Guest
@teksavvy.com | reply to decx
Re: Canada's slipping position on net access cost & speed
Bell is generating $354,000 per employee, btw
i got that quote from another thread here, if their making that much, how do they NEED money to upgrade??? what BS |
|
Deep Throat
@teksavvy.com
| reply to mlerner
said by mlerner  :28th really? And we're supposed to be close to the US? We should just call ourselves a third world country! Good idea. That way we'd be eligible to get foreign aid from Lesotho, Bangladesh, and The Federated States of Micronesia, to help bring our internet standards up to that of the 2nd world.
Of course Harper would just hand the money over to Bell. |
|
cacruden
join:2008-03-18
Toronto, ON
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to Guspaz
said by Guspaz :LTE (4G) is ~82mbit per 5MHz of spectrum. HSDPA (3.5G) is (as far as I can tell) up to ~7mbit per 5MHz of spectrum (although Rogers' 7.2mbit service is only ~3.6mbit per 5MHz of spectrum). Many of these companies have only like 10 or 20 MHz of spectrum to play with. So with current 3.5G networks they can expect to push no more than roughly 14mbit/s among ALL customers in any given cell. Even though LTE pushes it way up, that's still not enough for widespread fixed broadband deployment. It might be OK for getting into that a bit, with perhaps some low-bandwidth fixed offerings, but not enough to go nuts with it. With LTE I thought it was sufficient for broadband to houses given that if a one tower becomes saturated, you would just increase the density of towers in that area (is that not the case?). |
|
Martian3
join:2004-10-17
Lindsay, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to decx
Yeah, cell technology isn't nearly robust enough to support widespread adoption as a primary internet solution. Increasing cell density can help to a point, but there's only so much spectrum out there, and until somebody figures out a way to push a lot more data over the radio waves available it's not going to be sufficient. I'm not overly familiar with LTE, but Guspaz's numbers are in line with what little I know of it, and that kind of bandwidth isn't going to be sufficient for more than a handful of subscribers per cell without some massive oversubscription going on.
Not to mention that putting up new towers is expensive, and the start ups aren't likely going to have the cash to do so in any real numbers. If the subscription levels remain constant or increase it amortizes quickly, but there's still a significant initial investment.
The entire Canadian telecom industry is a bit of a joke, an the biggest problem is that Canadians have gotten so used to it that they're largely apathetic. Nobody bats an eye at the idea of paying $50+ per month for 7 mbps, despite the fact that most of the rest of the world gets much faster for much cheaper. I tell people that text messaging is disabled on my phone because I consider it to be too expensive, and I get funny looks.
As long as Canadian consumers are content to let the current situation stand, Bell and friends have no incentive to change. It's more profitable to implement UBB and not invest in infrastructure. Sure it's going to hamstring Canadian internet connectivity in a few years, but that's somebody else's problem. |
|
Sanny
join:2007-11-20
united kingd
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| reply to decx
The fact that Canada seems to have fallen so far behind other countries is quite shocking.
I lived in Canada from 2003 till 2008. Started off with Bell for my internet then switched to TekSavvy. For the first maybe 2-3 years while I was in Canada I was getting a faster connection than my parents in the UK were and I was paying less. After that point though it all started to change, rapidly.
I'm back living in the UK now and I pay £17.50 (about $34) a month for a 'upto 24Mb' connection (I currently sync at 14mb) which is unthrottled and unlimited.
Just seems amazing to me that in the UK the speed and cost of the internet seems to have improved year upon year. While in Canada, it just seems to have stood still, or even been held back. I still keep an eye on prices in Canada as I do intend to move back at somepoint and it's almost laughable to see some of the prices over there now. Bell charging $73 or so for a throttled, limited 16Mb connection, that's unbelievable. |
|
Martian3
join:2004-10-17
Lindsay, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
1 edit | reply to decx
Bell's advertised price on Max16 is promotional. $72.95 includes a $5 bundle discount and a $10 promotional discount, and doesn't include the mandatory $3.95 modem rental. The actual cost for 16mbps internet through Bell is $91.90 per month. Should you have the audacity to actually use all that bandwidth you're paying for, anything over 100 GB is charged at $1.00 per GB up to $30 per month, meaning that a moderate to heavy user can pay as much as $121.90.
