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cowwoc
join:2007-05-19
St John'S, NL
| Can Teksavvy own their own infrastructure?
Hi,
In Israel if you want to get telephone, internet and TV service you need to explicitly pay a separate "infrastructure" fee and "service" fee, often to different companies. It seems to me that in Quebec at least Bell and Videotron have a monopoly on the infrastructure which is why Teksavvy ends up in such a bad situation.
Is it possible for Teksavvy to buy up its own infrastructure (instead of leasing it from Bell, Videotron)? Is it possible for it to petition the CRTC to separate "infrastructure" and "service" products?
I think this would be a huge boon for increasing competition.
Gili | |
mlerner
Premium
join:2000-11-25
Nepean, ON
edit:
October 3rd, @12:21PM
| This has been discussed many times. Primus and few others do it in some areas but the problem is you need a strong customer base to make it feasible. It costs several hundred thousand dollars per CO and that doesn't include the cost of the DSLAM. | |
cowwoc
join:2007-05-19
St John'S, NL
| said by mlerner  :This has been discussed many times. Primus and few others do it in some areas but the problem is you need a strong customer base to make it feasible. It costs several hundred thousand dollars per CO and that doesn't include the cost of the DSLAM. I understand, how about offering people an option to "upgrade" their service and if enough people are interested in a given area go for the upgrade?
This would depend on two things:
- Does having your own infrastructure allow you to offer extra services for users who upgrade?
- How long does it take to install once you place an order? I doubt people would be willing to wait months.
Alternatively, why not team up with other like-minded small companies and buy shared ownership of the infrastructure? Assuming a given area has dense DSL customer base (across different companies, not just you) you should be able to team up with the competition to share access to the infrastructure. | |
R0CKY
TSI Rocky
Premium,VIP
join:2005-05-19
Chatham, ON | reply to mlerner
You still fall short on the anything beyond the Central Office (and in some cases even the Central Office from the looks of it).... Some locations you have no choice but to go through the incumbent. | |
mlerner
Premium
join:2000-11-25
Nepean, ON | That too. It's funny that this question comes up quite frequently. Perhaps an FAQ should added for this as well. | |
Daygard
join:2007-02-16
Scarborough, ON
 ·Rogers Hi-Speed
| reply to cowwoc
Bell is in an inherent conflict of interest in providing both the infrastructure and the content delivered by that infrastructure. Why would they want to let you download anything from your internet connection, when they want you to pay extra to use Satellite TV/Payperview? Why would they let you get VOIP when they want you to pay for their phone service? Why would they let you go to the washroom before they subject you to their DPI (Deep Poop Inspection)
The only real solution to all this is to break bell up, into the network services division, which sells infrastructure access to ALL (Sympatico, Teksavvy, etc) and uses that to upgrade the infrastructure. Then those ISP services can use their own backbone to the internet to provide the content/services.
Bell is blatantly using their position of controller of the infrastructure to position themselves at the head of the content provider pyramid. Unfortunately I doubt the CRTC or government will stop listening to the US lobbyists and big corporation kickbacks long enough to realize what they're doing. | |
kbray
join:2005-01-08
Etobicoke, ON
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
 ·Primus Talkbroadband
edit:
October 3rd, @06:41PM
| said by Daygard :Bell is in an inherent conflict of interest in providing both the infrastructure and the content delivered by that infrastructure. Why would they want to let you download anything from your internet connection, when they want you to pay extra to use Satellite TV/Payperview? Why would they let you get VOIP when they want you to pay for their phone service? Why would they let you go to the washroom before they subject you to their DPI (Deep Poop Inspection) The only real solution to all this is to break bell up, into the network services division, which sells infrastructure access to ALL (Sympatico, Teksavvy, etc) and uses that to upgrade the infrastructure. Then those ISP services can use their own backbone to the internet to provide the content/services. Bell is blatantly using their position of controller of the infrastructure to position themselves at the head of the content provider pyramid. Unfortunately I doubt the CRTC or government will stop listening to the US lobbyists and big corporation kickbacks long enough to realize what they're doing. I 100% agree... IF a 3rd party deals with end user networks and treated everyone equal.. I think issues would end... and things will actually progress.
