Bell Canada To Stop Internet Throttling 159
inject_hotmail.com writes "I just caught wind of a story over at the Huff. Bell Canada has written a letter to the CRTC indicating that it will end traffic shaping on March 1, 2012. Although Bell says that this is due to "increasing popularity of streamed video and other traffic" and 'P2P file-sharing, as a proportion of total traffic, has been diminishing,' it's far more likely that they are interested in higher revenue. In all likelihood, the change of heart is based on the fact that Bell has moved most of their customer base to, and offer no alternative to, low-usage-cap UBB packages, which would ultimately generate more income or deter full usage of their service (and thus require less infrastructure investment)."
Re:Quick, now's our chance! (Score:5, Interesting)
finally got it through their heads to listen to the users and the common good?
No, they finally understood that at the rate current legislation is going around the world, there will be nothing worth downloading in a couple years anyway.
Too Late For Me (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Quick, now's our chance! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not necessarily. Read the summary. All of Bell's customers are now on usage based billing. Here is a summary of a couple of the 'fib' plans (fibre optic network) so you can judge for yourself.
The fastest package is 25Gb/s at $75 per month ($35 for the first year, then it goes up), and has a 125 GB cap. Overage costs $1/GB unless you pay ahead of time for "insurance" at $5/40GB (and similarly 10/80GB and 15/120 GB bucks). Upload is 7 Mb/s.
Their 12Mb/s package is 12 Gb/s at $54 per month ($44/month for the first year), with a 50 GB cap. Overage is $1.50/GB up to $80 each month. Upload is 1Mb/s but if you pay $5 you can get 7 Mb/s. Same download "insurance" as all the other plans including the fastest package already mentioned.
So they are not altruistic. If you download a lot you pay for it. You can make up your own mind if they are reasonable or whether you think they are or aren't still repressing their customers. Personally the 12 Gb/s plan's 50GB cap is pretty bloody low if you ask me. Ridiculous really. But then again bell also has their own IPTV service and pay per view which competes with other services like Netflix. So go figure. The big three regional monopolies do the same thing (Bell, Telus, Rogers).
On the other hand, services like Netflix are far more limited in Canada, and really not of much value. This is mainly because of archaic 'culture protecting' laws (limit foreign networks and shows and enforce certain percentage of 'Canadian content' by hours of broadcast time) and laws allowing the three regional monopolies, Bell, Rogers, and Telus to buy sole distribution rights to foreign (mostly American) shows in Canada. These severely limit what people can download legally or without having technical ability above the average user. So Canadians have been hamstrung us in many other ways in terms of telecommunications and so the need for high caps is somewhat diminished.
And to rub salt into the wound, it is cold for long periods of the year so it isn't surprising that Canadians are near or are the top internet users in the world. So the telecom companies know they dig and still get money. And since the big three dominate so much, they can call the shots and walk over anyone they please will little push back from the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (many of whose board members either have worked previously for the big three, or where they often end up when they leave the CRTC).