Omr
join:2004-01-10
M1S-1B3
| reply to cacruden
Re: Hands off our network, Bell tells CRTC
That is it, been a lifelong Liberal ... now my allegiance has ultimately shifted towards NDP. That Jim Prentice guy got owned, and what is up with the consumer taking it up with the ISP none-sense. I clearly am not a person Bell will listen to, the Bells and Rogers clearly showed me that they didn't want me as there customer (I know what I pay for, and every time they took away a feature and yet raised prices I knew I was being pushed off a cliff unwillingly). I find a service that is impeccable, that treated me as worthy client "VIP  ", told the "TRUTH", compromised and communicated with it's client base, and only asked of me to pay my monthly and bring a couple of people on board. The cartel (Rogers and Bell in cahoots) slap me in the face again with there rhetoric.
Jim Prentice says we have a Robust internet, is he on crack? Bell is saying there hardware is congested, they are peeling back on there ability to deliver, and jacking up the prices. Also come on, when someone was on Sympatico (I'm a former Rogers customer) and was told they use excessive Bandwidth, they weren't told you congest our hardware ... now that they sold us on the idea of caps, they want the idea of throttling to also become entrenched ... piss off is all I have to say. They want to become the sole gatekeepers of the net in Canada ... I think it's time to let the American congolomerates loose in Canada, see what Bell/ Rogers do when they start facing companies with even bigger wallets.
I'm so dissappointed at this governments reaction to this issue. They're waiting to see this play itself out? Are you mad? The only thing that'll happen if this is played out is that Bell with it's lawyers and Laszlow's will squish the little guy. Damn it, who's Harper waiting for ... a call from Bush to tell him to react? I pay taxes for this guy to say we'll just watch it unfold? It's like he doesn't answer to the public but rather he looks like a Corporate lap dog. |
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InvalidError
join:2008-02-03
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
 ·Videotron
| reply to Arbalister
said by Arbalister  :No, if Bell somehow manages to win their appeal, you will have *no* choice. Cable or Bell. Period. Independant ISPs will be finished. Quite true. And if that happens, there will be no chance in hell that cable and Bell will maintain decent pricing levels. If that happened, it would be about time people and independant ISPs started funding a COOP fiber backbone. |
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elpale1
@rogers.com
| quote:
Quite true. And if that happens, there will be no chance in hell that cable and Bell will maintain decent pricing levels. If that happened, it would be about time people and independant ISPs started funding a COOP fiber backbone.
That would be really good. A brand new major corporation with a chance for consumer ethics.
I'd sure love to work in the marketing deparment in such a company and help develop it in a consumer oriented manner.  Now thats my dream job! |
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Turbinator
join:2007-10-14
Mississauga, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
1 edit | reply to cacruden
Seems very appropriate;
As long as they are in power, nothing will happen.
I can never bring myself to understand why people voted in our very own Bush of Canada. |
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sMURF
join:2007-02-27
Toronto, ON | reply to cacruden
Wow, they're out of control now. Bell needs to be destroyed before they fuck everything up.
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Bell sucks. |
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trog
join:2001-03-25
Scarborough, ON
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| reply to InvalidError
said by InvalidError :said by Arbalister :No, if Bell somehow manages to win their appeal, you will have *no* choice. Cable or Bell. Period. Independant ISPs will be finished. Quite true. And if that happens, there will be no chance in hell that cable and Bell will maintain decent pricing levels. If that happened, it would be about time people and independant ISPs started funding a COOP fiber backbone. Surely the issue is not so much the backbone; rather the issue is the last-mile; the connection to the homes. For a firm like TSI (or even a consortium of ISPs) to attempt the last mile connection would be prohibitively expensive. |
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ftp1020
join:2007-01-30
Canada
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| said by trog :Surely the issue is not so much the backbone; rather the issue is the last-mile; the connection to the homes. For a firm like TSI (or even a consortium of ISPs) to attempt the last mile connection would be prohibitively expensive. It's not expensive, it's impossible. Do you think any old company can string their wires on telephone poles or run fibre through underground pipes? For this very reason, monopoly status was accepted for telcos and cablecos both, and the so-called price was tariffs and regulation. In reality, though, all it has really meant is that in exchange for no competition, the telcos and cablecos cannot arbitrarily increase the price of basic services (dial tone or the first 30 TV channels) without government consent.
