Canadian Usage-Based Internet Billing Explained

itanium said:
What do you expect in a country that has "free" health care?

These companies probably have to charge these outrageous rates to remain profitable after being taxed to death.
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More kool-aid? :D
After all, what reasonable person would complain about them reducing caps and then implementing an overage fee with a 6566.67% markup? None of these companies are hurting--far from it, in fact.

http://www.itworldcanada.com/blogs/nw-watch/2010/02/04/bce-inc-profits-up-84-per-cent/52826/
 
Canada is completely ass backwards. While everyone is moving toward distributing feature rich content online (games, applications for all you apple users, updates, movie subscriptions), Canada is punishing users for using standards set by everywhere else.

Even for Lite internet users, they don't even realize it but ads and high resolution images to grandma aren't small files. each one of those "hit three things for a prize" is like 2 megs per download. There really isn't any more "light" internet anymore as the internet is getting more bloated with junk that people don't want. Hotmail has their own ads.

Canada needs to step out of it's stupid little bubble and get with the times. It's no wonder Americans make fun of Canada all the time. I'm aboot to quit this f***ing country and join Team America, F*** YEAH EH?!
 
I'm a "Canadian" I hate this country with a passion. I rather be an American I still ask my parents why they immigrated to this shit hole. To bad I don't have a sponsor to the US cause I would gladly give up my retarded citizenship.The only good thing that you get in this country is the Passport so you can leave this crap hole and work in foreign countries where you actually make money and get a head in life. Canada, its like skating up a hill.

After living in South East Asia in supposed less developed countries I had a better cell phone plan better phone, I had reception for 1/4 of the price I pay here. I also had better health care, I could get a CT scan done in under a week, prices of prescription drugs were not outrages. Better services from government agencies, they were actually open until 6pm and the workers went out of their way to help you not screw you with bureaucratic bullshit.

Did I mention I had fiber service for 35 dollars a month.. I downloaded at rates of 2mb/s my upload was 512kb/s.

Canada you will get taxed to death and be told what to do by the government at every god damn opportunity they have. I've visited communist china and there was more Market Freedom then here. Canada is a communist state because the retarded complacent ignoramuses that live here feel that the government should solve all their problems.

CRTC should burn they hurt Canadian market in so many ways its not funny. Hell the whole government should burn for their stupidity.
 
I'm guessing that if you visit HardOCP and you're canadian I don't need to bring this to your attention. BUT just in case

http://openmedia.ca/meter

If you live in canada and use the internet, you need to sign this petition. Please pass it on to you friends and family as well. :)
 
Wrench00 said:
I'm a "Canadian" I hate this country with a passion. I rather be an American I still ask my parents why they immigrated to this shit hole. To bad I don't have a sponsor to the US cause I would gladly give up my retarded citizenship.The only good thing that you get in this country is the Passport so you can leave this crap hole and work in foreign countries where you actually make money and get a head in life. Canada, its like skating up a hill.

After living in South East Asia in supposed less developed countries I had a better cell phone plan better phone, I had reception for 1/4 of the price I pay here. I also had better health care, I could get a CT scan done in under a week, prices of prescription drugs were not outrages. Better services from government agencies, they were actually open until 6pm and the workers went out of their way to help you not screw you with bureaucratic bullshit.

Did I mention I had fiber service for 35 dollars a month.. I downloaded at rates of 2mb/s my upload was 512kb/s.

Canada you will get taxed to death and be told what to do by the government at every god damn opportunity they have. I've visited communist china and there was more Market Freedom then here. Canada is a communist state because the retarded complacent ignoramuses that live here feel that the government should solve all their problems.

CRTC should burn they hurt Canadian market in so many ways its not funny. Hell the whole government should burn for their stupidity.
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Wait, I'm confused... You blame the government, when from what I understand it's the free market that is pushing for these caps. Didn't the companies ask the government to remove restrictions so they could bill as they wished?

You seem to be on an anti-government triade and yet the very problem is that the government is not regulating the industry.
 
That picture is pretty scary. However, the thing that really scares me is that most of those companies also operate within the US. Canada might just be a training ground for doing the same exact thing here.

I already know they're looking at ways to increase profit. This would be the way for them. Drop enough of those billions they make annually into the pockets of congress-pets, and they'll have their wish come true. Doesn't matter how many people complain. We don't pay them. Corporations do.
 
This free healthcare = sucky internet argument is stupid, please stop it.
 
