mlerner
Premium
join:2000-11-25
Nepean, ON
 ·Rogers Hi-Speed
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| Telus supports CRTC's NN and UBB
CRTC net neutrality decisions
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decisions released on October 21 establish guidelines for what constitutes reasonable network management and uphold the principle of usage-based billing for wholesale ADSL access service. TELUS considers these to be fair decisions that recognize the significant investments made by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like TELUS in Internet infrastructure while empowering consumers by way of new requirements for disclosing ISP network management practices.
In its decision on Internet traffic management practices (popularly known as throttling, traffic shaping, and/or net neutrality), the CRTC has permitted Bell, Rogers, Shaw and other ISPs to continue traffic shaping peer-to-peer file sharing traffic for now; however, the CRTC will evaluate each carrier's measures in future proceedings against the framework that it has established. The issue of whether throttling is permitted has therefore not been definitively resolved yet but the commission recognized that, in some circumstances, it may be the only viable response to traffic congestion.
The CRTC decisions do not have any immediate impact on TELUS because we have not traffic shaped, however we are pleased to see the CRTC preserve ISPs flexibility to adopt usage-based pricing at wholesale and retail. The CRTC's recognition that congestion is a real problem and needs to be managed is positive. The decision strikes a good balance between the realities ISPs are facing and fairness to customers. The chairman of the CRTC has correctly proclaimed that "Canada is the first country to develop and implement a comprehensive approach to Internet traffic management practices." »www.mediacastermagazine.com/issu···00347057
Why am I not surprised.  Oh yeah and Telus is still making revenue but who cares. |
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bobobird
join:2008-06-08
1 edit | In not so long past days, when ISPs wanted to increase profits a bit or take account of inflation and/or operating costs they did the simple thing and just increased the subscription rates by some amount.
Bear in mind, that connection that we subscribe to INCLUDES bandwidth usage. Suddenly it is a major cost issue ??
But instead of doing what every ISP in the rest of the world (except USA) does, they want UBB.
As Bill Clinton once said about the housing issue - "trying to find ever innovative ways to gouge the same hole can only end in disaster".
There was also recently an interesting article about mobile data plans and why providers would prefer everyone on a fixed "almost all you can eat" cost plans. Simply because usage based plans would be so horrendously difficult to implement and very very costly to administer. Hence the huge differences in actual cost of bandwidith and the proposed user charge. Sorry, can't find that article but will post it if I can later on.
I also recall CRTC head commenting repeatedly during some public hearing "where is the money going to come from"? CRTC seems to think that corps are only there to make money and not to invest in their ability to make money. That is what everyone does - why not ours ??
It is lopsided thinking like this, and with some people actually agreeing to it that is causing these issues.
Today's "Oh, I am comfortable with the xx cap, is tomorrow's not enough why are they screwing me?"!!!!! |
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mlerner
Premium
join:2000-11-25
Nepean, ON
·Rogers Hi-Speed
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| reply to mlerner
UBB is fine in some situations but the burden should be on the retail ISP, not imposed by the wholesale provider. Additionally, Bell is simply using UBB to divert the need to actually add capacity to the network. If they were also continually improving capacity on the network and used UBB as a temporary measure then and only then would it be acceptable. |
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bobobird
join:2008-06-08
| Proctor & Gamble, Coca Cola, name any major corp - they build capacity to meet demand from the portion of profits set aside for plant expansion, new plant etc. Rogers does that too. In many cases, they would take on additional loans/investments to cover for shortfalls in planning etc.
What makes Bell any more special ?? Where did the money come from to initially roll out DSL in the earlier part of the decade ?
Bell is behaving like a spoiled kid !! |
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InvalidError
join:2008-02-03
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Videotron
| reply to mlerner
said by mlerner  :Additionally, Bell is simply using UBB to divert the need to actually add capacity to the network. I thought it was to divert from the fact that improved internet services would accelerate the erosion of Bell's traditional services. |
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mlerner
Premium
join:2000-11-25
Nepean, ON
·Rogers Hi-Speed
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| said by InvalidError :said by mlerner :Additionally, Bell is simply using UBB to divert the need to actually add capacity to the network. I thought it was to divert from the fact that improved internet services would accelerate the erosion of Bell's traditional services. That too. |
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a1_Andy
Premium
join:2005-12-29
Peterborough, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
| reply to mlerner
I'm still hunting for a ISP that has a accurate usage meter.
