Stop Usage Based Billing

[VicDuck]

I just found out usage based billing. This has to be one if not thee most fascist thing the CRTC and Feds have ever done.

http://stopusagebasedbilling.wordpress.com/

http://www.techvibes.com/blog/how-us...you-2011-01-24

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/C...bitions-108276

[zivan56]

I'm all for usage based billing, as long as its for sane amounts of given bandwidth per month that you can utilize.
I don't see how this differs from what Novus has done for years...once you go past 125GB of upload or download you can either buy bandwidth or go at ISDN speeds until the month is over.
Likewise, my web hosting also does this. I don't see how you can expect to download hundreds of gigabytes and expect to pay low prices and lower the speed of other peoples internet access.

[Yume-sama]

It's fair to have usage based billing.

But since it's by a Canadian communications company you can almost bet the prices won't be.

There's nothing wrong with the *idea*. Pretty much everything in the World is set up this way. However, for far too long Canadians have just accepted that we will pay exorbitant fees for things that really do not cost any money. Bandwidth or "data" on a cell phone is pretty much a perfect example of that. I get so much free with my phone, but if I use even 0.01% of the amount I get for free over, it costs more than my whole plan lol

And yes, my company operates 100+ servers. I wish I could tell my ISP to stop usage based billing lol

[G-Slice]

Yeah I love how we're all for road pricing but against usage-based billing on the internet.

[NetMapel]

The deal is that Bell has complained to the CRTC to implement UBB for firms their lines. So, competitors like TekSavvy who uses Bell lines will have no choice but to raise their price to the range of the big three. This is horrible for competition.

[Yume-sama]

I don't think I would be against this if I didn't know it would be just to gouge people. We already pay more for less internet than most developed countries. There's no way the overage prices will be fair or in line with reality, and they'll be tricking little old ladies in to paying it It doesn't help that most people don't know that a GB is a unit of measurement outside of how many songs their iPhone can hold, either.

They are already making an unbelievable profit with their current bandwidth prices, anyways.

Considering I pay $169 a month per server and each server is allocated *5000* GB, 5TB, of bandwidth. Standard $119 servers still come with at least 2000GB.

It's really hard to put an accurate price on bandwidth, considering it doesn't really cost anything more than some infrastructure.

[Alex Mackinnon]

I wouldn't mind usage based billing if they price made any sense at all, but I'm entirely sure it won't. Just look at Cellular data plans.

Bandwidth it cheap. Very cheap once infrastructure is set up and paid off. Realistically it's getting cheaper all the time as transmission tech improves...

[hazel]

Originally Posted by VicDuck

I just found out usage based billing. This has to be one if not thee most fascist thing the CRTC and Feds have ever done.

Sweet merciful crap: "facist"... REALLY?

Use more water: pay more

Use more electricity: pay more

Use more fuel: pay more

GET. A. GRIP.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

I wouldn't mind usage based billing if they price made any sense at all, but I'm entirely sure it won't. Just look at Cellular data plans.

Bandwidth it cheap. Very cheap once infrastructure is set up and paid off. Realistically it's getting cheaper all the time as transmission tech improves...

i was looking at rogers in ontario its pretty expensive i think depending on the plan u have overage can be as high as $5 per GB!

[Yume-sama]

It's all a complete rip-off. It probably costs them less than a cent (or not very many cents more) per GB to provide.

There will be PLENTY of people who they take advantage of on their utterly useless $27.99 ultra-lite plan.

On their "Extreme Plus" plan you pay about 55 cents per GB included, and with that 55 cents I'm willing to wager 53.5 are profit.

They should never have been able to get away with their pricing on cell-phones for so long, and now this~

[SpongeG]

you can sign a petition at this link but i don't for see anything stopping because of it - this is canada and we just continue paying and whining about it

http://openmedia.ca/strombo

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by Yume-sama

It's all a complete rip-off. It probably costs them less than a cent (or not very many cents more) per GB to provide.

There will be PLENTY of people who they take advantage of on their utterly useless $27.99 ultra-lite plan.

On their "Extreme Plus" plan you pay about 55 cents per GB included, and with that 55 cents I'm willing to wager 53.5 are profit.

They should never have been able to get away with their pricing on cell-phones for so long, and now this~

Only $0.535 profit? That price you gave on hosting has $.031/GB of traffic, but you still have the cost of the server in that and the host's profit.

You're probably a little high.

[madmigs]

Originally Posted by G-Slice

Yeah I love how we're all for road pricing but against usage-based billing on the internet.

So you would be happy to pay a markup of over 10 times the actual cost?

With Novus, on their lowest package, I get 125 GB of quota upload and download, not 100% sure but as I understand the other provider's quota is total including both uploads and downloads, which essentially gives me 250 GB of quota a month, albeit I usually get close but don't reach my upload limit. And yes people upload a lot more these days then they used to for things such as multiplayer online games, uploading videos to tube sites, online backups, emailing pictures, etc; compared to a few years ago, the download to upload ratio was probably higher then 90:1(ie. if total traffic upload + download = 100%, download was more than 90%).

