What the US Can Learn From Canada's Internet Policy 144
blottsie writes As the U.S. continues to debate how best to establish net neutrality regulations over Internet service providers, author and journalist Peter Nowak explains how how Canada has already dealt with these issues, and what the U.S. can learn from its neighbor to the north."[Canadian Prime Minister Stephen] Harper has made the connection between telecom policy and actual votes, and that has had enormous impact on public policy," says Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa. "This is a ballot-box or pocket-book issue that hasn't really been seen yet in the United States."
Was impressed until.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The rules prohibited ISPs from interfering with internet traffic, except as a last resort, and urged them to instead combat network congestion with âoeeconomic measuresâ such as new investment or usage limits.
Those limits have resulted in relatively low monthly caps for Canadians, but the rules have kept neutrality violations to a minimum."
If given the choice between investing in infrastructure and usage limits what do you think American ISPs would do?
Also, all the speed in the world doesn't do much good with low caps.
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most of those usage caps aren't actively enforced with canadian ISPs i have both the major western providers and regularly use more than double my alotment the cable provider cares more and often requires me to threaten to cancel before they unthrottle me but they always do.
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1. You can't price based on traffic..all traffic is treated the same.
Of course...you can flesh this out a bit, to allow for fixing traffic problems, etc...but keep it simple. Make it a law we can ALL read and tweak as needed with time.
We don't need 2000 pages for this...
Re:Was impressed until.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm, seems to be a reference to the ACA. Note that we didn't need 2000 pages for that, either.
Start with "Age of eligibility for Medicare decreases by one year for every 90 days after the date this legislation becomes law".
Then, "All individuals under the age of majority (currently 18 in the USA, last I looked) are eligible for Medicare as of the date this legislation becomes law".
At that point, we're on a 12 year transition to Single-Payer, and everyone should be happy (except possibly the Insurance Companies that bought the ACA).
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And those that don't want more if any govt intrusion and management of their health.
I don't think the majority if Americans want Federal Govt. run healthcare. You still see that in the polls today.
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In Canada the Provinces run the healthcare with the Federal Govt setting the minimum baseline and transferring money between the rich and poor Provinces.
Each province is similar but not exactly the same when it comes to health care which is why it's kind of funny when other countries talk about wait lists and such in Canada as it's a generalization.
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Here's the difference between Canadian and US Health care (as a summary) before O-Care:
US had a slightly higher top end standard (in places like the Mayo Clinic) and you could get better health care if you were covered by a great program from a good HMO (but it often cost). Canada had better overall coverage as we didn't have so many uncovered men, women and children. The problem in the US was that, if you got sick then had to change jobs, your new HMO likely would want to write up your health issue as pre-
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The problem in the US was that, if you got sick then had to change jobs, your new HMO likely would want to write up your health issue as pre-existing and you wouldn't have coverage.
This is a common misconception. The situation that you describe was illegal under HIPAA (pre-ObamaCare) due to the "P" in HIPAA.
If you moved from one job to another and maintained continuous health insurance coverage (employers were required to offer this under COBRA), the new insurer could not exclude anything as a preexisting condition. If, however, you dropped health insurance coverage for too long, then the new insurer could exclude any preexisting condition for up to 12 months. After that, then they co
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It is just here, what we don't believe that someone else should pay your way for most anything.
Aside from a few safety nets, it is about the individual....not the collective.
In the US, sure...get all the healthcare you want, just don't expect ME to have to pay for you, I'm too busy saving for myself and family.
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Yes...and exactly what's wrong with this...?
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The only rational reason that ACA exisists is to make Insurance-funded heathcare so bad that a socialized single payer system looks better in comparison. Under US law, Income taxes are specifically excluded from discharge via bankruptcy proceedings so we've gone from a system where people were forced into bankruptcy for medical expenses, to a system where even bankruptcy will not save you from your medical expenses and if for any reason the IRS finds that your subsidy was in error, they will not only requir
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Possibly the policy cost would not be dischargable, but I'm pretty sure they would just stop the policy.
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Well, in the US, rather than tons of red tape, bureaucracy, and regulations...how about simple rules one at a time as needed.
1. You can't price based on traffic..all traffic is treated the same.
Oh, you mean Title II classification?