Unexploded said:
More kool-aid? :D
After all, what reasonable person would complain about them reducing caps and then implementing an overage fee with a 6566.67% markup? None of these companies are hurting--far from it, in fact.

http://www.itworldcanada.com/blogs/nw-watch/2010/02/04/bce-inc-profits-up-84-per-cent/52826/
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Ok so they have a 10% profit margin... better call in the troops comrade!

If you are pissed by a 10% profit margin you better not look at how much the government profits on every single thing you do...
 
Sounds to me like the canadian internet providers, made friends with some elected officials and got this crazy law passed. It will probably die a quick death after public outcry however.

Now I have one more thing to use to make fun of my Canadian friends here in Japan. :D
 
One of the reasons ISPs want caps is the fact they offer television content and also own entire networks of TV stations as well.

Rogers, of course, owns stations like Sportnet and are actively trying to buy Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment which include the Maples Leafs (NHL team), Raptors (NBA team), FC (MLS team) , Marlies (AHL team), TFC (CSL team), Air Canada Centre (arena), Leafs TV, NBA TV Canada, GoITV (soccer channel), Maple Leaf Square (real estate). This way, they can probably outbid the CBC for NHL rights (among other sporting events) so that they can expand their content.

Bell Canada is trying to buy up CTV. Shaw bought Global TV.

All the ISPs are trying to own all the content so if they don't limit users from getting content online from places like Netflix and so on, they will lose cable subscribers.

In Canada, unlike the US, we don't have many free-to-air options. For instance, Vancouver only has something like 3 or 4 ATSC channels and something like 9 or 10 snowy NTSC channels so people either live with paying $50+ / month for cable or watch TV shows online.

If people watch it online, the ISPs cable TV division makes no money. Cap it the internet usage an viola! More revenue either by internet data overage or more cable subscribers.
 
Maximuss said:
20% VAT, scary gas prices, slow internet....
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Yeah I agree with you there, the Conservatives are ruining this country just like they did back in the 80s, I was just referring to his jibe at free healthcare being the reason for all those problems in Canada.

And to be honest, internet speeds in the UK aren't THAT bad.
 
Wrench00 said:
I'm a "Canadian" I hate this country with a passion. I rather be an American I still ask my parents why they immigrated to this shit hole. To bad I don't have a sponsor to the US cause I would gladly give up my retarded citizenship.The only good thing that you get in this country is the Passport so you can leave this crap hole and work in foreign countries where you actually make money and get a head in life. Canada, its like skating up a hill.

After living in South East Asia in supposed less developed countries I had a better cell phone plan better phone, I had reception for 1/4 of the price I pay here. I also had better health care, I could get a CT scan done in under a week, prices of prescription drugs were not outrages. Better services from government agencies, they were actually open until 6pm and the workers went out of their way to help you not screw you with bureaucratic bullshit.

Did I mention I had fiber service for 35 dollars a month.. I downloaded at rates of 2mb/s my upload was 512kb/s.

Canada you will get taxed to death and be told what to do by the government at every god damn opportunity they have. I've visited communist china and there was more Market Freedom then here. Canada is a communist state because the retarded complacent ignoramuses that live here feel that the government should solve all their problems.

CRTC should burn they hurt Canadian market in so many ways its not funny. Hell the whole government should burn for their stupidity.
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Please leave,

Love Canada.
 
And my grandmother in Russia still pays about seven dollars for unlimited, 15mb/s internet.

Something is seriously wrong when Russia has better, cheaper, faster internet than Canada. Then again, it is Canada. :rolleyes:
 
roccovw said:
These caps are nothing new, in fact 10 years ago Shaw had unlimited high speed but what they really meant was that you were unlimited up to 8 gigs combined up and down. I am extremely happy that now for the same price I get 60 gigs, for a bit more I can get 100 gigs with extreme. I have found over the years that I don't need to download a shit load of useless apps. that I don't need, piracy is stupid, if you like a game or app. buy it, if you want to watch tons of movies get off you lazy fat ass, get some fresh air and rent or buy the movie, if you want to steal from the internet you will pay in extra usage fees. If you require extra bandwidth for your business then purchase a business plan. Charging extra is good for me because it will limit that guy next door who's slowing down my connection cause he's constantly downloading shit because he feels that because he's paying for the internet he's owed something.
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but i do buy the games... from steam and their method of delivering it to me is through the internet
like 2 months ago i bought dirt2 and that slightly over 10GB download
all PSP games are bought through the PSN store now
there's some PS3 games from the PSN store too

i do "rent" my movies from netflix and their method of delivering it to me is through the internet as well
an hour of HD movie is about 2GB so it adds up
ISP wants to charge us for these legitimate content we already paid money for
 
TechLarry said:
Someone big and powerful has politicians firmly in their pocket. Nothing else about this makes any sense.