For my internet, I pay $37.50(well -$5.00 for bundling) a month which works out to $0.30/GB for the unbundled price assuming the other providers quotas count upload and download separately. However if the other providers count them together, doing the calculation for 250 GB works out to $0.15 per GB at the $37.50 price. And my connection is 20 megabits down and 10 megabits up without any throttling whatsoever, I can fully utilize those speeds at any time and could essentially run my connection full speed until I run out of quota. Most, if not all, of the major providers all utilize some sort of throttling keeping you from maxing out your connection either at all or for extended periods of time. And if I reach my limit for the month, I can either by 10 GB of both upload and download for $5 or I go down to 256 kbps for the rest of the month.

The nearest Shaw package on price is http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsSer...et/High-Speed/ which costs $37 bundled, $47 unbundled(regular price). It absolutely sucks compared to my Novus plan and has the following specs - throttled 7.5mbps download, 0.5 mbps upload, a 60GB cap and an overage cost of $2 per GB. Essentially it works out to less than half the value for the same cost as my Novus plan.

And the nearest Rogers package on cost from the graphic a few posts back, is the Lite package with specs - throttled 3mbps download, 0.25mbps upload, a 15GB cap and an overage cost of $4 per GB. Which is less than an 1/8 of the value for the same cost of my Novus plan. The most comparable plan from Rogers would be the Extreme Plus at twice the cost.

[madmigs]

Originally Posted by NetMapel

The deal is that Bell has complained to the CRTC to implement UBB for firms their lines. So, competitors like TekSavvy who uses Bell lines will have no choice but to raise their price to the range of the big three. This is horrible for competition.

Yes basically all the other independent ISPs all pay for their own wholesale internet access with major backbone providers and run their fiber or whatever to the local Bell equipment which connects the last-mile to people's homes. In other words, none of the traffic lands on Bell's supposedly overtaxed network. People using independent ISPs could completely saturate their connection to the nearest central office and it wouldn't affect Bell's network. The only shared piece is the device that transfers/converts the DSL or Cable signal to the appropriate network(ie. Bell or independent ISP), yet for some weird reason Bell is allowed to both throttle the independent ISP traffic and is allowed to charge the independent ISPs the same cost minus 15% as the Bell residential customers for just the last mile connection.

The only other option would be for each of these independent ISPs to connect directly into the homeowner's telco equipment at the property line. Which would require tearing up roads, negotiating with municipalities, etc, etc... Private natural gas companies don't have to run pipes to the people that subscribe to them, so why should ISPs? Could you imagine the mess if you did? For natural gas, it all essentially goes into the same pipe, all the private companies have to do is ensure they have to either dump the equivalent amount of gas their customers use into the pipe or simply pay the provider who owns the pipes whatever the wholesale costs are.

Overall I don't think that people aren't willing to pay more for using more traffic assuming the costs were reasonable. But as evidenced by the changes the last few weeks of some ISPs lowering caps drastically or actually enforcing their caps that up until were posted but not at all enforced except for egregious cases, and then posted insane overage rates they are using it to screw the customer. Could you imagine if BCHydro or BCGas(or whatever the heck it is called) charged the insane markups(over 10X, yep that is not %) as the ISPs do? There would be rioting in the streets.

[SpongeG]

the government said that it will not let this happen and has said that the CRTC must reverse their decision

as well they have called the head of the CRTC to explain why they made the ruling in the first place - seems like the CTRC is getting its wrist slapped

this is all just facebook chatter i haven't look at the news yet

[madmigs]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

the government said that it will not let this happen and has said that the CRTC must reverse their decision

as well they have called the head of the CRTC to explain why they made the ruling in the first place - seems like the CTRC is getting its wrist slapped

this is all just facebook chatter i haven't look at the news yet

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories...billing-110202

[madmigs]

Industry Minister Tony Clement Confirms Plans to Overturn UBB Decision
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5616/125/



What is a fair price for Internet service?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1890596/

To find out what is a fair price, I contacted several industry insiders. They informed me that approximately four years ago, the cost for a certain large Telco to transmit one gigabyte of data was around 12 cents. That’s after all of its operational and fixed costs were accounted for. Thanks to improved technology and more powerful machines, that number dropped to around 6 cents two years ago and is about 3 cents per gigabyte today.

Are these valid numbers? After the recent CRTC decision regarding UBB, it was announced that effective March 1st, Bell will be charging Third Party Internet Access (TPIA) providers $4.25 for a 40 GB block of additional data transfer.

The fact that Bell is able to sell 40 GB of data to wholesalers for $4.25 and still make a profit demonstrates that the true cost of data transfer is well below the 10.5 cents per gigabyte they are charging wholesalers. One TPIA provider agreed the 3 cents per gigabyte figure is probably close to the true cost.

CRTC Delays Implementation of UBB Decision
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5619/125/