When it comes to "extra, non-essentials" liked tiered cable channels or calling features, the sky's the limit, baby. And as we're now finding out, last-mile internet access is part of that same blue sky of unlimited profitability and zero regulation.
Think of this: Teksavvy and everyone who works for them somehow exist between the $20 tariff and the $30 they charge for their internet service. Meanwhile, Bell has the advantage of economies of scale (meaning their marginal costs, ie. the cost of adding one more customer to their system is less), and also the cost advantage of outsourcing telephone support. In other words, Teksavvy's operating costs (per customer) are actually higher than Bell's.
With quite literally every variable tilted in their favour, Bell still feels the need to strangle their tiny competitors. In the past, Rocky "played nice" with Bell in the hope that their collective greed would be constrained. His mistake was assuming that he was dealing with a human being who would at least recognize his sense of fair play. He's since discovered that human beings might work for Bell, but that it is still a corporation with all the institutional instincts of any large corporation: callous unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness (repeated lying to and deceiving of others for profit), incapacity to experience guilt and failure to conform to the social norms with respect to lawful behaviors.
If you were to look in the DSM-IV to describe this behaviour in an individual, you would find only one definition: psychopathy.
So, all of you going on about this being "unfair" or "illegal" ... remember what you are dealing with here. |
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Pocky
join:2008-04-01 | reply to cacruden
I'm writting to the prime minister, if Jim Prentice can't do his job and sits idly on his hands then he should be replaced with someone who will do their job. |
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Name96
join:2008-03-28
| reply to cacruden
Bell's basic argument is that there are so many competitors out there that Bell should be able to arbitrarily wipe most of them out. That kind of thinking makes sense in the boardroom and among the kind of people who comprise Canada's New Government, but it's not going to hold much water in the courts.
Ironically, Bell's imposition of traffic filtering could count against their case to truncate the CRTC's authority. A company that already engages in anti-competitive behavior in a regulated environment can't make a strong case that it will behave itself in a deregulated environment.
--
Coridon Henshaw -=- »www.talisiorder.ca |
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derekm
join:2008-02-26
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| reply to justsometech
More letters!
Minister Prentice,
I have heard your rebuttal to the points raised by NDP member Charlie Angus in the house today.
You answer to his question was:
"..the Internet is not regulated in Canada..."
What the member Charlie Angus was referring to was the service *that is* regulated by the CRTC: Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-17.
*This is not Internet service.*
Bell Canada is throttling access from my home to my (third-party) ISP. This is not part of Internet traffic.
My ISP is leasing the high speed lines from Bell, who are required by the CRTC to provide this line to them. The ISP in turn, purchases Internet access from companies other than Bell, and transmits it down my high speed line.
By reducing the functionality of these high speed lines, Bell is eliminating a service differentiator for these third-party ISPs, to their direct benefit. This is what the minister was referring to by "... a few large players being able to squeeze out competition ..." This is a point that these independent ISPs are relying on.
It is a complicated matter, and I ask that you take a good, hard look at all of the issues at involved. With regard to Canada's Economic Growth and Long-Term Prosperity, we require competition in the telecom market.
Do you have any intention to inform yourself on *exactly* what the current situation is, before making a decision on it?