Title II comes with thousands of pages. Even Obama (Score:2)
> > How about simple rules one at a time as needed.
>Oh, you mean Title II classification?
Title II is quite the opposite - over 100 pages of statute enabled by thousands of pages of regulations. You may have noticed Obama said he wanted to put them under Title II in regards to adding the USF tax to your bill and certain other parts, but not other parts of title II. The FCC commisioners had to point out that it doesn't work that way - the president doesn't get to write abnew law for some people b
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> > How about simple rules one at a time as needed.
>Oh, you mean Title II classification?
Title II is quite the opposite - over 100 pages of statute enabled by thousands of pages of regulations. You may have noticed Obama said he wanted to put them under Title II in regards to adding the USF tax to your bill and certain other parts, but not other parts of title II. The FCC commisioners had to point out that it doesn't work that way - the president doesn't get to write abnew law for some people by picking and choosing a few parts of the law he likes while leaving out other parts. If we want a new law appropriate for ISPs, Congress would need to pass such a law.
Actually, the FCC can do just that, according to the relevant law [fcc.gov] (cf. SEC. 203. [47 U.S.C. 203] SCHEDULES OF CHARGES):
I'd also point out th
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The Conservative government actually leaned on the CRTC (an FCC-esque government agency staffed by big-media cronies, which are incidentally in bed with the Liberals) to relax these rules and raise the limits. If it wasn't for the government acting (granted, after a grassroots outcry), independent ISPs would have been regulated to irrelevance by the CRTC.
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With the conservatives sometimes you win some and sometimes you lose some. The minute it becomes politically advantageous to harm the internet in the country you can bet they would. This is not a government that is concerned with doing the right thing. They want to get re-elected first and foremost. This time it worked in our favour. The other two major political parties are no better. The article makes it sound like Canada has it all figured out. I was chuckling when I read it. I guess if your fram
Re:Was impressed until.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Sounds like you are benefiting more from the competition than from the regulation.
Given the natural monopoly condition that laying cables in the ground creates, regulation can force the competition into existence. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
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Re:Was impressed until.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like you are benefiting more from the competition than from the regulation.
Competition introduced by regulation.
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Re:Was impressed until.. (Score:4, Informative)
And what regulation, exactly, enabled that competition? Simply declaring ISPs as utilities will certainly not encourage that type of competition.
Forcing the incumbents to, simply put, "wholesale" to IISPs. We went from a choice of 1 DSL provider and 1 cable provider per area to over 200 registered ISPs across the country. It's no where near as good as functional separation but it's better than the US system.
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That approach makes more sense than some that think simply declaring US ISPs as utilities will be a step forward.
The title 2 change is simply a legally convenient way around waiting for congress to give them the authority they need to deal with the problems. Otherwise it'll be whack-a-mole situation that will cost millions in legal battles over language and authority of regulation.
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It sounds like you are onl
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My service is $42 a month Cdn for 25 Mbps down and 2 or 3 Mbps up (enough to serve skype conferences) with a 300 Gb cap but it also doesn't count 'wee hours' usage (12 - 6 am?) and I've only once come close to the cap and that was a mix of massive software installs and updates combined with heavy netflix high-res usage that month.
And its with Teksavvy. I was soooo glad to say goodbye to Rogers and previously Primus and Bell at different times.
Teksavvy may use Rogers' cable (or as I think of it, taxpayer-fun
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I have several computers on here at home 24/7/365...I'm constantly streaming stuff...etc. I have no idea how much data I use, but I have guess it is FAR north of 300GB/mo.
So I'm looking at my internet usage here for the last 6 months. I've got 4-5PCs on 24x7 including a personal server. I work from a home office usually. I've got 100Mb/5Mb connection I don't have cable tv, and the family streams 100s hours of netflix youtube daily. My plans limit is 500GB. My average download is 250GB. With anothoher 10 to
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I pay $70/mo.
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You wrote "business", just so, in quotes - so I presumed it was little more than a bump up in price, maybe static ip (still served to your router via DHCP), and a commitment to prioritize your outages, and fewer limits on outbound mail etc.
