle.

There is an angst growing amongst customers that spreads like wildfire. In past few years, I converted almost every one of my friends and relatives to Teksavvy internet. At that moment in time, it made sense. It no longer does and I wish that this turns up the heat enough to make it an election issue. It is, pardon my french, a fucking racket.

[samatman]

A total OT, but is "pardon my French" at all PC in Canada? Serious question!

[fooandbarify]

I'm French Canadian (well, half) and I've often heard other French Canadians use the same expression in French - "excuse mon français". I consider myself relatively plugged in to French politics here and I've never heard of it being an issue.

[gyom]

I'm a French Canadian guy working in an English workplace and I feel a bit insulted whenever I hear this expression. I never hear anyone complain about it, but it makes me want to start saying "pardon my English" right after belching loudly (on purpose for that occasion).

The only thing keeping me from doing that is that I don't think people would make the connection and understand the reference.

I don't know how Jews feel when they hear someone say that they've been "jewed" by their ISP or some other company ripping them off. Probably something like that.

[caf]

It's not supposed to be a slight at the French. It's a "polite fiction" - the user of the phrase is pretending that the swear word was a (non-offensive) word in another language, and the other party is pretending to believe this (since of course they are so pure that they have never heard the word in question before). Both parties of course know exactly what is going on, but the device allows the first person to apologise without implying that the second person is so uncouth as to know the word in question.

[tel]

I thought it was always a part of the (possibly true, but I'm no francophone) mythos that French just has a much better swearing vocabulary. A statement like that, I'd think at least certain parts of French culture should get behind.

[GrooveStomp]

I think I've heard "Pardon my English" before too. I wouldn't be at all offended if I heard that term. In fact, I'll make a point of using it in the future. :)

[GrooveStomp]

I suspect it is. I've heard the term used and nobody's batted an eye. Could be because we're on the west coast, though.

[jarek]

Never seen it as an issue in Ontario. It's not all that common, but it's not offensive either.

[secret]

My old boss was born and raised in France and would use that expression all the time. She thought it was funny.

[wildmXranat]

I haven't given it much thought, really. On a deeper level, it probably stems from communication roots of English and French languages colliding, where a foreign phrase would be mentioned, but you would apologize for saying it, just to be polite.

[jacquesm]

There is a reason why lots of technical people from Canada seek to find their fortune in the United States.

[sjs]

This situation really sucks, but remember that those of us with Telus or Shaw don't have anything to complain about at the moment so you aren't hearing about all of us on 10-25 mbps lines, with 50-200 GB soft caps that aren't enforced. I'm torrenting up a storm 24/7, and regularly download shows and movies on iTunes and Netflix, stream Grooveshark at home and on my phone. I don't even hear anything if I use 2x my monthly data transfer. Our upstream bandwidth is still terrible though :/

I don't envy the US at all, I envy Sweden, Japan, South Korea. No offence but I'd sooner move to many places before the USA.

Don't get me wrong, the CRTC is worse than useless actively harming the tech landscape. We have zero competition with Internet and phone pricing at all, the big guys basically just fix prices because it's more profitable for them to collude than compete. We have a lot of major problems.

[fyrerise]

This isn't accurate. Shaw has recently jumped on the same bandwagon and started enforcing hard caps with overage fees. Just go here if you want to check that:

http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Internet/High-Spee...

($2.00/GB for each GB used above plan’s limit)

AFAIK, Telus isn't doing yet, but I've heard that this is a technical limitation rather than lack of desire to do so.

[spitfire]

Have you actually gotten a bill from them yet? My bill is the same $47/mo it's been for a while. I don't have a tv.

[gamble]

I have. They are enforcing it now.

[spitfire]

Where are you located?

[jacquesm]

Shaw is cable right?

[westajay]

They also operate their own internet backbone and sell access to corporate clients.

[sjs]

It may be just a matter of time before they follow suit. Who knows, it surely would not be a surprise.

[delano]

Yep.

[EdwardCoffin]

Yes

[axod]

Is the US really much better? As we saw earlier in the week from Netflix, slower average bandwidth than Canada... hardly any competition and so on.

If you want decent internet connectivity, move to Europe or Japan or something. They're rolling out 100mbps broadband in the UK.

[potatolicious]

Canadian expat working in the US here. The situation in Canada continues to get worse, and was always behind even the relatively pokey US internet providers.