Methinks once the Canadian Citizens really find out what is really going on here, they may end up having their own Tea Party before it's over...
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The analogy doesn't make sense. The Boston Teaparty was a protest against unfair taxation, the current political tea partiers (a.k.a. teabaggers) are unwitting stooges for the same corporate filth that implements ridiculous, regressive policies like this.

Either way it doesn't work.
 
itanium said:
What do you expect in a country that has "free" health care?

These companies probably have to charge these outrageous rates to remain profitable after being taxed to death.
Click to expand...

Taxes are on profits, not revenues so by definition if they weren't profitable they wouldn't be paying taxes. Do you listen to yourself?

Oh and the top marginal tax rate in Canada for personal income is 29%, which is actually lower than the top marginal rate in the U.S. It's amazing what having a decent single-payer system and not having a massively bloated military can do for you.
 
putting a cap on your usage doesn't make sense when they say it's to charge top users for using all of the bandwidth
first bandwidth is a rate but they like to use it interchangeably with the amount you download to confuse you to make their explanation make sense
if their backbone has a limit of 100Gbps and someone download constantly at 1Mbps for a month it will use way over the amount they can download in a month but it would put such a small dent in their bandwidth capacity that it's almost negligible
they use the term bandwidth for the amount ppl download a month to justify their charge
this person downloaded 300GB this month and is hogging all of the bandwidth but technically he might not be he can be downloading something constantly at a very slow speed which uses very little bandwidth
but to ISP since he downloaded 300GB so he used a LOT of "bandwidth"
 
itanium said:
The whole argument that canadian healthcare is free is stupid, please stop it.
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While using my style to reply may make you feel somewhat clever, what you just said makes no sense at all. I've never even started to argue about the cost of Canadian healthcare and you are really going off-topic with your healthcare triade. Healthcare has nothing to do with the quality of our internet.

The only point i can see in your argument would be the over-taxation of business but if you were more aware of canadian politics you'd know that most big businesses pay close to zero taxes over here. Léo-Paul Lauzon, shows in a paper named "L'autre désiquilibre" that the taxes paid in canada went being funded from personals at 45% and businesses at 55% in 1963 to now being at a personal 80% and businesses 20% ratio.

So get that idea out of your head that businesses can't do profit in canada because of the huge taxes they have to pay.

And most of the businesses that are affected by this new rule are business that are doing really good currently, they didn't need a new rule to get money so that they can stay in business.

So really, stop it with the healthcare crap. You seem to be, like some others, of those that as soon as they hear 'Canada', the only thing they can think of is healthcare, even if it has nothing to do with the discussion/debate at hand.
 
good thing i don't live in canada. i average like 600-700 gbs a month. i would totally be poor
 
as was posted before, the major ISPs are doing this to get more profit because it protects their TV business.

One thing that no one mentioned is that with the lower caps, the price STAYS THE SAME AS BEFORE. just for my personal ISP (i'm in ontario)

46.95 + tax = 5meg down 642k up - unlimited download

will turn into

46.95 + tax = 5meg down, 642k up - 30gb cap, 2 bucks per gig over up to 60 dollar overage.

notice something wrong here? Doesn't help that there is zero OTA tv in my area and i don't have cable so i stream most of my stuff (hockey generally). On top of buying all my pc games on steam (for 2 different computers), i stream whatever movies (netflix is online only), starting to see how the ISP makes more money from this now?
 
RIPATI said:
The thing that really burns me is how two faced ISPs and UBB supporters are in regards to the pricing. All the PR VPs and libertarian assholes talk about how it's only fair that those who use more bandwidth pay more. I mean, that's how your energy bill works. Why sholdn't internet access work the same way? And then with the same smug look they talk about charging $1 per gig over your limit. It's outrageous. That gig costs them may 1 penny to transmit, up or down, and they're going to charge 100x that.

Makes me so mad. And there's nothing you can do about it expect complain to your congressman. No market recourse for the user who is educated about the actual costs of the service.