Everyone should push their local MP to push for this... make it an issue of concern. | |
Bellus_1
@cia.com
| reply to Daygard
Truth: Bell does not adversely throttle, slow or otherwise touch your VoIP traffic according to CRTC regulations and corporate policy. Truth: Bell sells dry-loop GAS so you can choose not to have a phone line and use VoIP, cable or cell. Truth: Dry-loops cost money... the GAS prices were set under the assumption the copper was already being maintained using monies from a voice line, wholesale or Bell and therefore 50% of that fee is charge for dry loop.
---END---
I think the eventual goal of every successful provider who wants more than a small local market to own their infrastructure. That way you don't have the majority of your monthly revenue going out the door for infrastructure.
But in my opinion, there is little incentive to do this at the moment, meaning the "cost" in both real ($) and non-real (will to do it) is too high relative to the cheapness of the wholesale product, and this cost is not determined by Bell but by the market. In fact, the whole purpose of deregulation was not simply to reduce prices, but to foster growth and innovation, which few wholesale ISP's here do because they don't own anything that directly touches the customer.
Look at the UK Market, where there is lots of competition but little of it facilities based until the cost of doing things for yourself became appealing due to BT's rates & services, set by regulator Ofcom. There are now more people using only the BT copper loop or their providers own last-mile (LLU/FTTP) to get broadband than BT retail customers or BT Wholesale clients.
YR Total Broadband BTRetail OtherDSL VirginCable Other(inc. LLU) BT Retail Share in %
2005 9,894 2,311 4,717 2,666 201 23.4%
2006 15,606 3,103 5,530 3,059 1,304 23.8%
2007 Q1 13,875 3,541 5,243 3,146 1,918 25.5%
2007 Q2 14,383 3,716 5,017 3,192 2,459 25.8%
2007 Q3 14,986 3,960 4,489 3,308 3,229 26.4%
2007 Q4 15,606 4,139 4,290 3,414 3,764 26.5%
2008 Q1 16,198 4,289 4,071 3,502 4,336 26.5%
Summary of residential and small business broadband connections (000's)
You don't change the market by being a reseller, which is what broadband is about: better, newer, innovative apps (And yes, TSI/Acanac/Etc. are functionally only resellers because nearly everything service affecting is leased leaving only transit and DNS servers to differentiate the actual product used) And yes, the costs can be high... building out FTTN remotes is extremely costly (>$100K minimum for 200 ports) and that's why nobody's doing it despite several claims by anti-throttlers that DSLAM's cost $25-50 per client to put it. It's also why Bell and others are moving to ensure greater control of the experience... the high cost of FTTN needs to be recouped by additionnal revenues from IPTV.
Wherein lies the problem of investing in the firstplace in these things... you'll need to wholesale it at some arbitrary price. But creating a wholesale HD-stream channel product for some fraction of the retail cost of the ILEC retail video product (derived by crazy formulas just wouldn't accurately reflect the cost of providing the service) doesn't make sense because that product depends on things like multicast only the incumbent can do to reduce infrastructure costs.
ANTI-Bell rant: Bell does a bad job at a lot of things... perhaps if it hadn't gotten so confused with being a media-business during the BCE Globemedia, Actimedia, Emergis, Teleglobe and other purchases it would be in a better position today, but that's beside the point. Their customer service can be bad, especially if you issue is complex and not in the training manual. It's needlessly complex to get things done... moving your 4 services means calling 4 different people at the least, sometimes 6 or 7, and you'll get disconnected at least once with no callback. CSR's don't follow logic much of the time, nor do their internal operations. It's had a bad CEO for years and made a lot of little errors in judgement that really ticked people off.
But at the end of the day, it's not the worst company. They've invested a lot of money into broadband (I would say north of $4BN in equipment from AlcaLu/Juniper for DSL since 2003) and have a very well priced and thriving wholesale product. They're in one business these days just like Danny Williams' ABC: Anything But Cable. Everyone DSL customer, wholesale or retail, is money in their pocket. They're just not going to sell a product that runs a risk of being too competitive or unaligned with the cost structure, such as un-metered ADSL2+. | |
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