Has any one heard back from the Institute for National Measurement Standards yet? All we need now is to have bell decide to call 1 GB = 1000MB like the hard drive manufactures did to further screw the customer, never mind paying for errors (what overloaded networks and rotting copper lines seem to get a lot of), paying for PPPoE login, spam, ext. |
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torgreed
join:2008-08-20
Toronto, ON
| reply to bobobird
Bell reminds me of an apartment landlord who tries to get a rent-increase-over-guideline allowance because the elevator is 50 years old and needs work. Or the corridor carpets need to be replaced. Or any of the other predictable, yet infrequent, maintenance costs I've seen landlords try to get a rent increase for.
Stuff wears out, gets used up, whatever. Budget for it. |
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Arbalister
join:2007-11-24
St Catharines, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to bobobird
said by bobobird :In not so long past days, when ISPs wanted to increase profits a bit or take account of inflation and/or operating costs they did the simple thing and just increased the subscription rates by some amount. Bear in mind, that connection that we subscribe to INCLUDES bandwidth usage. Suddenly it is a major cost issue ?? But instead of doing what every ISP in the rest of the world (except USA) does, they want UBB. Bandwidth always has been a major cost issue. Right back to dialup. Just because *some* bandwidth is included in the retail pricing, don't think that it's not a cost issue. The price structures and price points were built to include paying for bandwidth.
When my company started up, a T1 was something like $2000 a month. You can bet my rates (for dial up at the time) were set up to make you pay your share of that bandwidth. Incoming lines, expecially after x2 (56K) service, were about $44.00 per line - you weren't getting unlimited for 10 bucks. Back there you paid based on usage. UBB. It's not a new concept. If we didn't structure it that way, we'd have people spending 720 hours a month connected, at 10 bucks...take in $10, pay out $44...not a good business model.
People knowing my post history might come to the conclusion that I'm against UBB. I'm not. UBB is the fairest way to bill out services, if you have a tiered model. What I'm against is the wholesaler imposing UBB on the retailer. Given that the wholesale product *is* bandwidth, the bandwidth has been paid for, billing UBB on top of that is ludicrous. The wholesale product is a fixed cost, and must remain so.
The retailers - me, TSI, whoever - are the ones that must decide whether to use UBB or not, whether to offer tiered services, or not. Bell chooses to use UBB to limit their packages to 60 gig. And to offer an additions 40 for $5. That's fine. That's how UBB *should* be used. That allows me, other other retailers to say "Hey, I can get a deal for bandwidth from Peer1, so, lets see, I can charge the same as Bell...but instead of 60 gig I can include 100 gig...and for $10 bucks, offer an additional 100 gig..."
Similar product. Bandwidth costs calculated in. A profit margin established. UBB that works.
UBB imposed by the wholesaler that makes *all* retailers equal is *not* going to generate competition. It should be stifled. |
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JunjiHiroma
join:2008-03-18
| reply to mlerner
said by mlerner :CRTC net neutrality decisions
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decisions released on October 21 establish guidelines for what constitutes reasonable network management and uphold the principle of usage-based billing for wholesale ADSL access service. TELUS considers these to be fair decisions that recognize the significant investments made by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like TELUS in Internet infrastructure while empowering consumers by way of new requirements for disclosing ISP network management practices.
In its decision on Internet traffic management practices (popularly known as throttling, traffic shaping, and/or net neutrality), the CRTC has permitted Bell, Rogers, Shaw and other ISPs to continue traffic shaping peer-to-peer file sharing traffic for now; however, the CRTC will evaluate each carrier's measures in future proceedings against the framework that it has established. The issue of whether throttling is permitted has therefore not been definitively resolved yet but the commission recognized that, in some circumstances, it may be the only viable response to traffic congestion.
The CRTC decisions do not have any immediate impact on TELUS because we have not traffic shaped, however we are pleased to see the CRTC preserve ISPs flexibility to adopt usage-based pricing at wholesale and retail. The CRTC's recognition that congestion is a real problem and needs to be managed is positive. The decision strikes a good balance between the realities ISPs are facing and fairness to customers. The chairman of the CRTC has correctly proclaimed that "Canada is the first country to develop and implement a comprehensive approach to Internet traffic management practices." » www.mediacastermagazine.com/issu···00347057Why am I not surprised. Oh yeah and Telus is still making revenue but who cares. Isn't telus suppose to sometime merge with bell?If that's the case,they are probably going to support the party they are merging with. |
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Croaker
join:2009-10-01
Ottawa ON
| reply to bobobird
said by bobobird :Proctor & Gamble, Coca Cola, name any major corp - they build capacity to meet demand from the portion of profits set aside for plant expansion, new plant etc. [...] What makes Bell any more special ?? Where did the money come from to initially roll out DSL in the earlier part of the decade ? Bell enjoys a regulated natural monopoly which differs from the companies mentioned above. Those companies need to compete in an open market. You can easily tell which marketplaces are dysfunctional by the reaction a supplier has to demand. A rational business undertaking views more demand as an opportunity. A dysfunctional one views it as an imposition.