It isn't necessarily about the size of the pipe, but rather unnecessary restrictions that negatively impact the way people use the internet. Here I'm on Comcast and have a fairy generous cap (250GB). If people start penny-pinching what they do with their bandwidth it will be the end of web-based industries as we know it.

More accurately for Canada - it never began. Folks like myself who specialize in web-related development, either frontend or backend, basically have no future in our home countries.

I hate to be so down about my own country, but it's the damned truth, though many Canadian developers are too proud to admit it. The software industry in Canada is anemic, grossly underpaid, and that goes doubly for anything web-related.

[Locke1689]

That graph was a useless piece of shit. I have a feeling there's a bimodal distribution there, but can't even get a feeling for it because the graph was so poorly made.

Seriously, a mean without a standard deviation? That's a failing grade in a first year statistics course.

[axod]

Fair enough, but my anecdotal evidence suggests broadband in the US is nothing to be proud of by any means.

[Locke1689]

I find myself pretty comfortable with 25/25 in rural Maryland. I could up it to 150/35 if I wanted.

[Swannie]

"They're rolling out 100mbps broadband in the UK."

Not quite yet. http://www.eclipse.net.uk/fibre-broadband/what-is-fttc-

[axod]

http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband/up-to-100mb.html

Some already have it. (My brother for one)

Schedule of when areas will get it from Virgin: (Other providers may be different).

http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf/100Mb-r...

[Swannie]

Thanks, I'd not heard about this (only been back here for just over a month).

This is excellent news, most places covered by the end of this year. Sadly Bristol is lacking!

[wmoxam]

I'll provide another data point (as someone who isn't as heavy a user as acangiano.

I'm with Teksavvy as well and currently pay $31.95 + tax for a 200GB cap. I'm using less than half of that, or about ~80GB/month. Under the new rules I will have to pay $40.45 + tax for 105GB cap. In the rare (for me) case that might exceed this cap I'll pay $2/GB for additional traffic.

If I cancelled Netflix I'd probably come in just under the 25GB cap. Bell has effectively doubled the price of Netflix for me.

[blub]

So much for 'the cloud' and ubiquitous broadband. Next time I see someone mention that such and such iPhone app can be made as a web app I'll point them here. Web apps are at the mercy of so many third parties...

[patrickaljord]

Web apps work offline too, that's the whole point of frameworks like sproutecore, backbone.js and sencha.

[jarek]

Web apps are not an issue unless media is involved. Media is the issue.

[vacri]

I've always thought it funny that people who use 250+GB of data class themselves as 'not heavy internet users'. "I don't torrent" != light internet use.

What do most people torrent? Movies and TV. And yet there you are doing lots of HD video while claiming you're not a heavy user ("I don't torrent", "I simply...").

Out of curiosity, what level of bandwidth usage do you think quantifies a heavy user?

[cookiecaper]

Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, and YouTube are redefining heavy internet usage. My brother-in-law (who lives with us for the moment) recently got Netflix hooked up on his Xbox and he uses 10-11 GB if he watches all day or 5-6 if he watches for a few hours.

My normal usage, downloading updates for my PCs (Arch Linux, so heavy ones come often), browsing, watching a handful of videos, doing git pulls, lots of text-heavy sites like HN and docs, etc. plus my wife's normal usage, which is YouTube and Facebook, usually ends up somewhere around 700MB-1GB of usage per day. When I torrented from home, the average consumption was maybe 2GB-4GB per day, so Netflix is even more taxing than that for me.

As the web becomes increasingly media intensive, the "normal user" threshold of <100 MB per day is going to shoot up to something around <10-15 GB per day, especially once everyone in the house gets TV and movies over web-based services instead of cable/air/DVD.

The cable companies, which incidentally are usually the only good residential ISPs, are going to lose cable subscriptions to Netflix subscriptions and on-demand rentals to iTunes rentals, and consequently we'll see moves like this one seeking to penalize net-based media providers since they take customers away from their TV offerings.

[junkbit]

Cheap hard disks have grown faster than the last mile of internet connections over the years, creating a bottleneck. I think people's expectations are tied to the large disks and the files that they hold.

[acangiano]

I never claimed to be 'not a heavy internet user'. Of course I am. I simply claimed that my data consumption is legitimate, and not caused by illegal hoarding of software, movies, etc.