In my case I'm on consumer. The "business" version for $20 more gets me static ip... but with my ISPs infrastructure that's really that's just little more than a commitment to notify me in advance of an ip address change. In practice my ip changes so rarely (only 1 once i
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$70 would equal $100+ in Canada. We're a large sparsely populated country and most everything costs about a 1/3rd more then the States (even more compared to the Southern States)
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a) you're not even close to the 99th percentile. There are users of Teksavvy's 300gb/m services that manage over 1.5TB of data in a month without overages (they give free upload, free download from 2am to 8am)
b) You are in Canada.
c) or just get the unlimited package or "Zap the Cap" (trade prime time speed for unlimited data transfer)and do as many terabytes as your speed will allow.
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a) you're not even close to the 99th percentile.
Oh, I assure you I am. 99th percentile, of course, means 99% of users use less. And they do. I've got plenty of sources that back that up. I don't question that there are users using more, even lots more.... but
a) 99% of users still use less
b) given how much I do use, I really do find it genuinely difficult to imagine many home users actually needing much more unless they are torrenting a TON... and my argument there was that "being able to torrent a ton" does
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a) If you're with Teksavvy you're not in their 99th percentile at 400GB/month. I'm with TSI as well and their 99th percentile is 1TB+. You're above average but not anywhere near their top end
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You aren't entitlted to stream uncompressed bluray rips 24 hours a day while performing daily encrypted non-differential backups to a cloud provider for $60 month.
You are entitled to do so in Canada (assuming they are legal rips) on a $60 plan - heck you're entitled to do so on a $20 plan. Uploads are free with TSI with zero restrictions.
c) My point was that you don't need bonding or business to do terabytes per month - people do it on a regular basis with 25/10 plans.
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If you're with Teksavvy you're not in their 99th percentile at 400GB/month. I'm with TSI as well and their 99th percentile is 1TB+. You're above average but not anywhere near their top end
99th percentile of internet users. Not 99th percentile of Teksavvy customers. Given Teksavvy is only a small fraction of the market (and its largely a niche market that is attracted to teksavvy precisely because of its upload etc policies, etc.)
You are entitled to do so in Canada (assuming they are legal rips) on a $60 pla
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Part of it is that the incumbents count upload and download equally so when you compare a 500GB upload/download plan to a 300GB download only plan they don't compare. Take my usage last month: 185.32GB down on a 300GB/m plan. Barely meet the average for TSI. Except that that identical usage with the likes of Bhell, Robbers, Cogeblow, or any of the other incumbents I would have been at 957.35GB of 500GB/m. I don't do anything special and easily come close to/hit 1TB.
The theoretical maximum data transfer
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Hughesnet Gen4, 10 Gb anytime, 10Gb from 02:00-08:00, it's pretty hard to not hit the cap for me. No DSL possible, they'd have to replace the telephone line from the DSLAM to the house, comcast just laughes. Our electricity comes in single phase, we don't even have cross beams on the power poles, just hot and neutral one above the other. OBTW I am in the US, not Afganistan or Hati.
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In my area, there is $50 a month for 30Mbps download, 5Mbps upload, unlimited cap.
See this plan [vmedia.ca]
Re:Was impressed until.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I live in Ontario. I have the choice of about 25 ISPs, multiple DSL, multiple Cable, a few wireless, some satellite...
The problem with DSL is the last mile belongs to Bell, the others just rent the lines at wholesale prices. Same with Cable, it's either Rogers or Cogeco, depending on location, for the last mile.
However, unlike Cogeco, I get to pay an "indie" ISP $50/mo for a 20mbps/10mbps uncapped package, where Cogeco wants to charge $100 for the same thing.
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It is a bit unfair the upstarts get away with leasing rather than their own build out, but since the Big 3 got their build-outs on the back of the Canadian Taxpayer, I don't really feel so bad.
If we decoupled content provision from bit pipe/access provision, we'd be in better shape. Access provision would be a lower margin thing, but cities and even non-profits could invest (thinking of folks like Ottawa FreeNet) if the government would back them up. Rogers, Bell and Telus could stick to content provision (
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All the speed in the world doesn't do much good if you can't stream Netflix in HD. Or your webpages take forever to load because the website didn't pay your ISP. Or your VoIP calls are shitty because the links are so overloaded latency spikes.