Internet service is like a crazy world where everyone knows it costs about $.50 to make an HDMI cable but the ONLY place to buy them is Best Buy and they all cost $50. Fucking crazy.
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I actually can concede the point of paying for usage like any other utility. What I don't agree with is that you pay a flat fee and then overages. They should charge per GB like electric does per kilowatt or water per gallon.

If they want metered internet the people that only use marginal bandwidth (email and web browsing) should be paying close to nothing. These greedy fuckers want their cake and eat it too.
 
hesho said:
as was posted before, the major ISPs are doing this to get more profit because it protects their TV business.
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Ding Ding Ding. Do you KNOW how many cable subscribers Rogers lost last year to IPTV and streaming video?
 
Kaitian said:
Read the date on that. Now give yourself a minutes to think about that. If it takes longer than that, punch yourself in the face :)
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Well, don't have to read to date to find out that IP-over-pigeon isn't a joke :p
 
nlz242 said:
Well, don't have to read to date to find out that IP-over-pigeon isn't a joke :p
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Well ya, I saw a while back on the actual implementations of it. It was freaking hilarious especially the time delay in between packets.
 
Just got notice from my ISP (Acanac) that I'm going from unlimited bandwidth to 25GB per month. I can purchase an extra 100GB for an additional $10. I don't have a single ISP in my area anymore that offers an unlimited package.

What's really funny is Quebec users get 60GB, they didn't get their knees hacked off with a 25GB cap.
 
Man, I've really been wanting a new SSD too. I guess I should try to download something from a Canadian! :D
 
Runningflame570 said:
The analogy doesn't make sense. The Boston Teaparty was a protest against unfair taxation, the current political tea partiers (a.k.a. teabaggers) are unwitting stooges for the same corporate filth that implements ridiculous, regressive policies like this..
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Wow... and this is why America is screwed. Do you shop at a grocery store? Do you own a computer? Do you drive a car? Do you like restaurants? These are things we have because of CAPITALISM and CORPORATIONS.

Either you can cut down the corporations to stop the corruption or you can cut down the government. The government is a sword that is wielded by the rich and powerful, including your beloved celebrities who make more and employ less than most "evil" corporations. The question is would you rather blunt the sword or cut off the arm. If you'd rather cut off the arm, move to North Korea where there's no evil corporations to hurt you, just the loving and warm government that does everything so great.
 
freeloader1969 said:
Just got notice from my ISP (Acanac) that I'm going from unlimited bandwidth to 25GB per month. I can purchase an extra 100GB for an additional $10. I don't have a single ISP in my area anymore that offers an unlimited package.

What's really funny is Quebec users get 60GB, they didn't get their knees hacked off with a 25GB cap.
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25GB cap? I could hit that in less than an hour and half with my FIOS connection. :(

Hell, my steam folder is almost 200GBs and I'm far from having everything installed. I probably downloaded at least 100GB, if not 150 of that, from the winter sale alone.
 
Runningflame570 said:
The analogy doesn't make sense. The Boston Teaparty was a protest against unfair taxation, the current political tea partiers (a.k.a. teabaggers) are unwitting stooges for the same corporate filth that implements ridiculous, regressive policies like this.

Either way it doesn't work.
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Honestly I think you need to re-examine what the Tea Party actually is. Calling them teabaggers because you picked up on what Anderson Cooper says is not the right way to go. The fact is that they protesting against the government's overburdening of the system with the huge deficit which is now going on 1.2 trillion and growing rapidly for the 3rd year in a row. Not because they're supposedly being unwitting stooges for the Koch Brothers which is far from true. The Koch Brothers are libertarians which is a fact but they are barely vocal especially nor has any actual Tea Party spokesman claiming to represent the entire "organiation" has spoken with the Koch Brothers. The Democrats have been riding on the platform of "We're going to shove this shit down your throat and you're going to love it."

The Tea Party can claim the rights to the fact that they're the ones that got the Bush Tax Cuts renewed, not Obama since he originally wanted to let it expire back to Clinton levels which even the poor would be paying taxes. Spare me that bullshit that Obama would have kept his promise of not raising taxes on the <250K income bracket because he was going to originally blame it on the Republicans for not working with him but thankfully he can't use that card anymore. You're going to come up with a bunch of bullshit to try and counter me with your Slolbermann (oh right, he got fired!) rhetoric.
 
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