[Maxious]

FYI in australia the pricing is pretty similar: 1.00 AUD = 0.994493 CAD, $40AUD = 40GB, $80AUD = 250GB, $100AUD = 350GB

[a_m0d]

That really depends on where you are - I live in a semi-rural area, 40kms out of Perth, and right on the border of 2 ADSL exchanges. We're not in range for either of them, so we have to resort to wireless internet: $80/month for 3GB on peak, 5GB off peak. There is nothing else available here (including 4G wireless).

[thebigredjay]

Where do you live? I've lived in Quebec for three years and before that Alberta. In both places my internet service had a bandwidth cap and above a certain amount you paid an extra fee per GB. This is absolutely not new!

What really sticks out to me here is that the various ISP's have much less to compete with. The only real motivation for me in Montreal to switch to one of the smaller ISPs was the unlimited bandwidth option.

[Groxx]

Since you apparently now have to worry about metering, I've been very happy with this for more simple bandwidth monitoring: http://codebox.org.uk/pages/bitmeterOs

[sygma]

I'm in no way trying to hijack the thread, but where I live, I pay $45/month for a 4 GB cap and 2$ per extra gigabyte. Theoretically, I should get 512kbits per second. Practically, however, I'm getting an average of 300kb and a 200ms latency to US and EU servers. You want to know the cool part? I'm doing just fine. That is to say, if you take a step back and think about it, you could probably live off 25 GBs per months. Think of the poor souls half way around the world, that could probably help!

[uxp]

Where I live in the States, I pay $65 USD for 7MBit DSL with a 250GB softcap. I've only gone over the cap about 3 times in the 4 years I've been with my ISP, and it is never more than 300GB total that month, with the exception of this winter. I've also never had to pay for additional usage beyond my standard monthly bill. My average per month is about 80GB for last year, which is mostly consumed by a full level 0 dump once per month and weekly level 1 dumps of 3 remote BSD VPSes to a home server once a month, yet I still only consume about 1/3rd of my allotted bandwidth.

My fiancé was between semesters at school this winter, and decided to finish watching Battlestar Galactica, among a couple dozen other movies to occupy her time through Netflix. My router's bandwidth logs show that she consumed about 35GB a day for 12 of her 15 days off. We hit somewhere under 500GB of data that month. Using TekSavvy's upcoming rates listed in this thread at $32.00 per month for 25GB with $2.00 per additional GB, we would have had a bill approaching $1,000.00. How the fuck is that justifiable?

Our current model takes in account that occasionally, users will blow through their caps with no regard for the sky, but most other months are way below the cap. My current plan, of which was negotiated over 4 years ago and has not changed since, still serves my needs perfectly. I could cut out Netflix and my VPS backups and use 4GB a month, but why should I move to a service plan that is lesser than my 4 year old contract? Did I mention my current ISP service plan was negotiated 4 years ago? ISPs have had 4 years, in my case, to upgrade their equipment to accommodate an increase in users, of which they have been pushing, because as a company, they like having an increase in subscribers. Realizing now that they are at the peak and want more money for the increased traffic is entirely out of line since they have had years of growth in their subscriber base and years of blind profit, but none of that was spent ensuring that they would have additional room to grow.

I would gladly pay a flat fee per GB of data, since theoretically it is more fair. I will not pay a flat fee that is approaching a 15 times increase profit for my ISP from what they paid for that GB. They gave me and every single other subscriber 250GB to use per month, and for the past 4 years, my habits have evolved to be aware and use 250GB of data per month. Cutting it back to 25GB and additional at $2/GB is entirely ridiculous. Moving backwards is not a solution.

[natrius]

How many alternative providers do you have access to? If providers can actually make a decent profit from charging you $39 for that bandwidth, TekSavvy's competitors should be knocking down your door to split the difference. In theory.

EDIT: I just read in another comment that it's Bell Canada metering charges for bandwidth resellers. That's a bit more complicated. Hm.

[jellicle]

The overage charges go directly to the line owner, what you would call an ILEC in the U.S.

Thus there won't be any competition on the bandwidth side, and in fact the line owner has an incentive to maximize charges, which is exactly what we're seeing.

[Swannie]

Not really, from the other comments it appears that Bell Ca is not the only back-haul provider.

But as I said in another comment, ISPs got a whole 90 days to deal with this, which runs out about today. That's a pathetic amount of time to tender for alternative suppliers, especially over the holiday season, in Canada. (I hear it gets cold there???)

[Swannie]

I misunderstood. They have from a few days ago for 60/90 days. And they don't really have many options, unless they go for a massive unbundling effort.

[forensic]

It's a government-enforced monopoly.