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You mean keep talking but don't make changes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You mean keep talking but don't make changes (Score:4, Insightful)
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I've said this before and I'll say it again. Look at what you are getting and how much you pay for it before calling it a sham. In 1990 you wouldn't have dreamed to have what you have now and this for a misally $30 / month. Caps are a non issue since most providers offer upgrades to increase the cap at a very reasonable rate (call them and you'll find out). If you don't think your current cost for information is reasonable then try to live without it.
Nobody is obligated to offer low cost entertainment. It's
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my internet bill has not increased since 1999 and my service is 7 times faster than it was in 1999
So? As you can see from graph 4 on this [stanford.edu] page wholesale bandwidth prices fell 700% in 5 years, you're 3 fold below that drop in price which is only possible because the last mile is a minimally competitive market (oligopoly).
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Yes but that is wholesale which doesn't include service as part of the price.
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You're lucky, my price has more then doubled and my connection speed is still 12MBs per hour. I'm about 45 miles from downtown Vancouver.
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I assume you mean 12Mbs. Not 12Mbs per hour.
Can you provide specifics? Provider, plan...
And it won't be (Score:5, Insightful)
Not while the mega-conglomerates control the news AND the cables it runs on. And, of course, the Senators who would vote on it.
Votes needed, extra dollars optional (Score:2)
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Apparently (Score:2)
Apparently they can learn that it's yet another way to buy votes.
God help us all.
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America won't learn from any country. In fact, we don't even learn from our own history.
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Insert obligatory "Call that a history?" comment.
Really? (Score:1)
Obama calls for NN at a time when he has nothing to lose, a republican controlled congress that hates him, and he previously appointed a lobbyist for the industry to the head of the FCC.
For 6 years Canada has had their policy in place, in those same 6 years the Internet issues have grown worse here in the US.
Now put those 2 statements together and what do you think will happen here. -- notice no question mark.
Change Last Mile (Score:5, Insightful)
IF you really want to fix the Internet, and fix Net Neutrality, fix the last mile issue.
Right now I have a choice of the following Comcast Cable, AT&T DSL, or Wireless Internet. Comcast has the higher speeds, DSL is unusable where I am located, and wireless is too flaky. Comcast has no real competition on delivery.
My Solution: Upgrade the Municipality to FIOS service to a COLO facility. Bring Fiber to each home (one time bond build out) and have several providers offer service out of the COLO. Net Neutrality issues go away, you can pay for exactly what you want/need. Bandwidth issues become points for competition, "We've Peered with Netflix so SUPERHD videos now available!"
We do not need new laws to fix this, we need better understanding of how to build competition into the marketplace, rather than build in regulations that only serve the vested interests who can afford politicians.
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But that makes sense. It'll never happen unless it can be monetized into campaign contributions.
Re:Change Last Mile (Score:4, Insightful)
Or it will never happen until you can figure out how to pay for it. Higher taxes? Higher fees?
Paying for it is not a big deal. Pay for it the way all public works projects are paid for, with a twist.
1. Create a non-profit corporation to implement and manage infrastructure owned by the local government.
2. Issue bonds to pay for the infrastructure.
3. Sell access to the infrastructure to ISPs who sell internet access and compete on price/service/features.
4. Use the revenue for maintenance, bond repayment and upgrades.
5. Profit^H^H^H^H^H^H High speed last mile with lots of competition.
Well, that was easy. Next!
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Is there anything stopping people from putting on the ballot and voting for a tax increase to lay down fiber paid and owned for by them, in order to create more competition?
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Right, but that's only because various municipalities allowed all kinds of monopolies in order to build the thing their constituents weren't willing to pay for themselves at the time. Hey comcast, come and lay this cable here at your expense and we'll give you legally enforced monopoly in exchange. Later: OMG monopoly!!!
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Actually the cable company we had wasn't too bad execpt they didn't have enough capital to upgrade the system. Comcast just bought them out, upgraded to a fiber-based system, then went all draconian on us.
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Upgrade the Municipality to FIOS service to a COLO facility.
I believe that states have started passing laws against municipalities laying their own fiber because the states are tired of bailing out bankrupt municipalities who have done so.
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Upgrade the Municipality to FIOS service to a COLO facility.
I believe that states have started passing laws against municipalities laying their own fiber because the states are tired of bailing out bankrupt municipalities who have done so.
