dslreports logo
 story category
Canada To Mirror U.S. Broadband Policy?
CRTC decision good/bad depending who you ask...

Slashdot notes that Canadian regulators are "preserving the broadband status quo" by ensuring that wholesale cooperation will continue. In other words, incumbent Canadian providers will continue to be required to provide wholesale bandwidth to competitors at discounted rates to foster competition, something that we're phasing out here in the States -- especially across "next-gen" telco networks. The Globe and Mail tells the opposite story, suggesting Canada will be mirroring our hands-off approach (aka business should self-regulate) in time:

quote:
The federal communications regulator said yesterday it will stop regulating more than a third of the services in the $3.3-billion wholesale telecom market in coming years as part of a plan to free more of the industry from its supervision. Until now, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission needed to approve rates that telephone giants charge smaller players such as Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc. and Manitoba Telecom Services Inc. to use phone and data networks.
The CRTC is saying that in three to five years time they'll stop regulating wholesale pricing entirely, particularly as it applies to next-generation network build-outs. Canada traditionally beats the U.S. when it comes to broadband penetration, though their carriers (both phone and cable) frequently severely cap, throttle and charge overage fees on broadband connections, an idea it appears we're intent on adopting in turn.

The full decision is here for those interested.
view:
topics flat nest 
t0KE
join:2003-07-03

t0KE

Member

Get in the jabs where ya can!

"Canada traditionally beats the U.S. when it comes to broadband penetration, though their carriers (both phone and cable) frequently severely cap or throttle broadband connections."

Severely? Relative to what? Is it like binary?
1 = exists = severe
0 = does not exist = not severe

Another way to interpret this is that not only does Canada have more % of the population on broadband, their ISPs care more about what their Customers DO online. "Throttling technologies" also tell an ISP what kind of traffic its Customers generate/request.

NOCMan
MadMacHatter
Premium Member
join:2004-09-30
Colorado Springs, CO

NOCMan

Premium Member

Know What Self Regulation Brought Us

It brought up 90% of mom and pop ISP's who were the pioneers at getting Americans online nothing but grief. Most have since gone out of business or through a series of mergers and final acquisitions by a telco disappeared entirely.

Because telco's were not required to sell at a discount they priced wholesale access to DSL a penny under what their customers would normally pay per line. So it was impossible for any of us to make a profit upgrading to DSL and as our dialup customers upgraded to DSL we were slowly forced out of business.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: Know What Self Regulation Brought Us

Sounds like a fundamental problem with your business plan to me.
zod5000
join:2003-10-21
Victoria, BC

zod5000

Member

are resellers really competition?

I still don't consider "resellers" to be competition. The DSL/Cables aren't going to sell their bandwidth so low, or rent their lines so low, that the competition will be able to undercut them.

You're also telling the companies that if you go and shell out all the money to lay down fibre/copper or whatever else, you've gotta share it... I've always wondered if that was a detractor for broadband improvement.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop

Member

Re: are resellers really competition?

"I still don't consider "resellers" to be competition."

You are confusing a Reseller and an NSP. They are buying last mile services from the Lec. They buy a wholesale loop from the customer prem to their network. They use their IPs, Servers, Bandwidth, Support, Modems, etc.

"You're also telling the companies that if you go and shell out all the money to lay down fibre/copper or whatever else"

Yes, if they intend to take advantage of the USF and other programs that are free money from the government by all means they should share that. If they do not want to do that they should refuse the USF fees.

BTW NSPs and CLecs that collect USF fees have to give that back to the ILec.

Steve Jobs
American living in Canada
Premium Member
join:2002-06-23
canada

1 edit

Steve Jobs to zod5000

Premium Member

to zod5000
said by zod5000:

I still don't consider "resellers" to be competition. The DSL/Cables aren't going to sell their bandwidth so low, or rent their lines so low, that the competition will be able to undercut them.

You're also telling the companies that if you go and shell out all the money to lay down fibre/copper or whatever else, you've gotta share it... I've always wondered if that was a detractor for broadband improvement.
Look at Teksavvy's prices compared to Bell. MUCH cheaper than them with a higher cap and NO throttling. And they are resellers.

netwerk2
Premium Member
join:2003-02-03
BC

netwerk2

Premium Member

Re: are resellers really competition?

