A couple of weeks ago, the CRTC board was finally bribed enough to change the rules to allow Bell to charge their wholesalers on a usage-based billing as opposed to the "per bandwidth" rate that's currently in place. The whole point of the non usage-based billing is to allow for competition from smaller companies who want to offer a different product than the big boys. For you Americans, the standard internet plans up here generally carry a 60GB usage limit which, with 2GB per movie on Netflix and streaming off of even legit websites becoming more prominent, is revoltingly inadequate.
Bell and the CRTC used the bullshit "we need to lower congestion on our networks" excuse publicly to try to pass this bribe off as a legit reason. Of course it doesn't even pass the smell test since Bell themselves are offering a "next generation" internet connection called Fibe which offers 25MBit per sec (vs the standard 6) and these predatory companies have all been prepping for this increased usage for years (how the hell do you think Rogers offers On Demand?) and have far more than adequate bandwidth in reserve. But why would they even bother competing when they're not forced to?
It was so bad and blatant what went on that early this week (it was announced last week that the change was coming), the federal government decided to place the decision "under review" (link). When the government even hints at "reviewing" a decision by one of it's own agencies that generally means they've already decided that it's ridiculous and will be overturned. Two days later, the Industry Minister overruled his own agency - the one who's mandate it is to look after the best interest of the public - and told them that if they didn't reverse it, he would (link).
I mention this to show you what kind of regulatory environment we deal with up here when it comes to telecommunications. This is the second time in a year the Industry Minister has had to overrule his agency. When Wind Mobile spent over a year smack-talking Rogers' and Bell's insane cell plan structures, they bought out the CRTC to "review" the ownership structure of Wind and, just before launch, try to pull Wind's license to operate (link). That ridiculousness cause the Minister to step in then as well.
It's this type of shit that goes on which consistently rates Canada poorly compared to the rest of the developed world when it comes to internet policies (link), broadband quality (link), and cellphone rates (link). It's not that we don't have the infrastructure in place, it's our regulatory environment has allowed the oligopoly to run amok.
Motherless fucks, all of them. And we can't do jack shit about it. All we can do is just sit there and take it up the ass
Bell and the CRTC used the bullshit "we need to lower congestion on our networks" excuse publicly to try to pass this bribe off as a legit reason. Of course it doesn't even pass the smell test since Bell themselves are offering a "next generation" internet connection called Fibe which offers 25MBit per sec (vs the standard 6) and these predatory companies have all been prepping for this increased usage for years (how the hell do you think Rogers offers On Demand?) and have far more than adequate bandwidth in reserve. But why would they even bother competing when they're not forced to?
It was so bad and blatant what went on that early this week (it was announced last week that the change was coming), the federal government decided to place the decision "under review" (link). When the government even hints at "reviewing" a decision by one of it's own agencies that generally means they've already decided that it's ridiculous and will be overturned. Two days later, the Industry Minister overruled his own agency - the one who's mandate it is to look after the best interest of the public - and told them that if they didn't reverse it, he would (link).
I mention this to show you what kind of regulatory environment we deal with up here when it comes to telecommunications. This is the second time in a year the Industry Minister has had to overrule his agency. When Wind Mobile spent over a year smack-talking Rogers' and Bell's insane cell plan structures, they bought out the CRTC to "review" the ownership structure of Wind and, just before launch, try to pull Wind's license to operate (link). That ridiculousness cause the Minister to step in then as well.
It's this type of shit that goes on which consistently rates Canada poorly compared to the rest of the developed world when it comes to internet policies (link), broadband quality (link), and cellphone rates (link). It's not that we don't have the infrastructure in place, it's our regulatory environment has allowed the oligopoly to run amok.
Motherless fucks, all of them. And we can't do jack shit about it. All we can do is just sit there and take it up the ass
I was there on that fateful day, were you?
