Canadian Broadband → is it me, or has internet become expensive..?

I've been following the numerous threads on the different providers from the Big Boy Party Poopers ( Rogers, Cogeco, Bell etc ) and the Indies..

I just seems that even to get a basic connection to the internet you need to dish out over 40$ bucks a month.

Sure currently on the Indies DSL is cheaper than Cable, but yet again not everyone can get a decent DSL signal.

Sure speeds have increased, but at what cost? Speed up, usage still at 300GB, and anything else unlimited add 15-30$.

People will argue and say, well the internet is not needed so it is an option.. sure okay.. say that to the companies that have moved everything via the web online statements, this and that. etc etc.

Even if you just use the internet to check your bills etc you still need to fork out over 40$ a month..

I can see in the near future ( 2 - 3 years ) a basic 10Mbps connection will cost above 100$ and only include 10GB.

wtf has happened besides greed

Edit: I just checked and rogers lowest tier does cost 60$ , dam. So I have edited my prediction of 2-3 year cost

No matter what Canadians think, IISPs are much cheaper than the States. I don't think $40 is that bad.

Teksavvy is pretty cheap cable connection.

»teksavvy.com/en/resident ··· t/cable#

10Mbit is considered basic Internet? DSL's lowest tier is 6Mbit now.
What ever happened to the Cheapest connection being Rogers Ultra Lite for only $20/month?
It had 2GB/month cap with 256Kbps(30KB/sec) download and 128kbps upload

After a price hike, it was cheaper to get a WIND Data stick on their old $25/month for 1GB, since then I had 1 GB of portable Internet instead of 2GB in a room.

Inflation is a big factor, ie »www.bankofcanada.ca/rate ··· culator/ shows that $24.95 (dialup cost in 1995), is $35.70 now. High-speed starts at about $30/mo in 2014 and when you consider that many people had a second phone line at $30-$40/mo for their internet, it's even a bigger difference.

As I read it TV suppliers be they Cable, fibre or ADSL companies in Canada and the
USA are losing TV customers at an alarming rate. Most are now streaming content.
These companies are now raising their Internet rates as they see the writing on the wall.

I'm on BB50 with Shaw and it screams!

FaxCap

While an argument against the statistical side of 'inflation' couldn't be made, the problem with using inflation as the cause is that in 1995, everything else was cheaper as well (due to inflation....) and therefore the general 'perception' still holds true...

In reality, internet access has not 'just' become expensive... the better way to state this is that, it's never been inexpensive - so if you believe in black & whites, then it's 'always' been expensive, for a "quality" connection that is.

I certainly don't want to pay $24.95 mnth for 56K Dialup access(and only XXX Mins of access) and $19.99 for the 2nd phone line so I can "always have it on"

I'm not sure who will be the first they are willing to pay $45 a month now 56k speeds now.

Anyone break down the $/Mbps (or Kbps)

Good point.

I made the transition from dial-up to cable way back in the early days when practically everyone in North America was still on dial-up and if you asked me to pay 10x as much for faster internet I would have enthusiastically agreed because it was basically 10x (or more) the speed.

Fast forward to today and you consider that the costs have increased with inflation or xxx reason, but at no point has technology seemed to have lowered these rates.

I'm paying 97$ for unlimited 60/10 from Rogers - no issues here aside from the price.

Yes and no.

Cable companies are losing subscribers to telco-based TV and both of those are losing subscribers to satellite-based TV. Once you put all the traditional paid-TV sources together, you end up with small net subscriber growth.

Some of that is partly due to many incumbents offering TV+internet plans that are either cheaper than either one as stand-alone or only marginally more expensive.

I pay $37.23 including HST for 15/1 dryloop DSL connection that came with a $20 setup fee.

I don't consider it expensive at all.

It's not terribly expensive. In manitoba, the basic plans start at $55/month. no IISPs.

That being said, it's not a cost base product rather a value based product? How much is the internet worth to you? $1/day? I can justify that easily in savings that the net gives me. So is it worth $2/day? Still yup.

I think what happened was that people got a taste of that sweet sweet net for an intro price the last decade, now that people are hooked, it's time to see how much they really want it. But really, $2 a day for access is pretty minimal for what it offers.

Pretty much this.

Back a few years ago I had brighthouse in central Florida(zephyrhills), and it was $59/mo+modem rental of $5 or 10/mo. I got "glorious" 10/1 service with either a 50 or 100GB cap(I should really update my review for the changes but it's so old that it doesn't matter too much). It's apparently better now according to my neighbors down there, but I do remember the days when it was the other way around. Canada expensive, US dirt cheap. I remember seeing the ads in Michigan, and Indiana for $9/mo for 6/1 DSL with no cap. $19/mo for cable with 15/1 service with no cap. It all changed when the no TPIA rule was changed in the US, and the CRTC forced the TPIA rule up here.

I visited a friend in Hamilton yesterday. He has raw fiber, 100Mb/s up and down. $250/mo! Poor guy

You can always get dial-up for $7.99

I think as service speeds have increased, cheaper services have been left behind ... no more "Ultra light" $20 (now $25) per month have gone away because there hasn't been enough demand shown and people have been shown to be willing to pay above $40 per month for service ... back in the days of slower services, $50 per month was the threshold ... now it seems to be $75 and the incumbents will milk that for all its worth ... just as they do for phones and cell phones.

I wonder how many more years until a normal internet bill end up being $100. You would expect faster speed of course. And I would wager that families will still keep their internet service by disconnecting their cable service (if they have not already).

The real question is, do we have a choice in the matter? Will there be any legislation available to keep the rising costs at bay?

It seems some smaller US cities are directly funding internet infrastructure so the prices have gone down in those places. Do you guys think Canada can follow suite?