By comparison, I can bond two lines from TSI for about $75 per month. Assuming the CRTC gets their heads out of their behinds any time soon, that ought to provide me with 14 mbps down, 1.6 up and 400 GB of usage. And MLPPP is inherently less cost efficient, since it requires two drops, two line cards and special hardware or software at either end of the connection.
Something's not right about that. |
|
justsomeguy
join:2007-10-08
London, ON
| reply to decx
Who cares about the "slipping position" ? this isn't a competition.
Over the course of the last several months there has been so many pointless posts here from people talking about how other countries are getting 100mbit upto multi-gigabit connections to the home. Its just silliness. |
|
mlerner
Premium
join:2000-11-25
Nepean, ON
 ·Rogers Hi-Speed
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| said by justsomeguy :Who cares about the "slipping position" ? this isn't a competition. Over the course of the last several months there has been so many pointless posts here from people talking about how other countries are getting 100mbit upto multi-gigabit connections to the home. Its just silliness. Ok so do you enjoy your "up to" 10 mpbs with 95 GB cap service? Would you enjoy it even more if every ISP was forced to match it? Competition is a good thing otherwise it turns to monopolistic corruption. |
|
Martian3
join:2004-10-17
Lindsay, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
1 edit | reply to justsomeguy
said by justsomeguy :Who cares about the "slipping position" ? Right here.
It's not so much about competing as it is keeping up with the global standard. The entire world is moving towards digital distribution as a primary medium for pretty much everything. If we as a nation don't develop the infrastructure to support that, we're going to get left behind. And as long as there are consumers out there who still think 10mbps is fast and that $70+ is a fair price for that level of connectivity, it's not going to happen. Why should Bell upgrade when people are seemingly content with the creaking old infrastructure they have in place now?
I read recently that many if not most of Bell's DSLAMs are still connected upstream on OC3 or OC12 lines. That's a bloody joke, especially when Verizon immediately to the south of us is offering FIOS services with virtually no oversubscription.
EDIT - I was trying to avoid any rants, but I feel that I ought to clarify something. My last two posts make it seem as if I blame the Canadian consumers for Canada's lagging position. This is partly true, but most of the ignorance on this issue comes from the fact that Canada is essentially a monopoly when it comes to telecommunications. Canadian consumers literally don't know any better, because nobody's offering it. I can only hope that's going to change soon. |
|
justsomeguy
join:2007-10-08
London, ON
| reply to mlerner
Ok so do you enjoy your "up to" 10 mpbs with 95 GB cap service? Would you enjoy it even more if every ISP was forced to match it? Competition is a good thing otherwise it turns to monopolistic corruption.
What has that got to do with this thread? |
|
mlerner
Premium
join:2000-11-25
Nepean, ON
·Rogers Hi-Speed
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| said by justsomeguy :Ok so do you enjoy your "up to" 10 mpbs with 95 GB cap service? Would you enjoy it even more if every ISP was forced to match it? Competition is a good thing otherwise it turns to monopolistic corruption.
What has that got to do with this thread? You really are clueless aren't you? |
|
justsomeguy
join:2007-10-08
London, ON
| said by mlerner :said by justsomeguy :Ok so do you enjoy your "up to" 10 mpbs with 95 GB cap service? Would you enjoy it even more if every ISP was forced to match it? Competition is a good thing otherwise it turns to monopolistic corruption.
What has that got to do with this thread? You really are clueless aren't you? This thread isnt about competition amongst ISPs. |
|
Martian3
join:2004-10-17
Lindsay, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
1 edit | reply to justsomeguy
said by justsomeguy :What has that got to do with this thread? Being a little friendlier --
The lack of competition in the Canadian broadband market has everything to do with this thread. The whole reason that Canada is falling behind in terms of speed and cost is because the incumbents don't have sufficient competition. Pretty much all of the negative things that have happened around here since TSI started offering internet (everything from speed caps to throttling and now possibly usage based billing) is a direct result of BCE acting like a petulant child because the CRTC actually had the nerve to tell them to share their toys. They're trying very, very hard to avoid having to compete directly, because then they'd have to acknowledge the fact that their services are overpriced and underpowered.
ADSL2+ supports speeds up to 24 mbps. Bell customers, if they're very lucky and have a lot of money to throw around, can get 16. Wholesale subscribers can get 5. Can you honestly tell me you see nothing wrong with this picture, especially when other markets clearly demonstrate that offering much higher speeds at lower prices is very economically viable? |
|
justsomeguy
join:2007-10-08
London, ON
| Well its always nice to wish that we could get higher speeds for the same or less money.
