Canadians: help fight UBB
Thrax
🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
What is UBB?
UBB, or usage-based billing, is a policy enacted by the CRTC, which states as of March 1, 2011, all customers that depend on Bell infrastructure for their DSL service will pay $1.90 per gigabyte of data used above their cap.
As an initial foray into this price scheme, customers of 5Mbps DSL service from Bell (or any ISP that depends on Bell, like TekSavvy) will have their monthly bandwidth capped to just 25GB. Other ISPs that have not been approved for this measure by the CRTC, such as Shaw, have followed suit anyhow. To put it in perspective: 25GB is approximately seven movies streamed on Netflix.
A cap of 25GB is ONE EIGHTH the volume currently offered for approximately $32 CAD. In other words, bandwidth just went from 15 cents per gig to $1.27 per gig--OR MORE.
Customers can also purchase blocks (PDF) of "insurance," which provide extra data usage:
To get the same 200GB Internet package that will disappear on March 1, it will cost $50.95. That's a price increase of 59% for the same level of service.
This policy will be adopted by more ISPs, because it stands to make them an incredible amount of money. Even though it costs less than one cent to deliver 1GB of data to your home, Bell can now generate $1.89 in profit--that is about 19000% PURE PROFIT IN THEIR POCKETS.
Do you really think that Rogers, Canada's only other major infrastructure provider, won't follow suit? There goes all of the cable connections.
5 Reasons Why UBB Sucks
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?
Do not let a virtual monopoly drive Canadian Internet 20 years backwards when the Internet is more essential than ever to business, entertainment and education. Please act now.
UBB, or usage-based billing, is a policy enacted by the CRTC, which states as of March 1, 2011, all customers that depend on Bell infrastructure for their DSL service will pay $1.90 per gigabyte of data used above their cap.
As an initial foray into this price scheme, customers of 5Mbps DSL service from Bell (or any ISP that depends on Bell, like TekSavvy) will have their monthly bandwidth capped to just 25GB. Other ISPs that have not been approved for this measure by the CRTC, such as Shaw, have followed suit anyhow. To put it in perspective: 25GB is approximately seven movies streamed on Netflix.
A cap of 25GB is ONE EIGHTH the volume currently offered for approximately $32 CAD. In other words, bandwidth just went from 15 cents per gig to $1.27 per gig--OR MORE.
Customers can also purchase blocks (PDF) of "insurance," which provide extra data usage:
- $4.75 - 40GB extra usage
- $9.50 - 80GB extra usage
- $14.25 - 120GB extra usage (maximum 3 blocks)
- $55.00 – 298GB extra usage (maximum 299GB extra usage in Quebec)
To get the same 200GB Internet package that will disappear on March 1, it will cost $50.95. That's a price increase of 59% for the same level of service.
This policy will be adopted by more ISPs, because it stands to make them an incredible amount of money. Even though it costs less than one cent to deliver 1GB of data to your home, Bell can now generate $1.89 in profit--that is about 19000% PURE PROFIT IN THEIR POCKETS.
Do you really think that Rogers, Canada's only other major infrastructure provider, won't follow suit? There goes all of the cable connections.
5 Reasons Why UBB Sucks
- Bell's Internet infrastructure was heavily subsidized by Canadian taxpayers. Your investment has been twisted into an instrument of enormous profit at your expense.
- The new caps implemented for 5Mbps DSL customers are so low that 6-7 Netflix movies are enough to break the cap. How about STEAM? Just one 8GB game like Metro2033 is a quarter of your cap. Data thereafter costs $1.27-$1.90 per gigabyte, which is up to 19000% profit for Bell.
- The service purchased for each dollar you spend with your ISP has been reduced by EIGHT TIMES.
- Telecommuting, digital delivery services, eCommerce and other Internet-enabled business is significantly threatened by this maneuver. With a 25GB cap, the digital economy of Canada is under great threat from consumers that must consciously weigh the merit of visiting your site or using your service.
- Bell is the leading provider of on-demand television service in Canada, making this a monopolistic and anti-competitive attack on Canadians. Bell TV is now the cheaper option, because the CRTC has granted Bell the authority to force competition out of the market with impossible pricing.
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?
- Write your MP and demand an end to Bell's anti-competitive pricing racket. Tell them that Bell is pricing legitimate competitors to their services--such as on-demand video and Internet service--right out of the market. Also complain that their price scheme exerts monopolistic control on the market. Finally, threaten to vote for another party (such as NDP, which has come out against UBB) if UBB is not killed.
- Call the Canadian Competition Bureau and file a complaint. Tell them that Bell is pricing legitimate competitors to their services--such as on-demand video and Internet service--right out of the market. Also complain that their price scheme exerts monopolistic control on the market.
- Call the CRTC and file the same complaint as #2.
- Visit http://www.stopthemeter.ca and sign their online petition in protest of UBB.
- Contact the office of PM Stephen Harper and reiterate all the points in #1.
- Involve other corporations! Write Valve, Apple, Google, Netflix and other bandwidth-heavy companies and let them know that the CRTC's ruling will result in less money spent on their services in the future. Make it an issue with THEIR bottom line as it is with yours.
Do not let a virtual monopoly drive Canadian Internet 20 years backwards when the Internet is more essential than ever to business, entertainment and education. Please act now.
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Comments
· aboot
· sowwry
· canadian bacon
· poutine
· bag of milk
This. UBB is a perfect example of why everyone needs to be paying attention to legislation trends regarding technology, especially net neutrality. This is serious stuff that affects all of us. How much longer until lazy end users actually start taking this stuff seriously?
Make some noise, people. Put a stop to this crap.
Seriously this bill is really killing Canadian internet competition and performance. We are already far behind many other countries in service availability and pricing. This almost sets us back to the stone ages.
I'll try and support.
For example. Bell offer's 250k 5mb and 10mb plans. 250k has a 3gb cap, 5mb is 50, 10mb is 70 or something like that. So to be able to get the 5mb plan they do a line sync test and if you can't sync to 5m you are stuck with the 250k plan. They won't allow you to go for the 5mb plan even if you want to being fully aware you may only sync to 4mb. Now what really sucks is that if you want to go with another provider they still have to get permission from Bell to give you access to a 5mb plan and not the 250k plan. So coming or going Bell has you cold.
We are are also equally stuck with a monolithic incumbent (BT).
I don't support UBB as it degrades the end user experience (as Thrax rightly says) but I can also see the reason for it.
I disagree with the notion that it costs less than 1c to deliver to the home. That's marketing bollocks (politely) as no argument I see on the wonderful intraweb ever looks at the big picture.
Keeping it simple, Bell (and associated sub companies) is NOT a Tier-1 provider. They have to transit (pay for) some of their traffic leaving their AS. I believe they have some peering (mutual swapping of traffic with no cost) with major upstream providers to the USA. What I cannot see if the market value for a peer agreement with Bell. Bell don't appear (at least on the surface) to offer many high value global services that are homed with in their network that generates a compelling reason to peer with them.
Transit costs. It's simple economics. The more you use, the more it costs. The cheaper your service, the smaller the margin.
Petition signed and mail sent to MP and local media.