Citations please. How many municipalities have created their own local last-mile implementations? How many have gone bankrupt? You're talking out of your ass and it smells that way too.
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Citations please. How many municipalities have created their own local last-mile implementations? How many have gone bankrupt? You're talking out of your ass and it smells that way too.
A quick search found Municipal broadband expansion blocked in many states [timesfreepress.com]. I'm not claiming that the municipalities are going bankrupt (like what happened with Provo, UT and why Google was able to buy their fiber for $1), but I know that's the reasoning being presented to the state legislatures. I wouldn't be surprised if a lobbyist could go before your average state representative and say "Municipalities are doing X, and going bankrupt over it. You'd better stop X in your state so you won't have to bail ou
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Citations please. How many municipalities have created their own local last-mile implementations? How many have gone bankrupt? You're talking out of your ass and it smells that way too.
A quick search found Municipal broadband expansion blocked in many states [timesfreepress.com]. I'm not claiming that the municipalities are going bankrupt (like what happened with Provo, UT and why Google was able to buy their fiber for $1), but I know that's the reasoning being presented to the state legislatures. I wouldn't be surprised if a lobbyist could go before your average state representative and say "Municipalities are doing X, and going bankrupt over it. You'd better stop X in your state so you won't have to bail out your Municipalities", and the representative wouldn't spend time double checking the reality of the situation. They just know that they wouldn't want to deal with a budget crises where all of their municipalities are going bankrupt.
That such arguments are being made may very well be the case. It's certainly plausible that those with vested interests would make such an argument. I'm not going to waste my time reviewing transcripts of debates in 20+ statehouses to determine if it is, in fact, the case.
That said, just because such an argument may be made, doesn't mean it's true.
You contradict yourself by first saying:
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That is the argument used by the incumbents, which has mostly been debunked. The small number of muni networks that have failed have been shown to be the result of mismanagement, malfeasance, or both. Municipalities that do proper due diligence and actually operate for the good of the people they serve have had a stellar success rate with mostly satisfied customers.
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My Solution: Upgrade the Municipality to FIOS service to a COLO facility. Bring Fiber to each home (one time bond build out) and have several providers offer service out of the COLO. Net Neutrality issues go away, you can pay for exactly what you want/need. Bandwidth issues become points for competition
Certainly a much better scenario than regulating as a utility and potentially hurting the chances of competition arising.
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How do you imagine you build competition into the marketplace? It sounds a lot like new regulations to me.
The problem is there is no interest from the big incumbents to do anything other than attempt whatever stranglehold they can and they have piles of people figuring out how to do just that in one form or another.
Without regulation, you'll never get out of this mess. That requires law and lawyers and enforcement.
Frankly, if internet service were mandated as a common utility, that might be a useful change.
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You don't need a lot of regulation, just enough to remove bottle necks from competition. If somebody screws their customers a competitor will grab them, the system regulates itself.
Exactly my point. Regulations typically stifle competition, preventing others from joining the marketplace. Infrastructure has no competition, it is build once, upgrade/repair/replace every 10 - 20 years (as needed) and go forward. Moving the competition from the home to the COLO facility (or renting last mile in your case) makes competition viable at the home because they are competing before the last mile.
I'm trying to get people to realize that understanding where the problem actually lies, and solving t
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You do realise it's never going to happen without a law right ? Otherwise, it would have been done already. Competition is not in the interest of the major ISP. Worse yet you cannot provide last mile upgrade or competition without right of way unless you go wireless and you need spectrum. And the most obvious solution, that is nationalise the last mile, is not going to happen without forcing the cable and phone provider to sell the infrastructure.
The last option, to force municipalities to build and maintain a fiber network is going to face lobby, lack of budget and expertise and lack of interest. All issues that municipalities do not have the strenght to take on alone.
This is an issue for big gouvernement.
Your spelling choice ("nationlialise" rather than "nationalize") leads me to believe (my apologies if I am mistaken) that you are a product of the UK educational system. As such, it's worthwhile to clarify that last mile infrastructure is strictly a local issue. That is to say all last mile infrastructure requires approvals and oversight from the local and/or state govenrment, *not* the Federal government. In fact, attempting to nationalize such infrastructure would be contrary to both the letter and spi
My solution (Score:1)
Basically, if the ISP's are managing service based on content, they are no longer a neutral service provider ("common carrier" like the post office).
