| reply to CRTC
Re: Beat them at their own game! The first rule of business (especially for new start ups in the ISP game) is don’t buy it, if you can lease it! Any new venture is cash intensive, especially since there is very little cash flow at the beginning, so putting out a ton of cash for buildings, equipment etc, doesn’t make sense, when you can lease it for a lot less.
But, why do things the hard way? If we are going to start an ISP Co-op it makes more sense to buy an existing ISP provider and turn it into a non-profit Co-op. There are quite a few small and medium ISP’s around that could be purchased at a reasonable cost. That route would make much more sense, and would get the Co-op out of the gate a lot faster!
Will it work? The only reason it won’t is if not enough people don’t want to do it! Unfortunately Canadians are very complacent, we are very motivated to complain about Rogers and Bell, but not motivated at all to do anything about them! Mr. Mulroney said it much better then I ever could, when he brought in the GST, and I quote “Canadians will hum and haw, bitch and complain about the GST for a few months, then they’ll shut-up and pay it” he knows us very well!
Remember the old saying “People will always get the government they settle for, not the one they deserve!”, and I for one believe we deserve a hell of a lot better then what we have now! Same applies to our ISP providers. WE allowed them to take over and screw us at every turn because of our “I’m alright, Jack” mentality. In other words, if whatever anyone does to you (ISP or government) is tolerable enough to the individual (i.e. I’ll still be alright) If the other guy is not, too bad for him! And that’s why we have the situation we have, because we don’t stand up together, and kick their ass!
Unless we do something about it now, we are really going to get reamed later on! Look ahead a few years, what do you see on the horizon? I see the CRTC removing caps and approving costs for internet use per Gigabyte, then 2 years farther down, cost per Megabyte, 2 years more and cost per Kilobyte, 2 years farther down again, cost per byte will rear its ugly head, courtesy of Rogers and Bell and all their bedroom buddies at the CRTC and other various government agencies!
Unless you can think of one good reason to wait, the time to fight back is now! |