As Bell has no competitor. It is easier for it to raise costs and lower service. There's no pressure for this incumbent to improve bandwidth or capacity. It's not like there's another entrant able to offer better service over copper. They're the only game in town and that's that. |
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rosenqui
Premium
join:2004-05-28
Kanata, ON
| I have no issue with UBB at the wholesale level so long as the base monthly rate is drastically reduced to cover only the incremental infrastructure cost of DSL. After all, we're already paying for copper loop maintenance in the dry loop or POTS charges. Also, the per-GB rates must be based on market rates and reviewed annually.
As everyone but Bell seems to know, technology costs are getting lower all the time, so if they want to charge xx¢/GB/month now, that portion of the tariff should be up for review every year and we should see that number go down over time. |
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Doctorphate
join:2009-06-25
Ottawa, ON
·B2B2C High-Speed I..
| reply to mlerner
Are we at all surprised by this? With bell talking about buying Telus who is really running telus in the past year or so.. Look at the CEOs blog.. he went from ANTI-bell to so far up Bells ass all you can see are his red slippers.
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An_Onymous
join:2009-10-24
Canada
| So who is running the CRTC?
Find me the heart of the Beast! |
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AkFubar
Resistance is Futile
join:2005-02-28
Toronto Can.
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
1 edit |  |
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freejazz_RdJ
join:2009-03-10
| reply to Arbalister
Arbalister, you're very right in many respects. The reason Bell gets away with making UBB an issue is that the current product structure is messed up. My interpretation of GAS is that each end-user access has some unspecified amount of capacity allocated to it, which translates into some amount of monthly usage. At the other end, the AHSSPI only providers an LNS port and session aggregation function.
To avoid UBB, GAS could be restructure such that the end-user access doesn't include transport which would be billed as a separate component based on capacity. If you look at wholesale models where there isn't UBB/throttle (MTS for example), the cost of their aggregation links is 10X the AHSSPI cost, but it includes the transport. Same for BT wholesale in the UK, where the per Gig-e charges are higher because you're buying transport capacity in discrete blocks, rather than an unknown amount of backhaul built into each end-user access.
In addition, building the transport component into each end-user access elements allows them to make it look reasonable to bill on a per-line basis, rather than aggregated over the whole usage base.
Having said that, the one disadvantage from Bell's POV (other than not raking in money) to doing an average usage isn't that it doesn't deal with variations in load if heavy users are not distributed evenly across the network, whereas UBB on a per access basis changes all user's behaviors. For example, Student Town Ontario could have lots of heavy users causing quality of service issues due to intense use and therefore driving abnormally high capex, but you can't recover extra money because their ISP's average use is within bounds. |
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bobobird
join:2008-06-08
1 edit | reply to mlerner
Bell's idea of competition is to emulate Rogers (if they are getting away with it, why can't I?). If one day Rogers decides to go back to unlimited (fat chance!) then Bell would do the same.
CRTC's idea of competition is to allow both of them a level playing field. That is why they rule this way. All that technical mumbo-jumbo is there to confuse and just to mask the fact that the decision making is really that simple.
Really has nothing to do with the underlying costs. If cost was the sole reason, their ISP services would not be record territory. Even TSI, which earns but a small fraction off its tariffs, makes a pretty decent profit.
As an example to refute the costs issue - I am away atm, and when I was here last year 100Mb/!00Mb was about 45CDN/month, now it is a little over 15CDN. The dominant company is still at about 45 for 30/10 but can do that because competitors do not yet have the same reach and stablility but gives out iptv for a small additional fee. And believe it - people here will switch isps in a second should one dare to venture beyond reasonable behaviour. And there are only 4 broadband providers! |
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CR123
join:2006-11-04
Vancouver, BC | reply to Doctorphate
(actually, it was TELUS that was talking about buying Bell, not the other way around) |
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drjp81
join:2006-01-09
canada | reply to AkFubar
Not trying to hijack or be OT. But isn't oligopoly an exclusive term to the OIL industry?
Never went to english school myself, but...
shouldn't we be using the term CARTEL?
Cheers
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Cheers! |
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