Do you really think Bell and TELUS and going to investing millions of dollars into GPON when the CRTC will make them handover the fiber to home to companies like TS etc.
cornelius785
join:2006-10-26
Worcester, MA

cornelius785

Member

Re: are resellers really competition?

after reading that, i crazy (huge emphasis on crazy) idea popped into my head. could resellers be hurting the upgrade to fiber? i probably should put down the pipe and pass it along.

james16
join:2001-02-26

james16 to netwerk2

Member

to netwerk2
They sure as hell wont if they aren't required to, that's for sure.
TheMG
Premium Member
join:2007-09-04
Canada

1 edit

TheMG to netwerk2

Premium Member

to netwerk2
Meh, i'd rather not have fiber at all than to have a connection that is crippled by low caps, blocked ports, and restrictive service agreements, which is the current state of affair with Telus's DSL service.
Gardener
Premium Member
join:2006-10-19
Burnaby, BC
·TELUS

Gardener to zod5000

Premium Member

to zod5000
said by zod5000:

I still don't consider "resellers" to be competition.
The "last mile" needs sharing - otherwise any competing carrier would have to run wire directly to the premises. I already have six power wires, two telco, and one cablevision strung up on poles in front of my house. I do not want more.

It's not true competition but it is better than none at all. Maybe the "last mile" should be owned and operated by something other than the phone & cable companies. City-owned networking, anyone?

dfaf
@chevrontexaco.com

dfaf

Anon

Re: are resellers really competition?

Follow the French, Swedish & Japanese Models! It seems to work for them
cornelius785
join:2006-10-26
Worcester, MA

cornelius785

Member

Re: are resellers really competition?

don't forget the political structures and government types in europe are vastly different from the USA. european countries tend to have socialized governments in which many services are owned/heavily subsidized/invested in by the government. this is not the case in the USA.

BACONATOR26
Premium Member
join:2000-11-25
Nepean, ON

BACONATOR26 to zod5000

Premium Member

to zod5000
said by zod5000:

I still don't consider "resellers" to be competition. The DSL/Cables aren't going to sell their bandwidth so low, or rent their lines so low, that the competition will be able to undercut them.

You're also telling the companies that if you go and shell out all the money to lay down fibre/copper or whatever else, you've gotta share it... I've always wondered if that was a detractor for broadband improvement.
Most 3rd party DSL providers in Canada are NOT "resellers" excluding the west where Telus has most of the control.

The wholesale system has worked well at least here in Ontario. In fact because all the providers here are using the same network for authentication and network transit, my transition from Bell to Teksavvy was smooth and didn't require more than a few seconds of downtime!

It is a fact that Bell is wholesaling for a low fee per subscriber (currently around $20 per user per month) and the benefit of the way that bandwidth is handled is that the 3rd party provider can choose their own transit and buy network links from Bell.

You guys in the west are much different because of Telus' decisions regarding wholesale access. This I think is stifling competition there because Telus wants to be greedy and not allow competition but because of the CRTC ruling, they have to legally provide wholesale to providers that request it, which is very slim because of Telus' desire for control of network access and bandwidth.

Now fiber is a much different issue and will not be addressed until the major telco and cable companies start looking at fiber to the home.
onlyrh40
join:2008-01-29
North York, ON

onlyrh40

Member

Broadband Policy

The five companies dominating the Canadian Broadband market must be regulated. The $40 to $80 per month "high speed" packages are meaningless to the consumer, but serve the suppliers very well.
They must be forced to offer $15 per month flat rate with 5 GB usage included. Additional increments of 5 GB charged at a flat rate to every customer.
This would result in forcing the oligopoly to deliver the service or perish.
It would also level the playing field. The company with the best hype and worst service would be at a disadvantage.
When I pay $5.00 for a pound of butter I get a pound not 6 ounces if I am 20 Km from the dairy and 4 ounces if I am 30 km away.
Where is Canada's new gov't on this one.