Therefore they can be held responsible for the content they're providing. (Hey, they're TAKING the responsibility, we're not dumping it on them)
Therefore the ISP should be charged with trafficking in child pornography the next time one of their users is charged.
I have no doubt that the lawyers will find a way to get the charges dropped, but it should make for s
What can the US learn? (Score:1)
Let's see:
- Implement a CRTC and ensure it is run by the major telcos. This way the CRTC can crush local competition while pretending to permit access to the major telcos lines.
- Said CRTC will always approve the most ridiculous limits the major telcos ask for, and will generally ignore complaints that the major telcos only have to bill themselves for overages on those limits. For example: 60 GB data transfer limits, then 300 GB data transfer limits, with exorbitant per GB transfer prices
Profit$ (Score:1)
How to make millions of dollars in profit by over-charging and under-delivering on products and services.
Germany! (Score:1)
The advantages of moving to Germany.
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Good beer is nine euro/ten liters? Anybody else got another advantage?
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Move to Germany.
Nine euro is the expensive stuff. You can get a crate (20 half liter bottles) of cheap but good Pilsner for about 7.50 euro.
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When I was there the local brewery, Löwenbräu of Grafenwöhr (not München) delivered to your door untill they went out of business.
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Nah it's ok, where I live we have the biggest Oktoberfest in the world outside of Germany.
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Fun Fact... It use to be called "Berlin" at one point in time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... [wikipedia.org]
the grass is decidedly not greener (Score:2)
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We pay the price for the bit of regulatory advantage we have.
Not in my experience.
I see US commercials for home internet and mobile data and am blown away.
Canadians get offered advertised rates that are enough to "blow one away". In the small print, it's always "for the first 6 months, then it doubles". See Telus and Shaw for examples.
Data rates are so expensive up here in Canada compared to what is advertised in th US. My cell bill is 80 bucks a month, and I get a measly 1 gig a month shared with my wife's phone - she still has to pay 65 bucks for her phone service itself even though she shares my data (granted we get unlimited nationwide calling and texting, but this seems to be the norm for most plans).
Then shop around. I pay $40 / month and get 5 GB / month on mobile before throttling, unlimited global SMS, unlimited North America-wide voice calling, free MMS, voice mail, call conferencing, call display,... Wind Mobile. Oh, and the wife gets unlimited nation-wide calling for $25 too. Our accounts are
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Wow! That is a good deal. Out of curiosity, what is the non-roaming coverage like for Wind outside of major urban centres like Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Toronto? Also, is the 4G/LTE coverage fairly consistent?
Sorry for the late reply.
Whistler is covered. Barrie is covered. Oshawa to London is covered, I believe. All around the western shore of Lake Ontario.
No LTE (not an issue for me in the slightest). HSPA (sp?) is okay for my purposes - I've run my whole home network through my tethered phone while between cable internet providers.
Windmobile.ca has a map of their supposed coverage. CoverageMapper app [coveragemapper.com] has very specific details as reported by users of the app on various networks (download and help fill in you
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My DSL started out at $39 in 2012 (not counting the new subscriber discount), and has steadily increased about every 6-8 months to its present price for roughly the same level of service.
Sounds exactly like my experience in Vacouver with Shaw.
When I found out that one of the brothers in charge got highly intoxicated at the AGM and insulted investors, and was fired - kidding! - was paid to go away - to the tune of an $80,000,000 retirement package, well that was the final straw for me.
Bonus - TekSavvy as ISP over cable modem in Vancouver uses Shaw's quite decent infrastructure, but it's much cheaper.
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no but i am certain it will take the full force of the FCC to keep it from swirling into the shithole that cable tv currently resides in.
So fuck your Randian bullshit with a flame thrower. We can burn the government house down AFTER we bury the telco bodies inside. That is if you think its really going to be an issue, but i can tell from your post you haven't given this much more though then the time it took you you type that incessant tripe.
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Seconded. I have only one choice of internet where I live: Bell. My speed is ridiculously low 0.5 Mbps download, and huge lag spikes are frequent. Welcome to Canada.
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just depends on where you live.I live in a medium sized city and I probably have about a dozen choices. of course all of them boil down to using either rogers or bells last mile line but price is still way cheaper.