Sincere Thanks,
... |
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Arbalister
join:2007-11-24
St Catharines, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to ftp1020
said by ftp1020 :And as we're now finding out, last-mile internet access is part of that same blue sky of unlimited profitability and zero regulation. No, it's not. Thats what Bell is attempting to appeal, the CRTC decision that makes last mile an essential service that they have no choice but to sell to the Indies for cost + 15%. Period. It's not, as Prentice said "unregulated internet" that is the issue here, it's *regulated* last mile connectivity. By saying "oh, the CRTC doesn't regulate the Internet" as if that was even pertinent to the discussion, he just proved he has no idea what he's talking about. We're talking about Bell knowingly reneging on require, regulated, tariffed services. |
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Arbalister
join:2007-11-24
St Catharines, ON | reply to derekm
Nice letter...I think I'll be writing him too...and since I've heard not one peep out of my Tory local MP, I'll probably write Charlie too. |
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Name96
join:2008-03-28
| reply to cacruden
It's a very good idea to write letters to opposition members like Charlie Angus and members of the various parties' shadow cabinets[1]. Put together all the facts in layman's terms and make a case that Prentice's misunderstanding makes him unfit to hold his post.
There is nothing opposition parties like more than calling out a government minister for ignorance, ineptitude or incompetence. Accusations of incompetence also attract a lot of media attention, which is both essential to motivate the government and keeps an uncomfortable spotlight on Bell.
[1] An explanation is too long to put here. Google it.
--
Coridon Henshaw -=- »www.talisiorder.ca |
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jfmezei
Premium
join:2007-01-03
Beaconsfield, QC
·ELECTRONICBOX
| reply to cacruden
The big question is whether the CRTC feels pressure from opposition parties, of if they only feel it from the party in power.
If the CRTC only feels pressure from party in power, then it is the reform party members that need to be convinced of this issue.
However, it is important to get the opposition parties involved in this because they will force Reform to also get involved.
It is a shame though that the Liberal party is without a leader and has been rendered totally useless, unable to call an election because they know they would be decimated, so they end up supporting Reform. |
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derekm
join:2008-02-26
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| reply to NiGHTS
Aren't journalists supposed to know how to spell? WTF is throddle? Ha! |
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alekssavvy
join:2007-06-27
Etobicoke, ON
| reply to cacruden
as much as i hate bell i do believe the government should stay out of this. i would much rather see some innovation and progress than the same old inferior technologies. short term pain for long term gain please.
many of the problems we have with wireless and broadband in this country are a result of the government stepping in way too much. just look at the mess its created by banning foreign competition (big companies with big money willing to invest and compete). cable and telephone are only two ways to transfer data.
stop bickering and begging for government help and do something about it. |
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Name96
join:2008-03-28
| reply to jfmezei
It's nearly impossible to convince Alberta conservatives that government intervention into what they view as the commercial sphere is desirable or necessary. Economic laissez-faire is such a fundamental part of their ideology that it'd be easier to convince them the sky is green than to convince them to interfere with the "free" "market." The elected portion of the government will not move on this issue unless subject to extreme pressure on the scale that could cost them an election. I don't see people getting that upset about Internet access just yet.
In the event neither the CRTC or the courts move against Bell's apparent efforts to crush third party ISPs, I fear the best we can hope to accomplish through the elected government is to fight a holding action until a more favorable government is returned to office. |
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Arbalister
join:2007-11-24
St Catharines, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to Name96
Here's my most recent letter, this one to Prentice.
-----------------------------
Minister Prentice,
I am deeply concerned about Bell Canada’s recent announcement that it will make its practice of throttling wholesale customers access to their last mile network facilites official starting April 7.
In question period today, you answered that the Canadian government does not regulate the internet. This is true. I was one of the respondants to the CRTC's request for comment on that subject several years ago. I felt then as I do now - the internet should not be interfered with by outside parties.
All of that, however, is irrelevant to the situation. You, sir, need to look into what is actually happening - Bell is *not* throttling the internet. What Bell's changes actually affect is the "backhaul" from an ISP's facilities to the end user premises. This is a tariffed service, regulated by the CRTC, and newly classified essential as of Telecom Decision CRTC 2008-17, and detailed in this press release: »www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/NEWS/RELEASES···0303.htm.