From a provider's perspective, there is just no profit at $25/month. one 1 hr service call and that's gone. I'd rather have 1 customer at $50/month, than 2 @25. less hassles, higher income, less work. It just makes sense

In general, though, it's not the light users that are so likely to call for service. They don't care much if the line is slow, or it drops out from time to time. It's the power users who care when they pay upwards of $50 per month and they don't get their 35Mbps and only get 32 Mbps. And these are the harder customers to please. They cost the ISP money.

My take would be to follow the path of the DSL ...

The first service on any line pays the "line rental". And it doesn't matter who the providers are ... First service pays line rental.

That way, ISPs CAN offer an inexpensive service.

Say a typical "line rental" portion is $10 per month.

Add phone service ... $20 per month (+ addiitional features)
Add internet ... $20 per month basic and up
Add TV ... $45 per month and up

This way the line into your home is paid. It's separate and pays for the basic physical maintenance of the line to your home. Considering that the typical home has a truck roll every few years it's not that expensive. My phone service has had 3 truck rolls in 14 years. Cable's had 2 to my home 2 on the trunks.

This also balances the prices that TPIAs are charged for internet services.

As it is, if I have Rogers cable, I pay for line rental (maintenance) to Rogers in my cable fee. If I have internet, I pay for line rental in my internet fee (whether it's to Rogers or to a TPIA). This is why Rogers can give bundling deals ... and should straight up discount services on the same cable instantly by at least $10 per month ... not their measly 10%.

Depending on who you ask it could be just you. Like Urban Riot said, some of us that were early adopters to broadband when it first came out (those who remember @home and The Wave and those stupid cable modems with the fins or when you could see everyone else who had cable in network neighbourhood I'm talking to you) gladly paid what we paid and would have paid more. A few years ago I was paying $90 a month to get 10/1.6 with a /29 and 600GB cap. I now pay, $49 for 25/10 with static and 300GB and an option to go unlimited for free if I'm willing to rate limit to what works out to be 10/10 for 4 hours each night which is more than I had before when I was paying almost double.

So for some of us, the internet is cheaper. For more adult me, who has bills to pay, $50 is the sweet spot. I can justify that, for mom and pop type stuff, my folks are on a 6/1.5 100GB with Start that serves their need fine for under $30 a month and my Grand parents are with Cogeco on a $22 month plan that is an old grandfathered 2Mbps plan.

Yes the $20-$30 tier is rapidly vanishing, but the $40-$50 tier offers much more value for the dollar than it used to. So six of one a half dozen of the other.

Someone who truly only wants to pay bills online and check there email can still find value with a Wind Data stick, at $15 for 1GB or $25 for 3GB.

There are options, and honestly if you ask me I would say that lately things internet related have been moving in a positive direction in relations to price, speeds, and indie competition. Back when I moved to Teksavvy originally, they were pretty much the only "known" game in town. Now both Start and Ebox offer solid competition in that market, and there are also what I consider second tier competition in Acanac, Distributel, CIKtel, Vmedia. All options, all different price points and service. Dare I say we actually have a measure of healthy competition in the Internet space. If you want to rant about increasing costs to consumers maybe you should bark up the mobile tree. That is a highly uncompetitive space with price completely out of whack with reality.

The ARPU god of the infrastructure oligopoly is pleased

I use 295.ca ( »295.ca Yes $2.95+tax/month ) for my emergency dialup backup. Since computers no longer come with serial ports, I had to get a USB modem »www.usr.com/en/products/ ··· usr5637/ It's approx $60 at TigerDirect.ca. It's a hardware modem, so it runs on linux.

In the earlier days, our overall performance did increase and for the lower tiers, the price stayed fairly stable. The reality is that the "standard" performance tier ... the equivalent of the old 3 Mbps tier is now 30 Mbps (on cable) light is now 10. The cost was $45 per month in 2002. Based on inflation it should be $59 today. And we're paying $62. The Lite plan was $25 ... today's lite plan is $52 ... which is nothing short of insane.

The cost of transit has plummeted since 2002. Our prices even adjusted for inflation should be declining, not increasing!

Consumers wages are at same as 95 or earlier if you want to take inflation into this.

Of course there are cheaper options out there..

DSL from a 3rd Indie, but not everyone can get DSL in their residence, and if they can some can only get 6/800 IF lucky..

So resorting to Cable is the other option and while TPIA are slightly cheaper than Rogers/Cogeco etc... These companies have the Indies by the balls... perfect example is the current Price Hike that the Indies had to enforce on their customers.

Sure you can cancel from Teksavvy and go to Start or vice versa but Rogers can come with a new tariff and screw shit again.

And if you actually go with a Incumbent, forget about it. There pricing / bandwidth charges are ridiculous.

You hear this b.s about per capita and where people live, but when other countries around the world can offer you DSL/Phone/and IPTV for 40-50 Euro, you really have to consider what the F' is wrong with pricing here.

In some countries it seems that price has remained the same and or gone up a little but they offer more in the package.

Whereas here Pricing is going up... Speed is being adjusted, but you get crap in return.. what 120GB? maybe 300 with an Indie.

like sbrook said... INSANE.. if the lite plan is at 52$ for LITE in a year or two it will be 70 with their comical blaming everything on Inflation and crap.

the price has been adjusted increase after increase.

Dial up is not even an options for today's websites where the front page of the site could be like 300KB + in size.

Hence the joke Average page size for a major site is 750k+ including media.

I agree completely. Acanac is now about $60 a month if you prepay for a full year, for the same thing that I was paying $43, then $50 for. I am not sure if I can get a cheaper rate though...

if the prices keep going up, I might have to. My salary isn't getting any higher