The fact is that the Canadian market demonstrates that people are willing to pay more for less, so that is what we will continue to get.
Other markets have other circumstances and they cannot be applied here for various reasons. |
|
Peter Principle
@cgocable.net
| said by justsomeguy :The fact is that the Canadian market demonstrates that people are willing to pay more for less, so that is what we will continue to get. Nice simplistic play on semantics.
Substitute have for willing. Just like any other commodity with little competition.
You can't be that simple. It was a joke right? |
|
justsomeguy
join:2007-10-08
London, ON
| said by Peter Principle :said by justsomeguy :The fact is that the Canadian market demonstrates that people are willing to pay more for less, so that is what we will continue to get. Nice simplistic play on semantics. Substitute have for willing. Just like any other commodity with little competition. You can't be that simple. It was a joke right? Broadband internet is a choice, nobody is forced to have it. Nobody is being forced to pay Bell and Rogers for it.
If it was profitable in Canada to provide low cost, high bandwidth residential internet access , then someone would be doing it. Where are they?
Where are the fibre rollouts? Why do most companies seem content with fighting for the use of existing infrastructure and not building their own new
infrastructure?
I'd be complaining more about these ISPs that spend all their time fighting with Bell/CRTC instead of doing their own equipment rollouts. I realize it is expensive, but one small piece at a time and slowly but surely they get somewhere. Fighting with the CRTC/Bell only will lead to more fighting because these companies will still be using someone elses infrastructure. |
|
Lewism8
join:2008-04-25
Quebec, QC | reply to decx
Rogers and Bell have a lot of right of way to put poles and wires. New companies can't have those. Why? Bell and Rogers block them. |
|
El Quintron
Could you spare a consulting gig?
join:2008-04-28
Etobicoke, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Acanac
| +1
@justsomeguy
Build your own is a pie in the sky... too many right of way issues and too many entrenchment issues as well. Assuming there were no right of way/access issues, then we'd be set.
We wouldn't have to fight this one in the courts, but the fact in right now competitors can do fiber rollouts where the incumbents don't have pre-dominance. Which they're already doing.
--
Working to bring you closer to a Bell and Rogers free household. |
|
l0thar
join:2005-12-29
Far Far Away
| reply to Lewism8
said by Lewism8 :Rogers and Bell have a lot of right of way to put poles and wires. New companies can't have those. Why? Bell and Rogers block them. Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer, paralegal or in any other such profession. Just a normal guy like everyone else here.
But my understanding is that the 'right of way' or 'utility easement' is not a property of a telco or another. (Good wikipedia article here - »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easement )
An easement is a clause in the property title stating there's a portion of the property where utilities can be strung. That includes electricity, telephone and cable services at this time, and nobody can exclude future needs (cable was something that started in the 1960's afaik).
What limitations there are, is that a new startup trying to bring their lines thru the easements might have to pay one of the other utilities rent for using their poles. The incumbent company might not like the newcomers, but I think they have to share the easement, while entitled to some compensation.
Recently, I spoke to a contractor in a nearby city who was doing some major new conduit pulling on the boulevard in front of the homes.
Cogeco cable was the company ordering the work, to replace the old cables they had hanging in the poles on the back of the properties. The cables were in bad shape (aluminum shielding, starting to corrode badly in places), and Bell canada owned the poles, thereby adding a rent cost for Cogeco. |
|
justsomeguy
join:2007-10-08
London, ON
| reply to El Quintron
said by El Quintron :+1 @justsomeguy Build your own is a pie in the sky... too many right of way issues and too many entrenchment issues as well. Assuming there were no right of way/access issues, then we'd be set. We wouldn't have to fight this one in the courts, but the fact in right now competitors can do fiber rollouts where the incumbents don't have pre-dominance. Which they're already doing. Its not pie in the sky. What we have here is a bunch of companies in Canada that are happy reselling Bell's lines, not willing to go out on their own and innovate, when they could do small piece by piece rollouts in heavily packed areas.
Instead, they are fighting for access to copper that we know only goes upto 24mbit and is not in any way shape or form the way of the future.
So when/if Bell gets around to doing FTTH, are companies like Teksavvy going to be rolling out FTTH, or are they going to wait until Bell does FTTH and then convince the government to let Teksavvy use the other companies lines again? |
|