I manage a small local ISP - this means that I've been forced to buy essential services from a competitor for the last 10+ years since the creation of Sympatico - something that should never have been allowed. Bell has manuevered through several anti-competetive situations since then, all of them to the detriment of independant ISPs. This is the one they got caught at.
Bell is *also* violating section 61 of the Competition Act which states that a company that is the sole supplier of a product or service that is sold by a competitor (often for a lower price), can not use any form of coersion to cause that competitor to alter their pricing. By significantly crippling the independant ISP's access to their end user, via Bell's internal ATM network - as I said, a tariffed and regulated service - Bell is reducing the value of our product, to the consumer. And they are doing so with full knowledge of that fact: Note page 42 of their 2007 stockholders report which states:
"With the rapid growth in video and other bandwidth intensive
applications on the Internet, we may need to
incur significant capital expenditures to provide additional
capacity on our Internet network. We may not
be able to recover these costs from customers due to
competitors’ short term pricing of comparable Internet
services. There is also a risk that our efforts to optimize
network performance, as a result of significantly increasing
broadband demand, through paced FTTN roll-out,
traffic management and rate plan changes, could be
unsuccessful and result in an increase in our Internet
subscriber churn rate beyond our current expectations
thereby adversely affecting achievement of our expected
number of Internet subscribers in 2008."
It states, right there, that Bell does not expect to be able to recover costs of increasing capacity on their internal network, because of the short term pricing of their competitors. It states that if they start to throttle - manage traffic - they will increase their churn rate (rate at which they lose customers) to competitors. Bell has told their stockholders that they can *not* compete on price, with independant ISP's such as Teksavvy, and my own Merge Internet. Two weeks after that report comes out, Bell starts to throttle the last mile connection between independant ISP's and their customers. Note, again, that this throttling has no effect at all on *internet* traffic - there are 2 networks involved. Bell's private network between customer premises and their ISPs, and the internet. The first is regulated by the CRTC and the second is not.
The way this works is that companies like Teksavvy buy a large chunk of Bell's private network. This allows them to request Bell to set up a direct network connection between an end users address, and the ISP. In the pre-highspeed days, this would be a telephone line. Any requests for internet data the end users sends travels along that connection to the ISP. The ISP's servers go out onto the internet via a "backbone" connection that the ISP has also purchased, from one or several providers of *internet* connectivity, fetch that data and return it to the customer down the Bell connection. Sympatico is perfectly free to throttle internet traffic from the internet to their end users. Any ISP is, though most feel that this traffic should be handled as per the assorted privacy laws. What *Bell* is *not* free to do is to mess with data travelling from the ISP to the End User, down CRTC regulated essential services, nor are they allowed to artificially degrade that service to competitors, to match the degraded service they choose to supply their own paying customers. It is quite clear - especially in light of Bell's application today to appeal the March 3rd CRTC ruling that forces them to sell this last mile connectivity to the Independant ISPs - that Bell has only taken these steps to avoid the cost of upgrading the service they *must* sell to competitors, and to attempt to minimize their own customer churn by forcing a degradation of service on *all* DSL users in their service area.
Thank you for your time. |
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InvalidError
join:2008-02-03
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Videotron
| reply to trog
said by trog :Surely the issue is not so much the backbone; rather the issue is the last-mile; the connection to the homes. For a firm like TSI (or even a consortium of ISPs) to attempt the last mile connection would be prohibitively expensive. One cannot connect the last mile to a customer before deploying the backbone that will connect the local spines feeding the neighborhoods. Running the backbone fiber requires more man-hours and equipment than running each individual fiber from the nearest switch for individual subscribers afterwards. Yes, it would be expensive - this is why I suggested doing it as a COOP project funded by people and independent ISPs. |
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mr_hexen
join:2007-08-02
Brampton, ON | Jim Prentice: Prentice.J@parl.gc.ca
Stephen Harper: Harper.S@parl.gc.ca
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