Canadians, fight Internet Usage Based Billing (UBB)

This is a short note to warn my fellow Canadians about an important matter related to our internet access. As you probably know, Canadian Telecom providers are nothing to boast about, but this time they are trying to pull a fast one that would have a major impact on Canadian internet users. The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) instructed Bell to provide ISPs with wholesale service speeds that match their own retails customers. As things currently stand though this is not the case. You can have 16Mbit/s if you choose Bell, but only 5Mbit/s if you opt for an ISP like Teksavvy (which is the ISP I use). Bell opted not to adhere to this directive and instead decided to take the issue to the federal Cabinet, while at the same time filing a tariff application with the CRTC that proposed the introduction of Usage Based Billing (UBB) to its wholesale customers.

If Bell were to be successful with their application, ISPs would be forced to change their current offerings, cap internet usage and substantially increase the price of extra Gigabytes per month. In practice, we’d be paying more to get much less, and most people would not go through the hassle of dealing with this, thus opting for Bell – despite their absurds usage limits (60GB per month, are you kidding me?).

If this scenario doesn’t float your boat or down right outrages you, please send your polite comments and concerns to the CRTC, by clicking this link. For the subject select Tariff, and as a subject, use File Number # 8740-B2-200904989 – Bell Canada – TN 7181.

I personally sent them the following message:

Please do not accommodate Bell’s monopolistic tendencies by letting them introduce Usage Based Billing (UBB) to its wholesale customer accounts. Canada is behind many other first world countries in the Telco sector. Don’t let our country fall even further behind. For Canadians to be innovative in the high tech field, unlimited, high speed access to the Internet is a must. Thank you for your attention.

The deadline for sending comments regarding this matter is today at midnight, so please, if you want write to them, do so ASAP!

(Via Teksavvy‘s email to its customers)

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15 Comments

  1. Simon April 14, 2009
  2. Guillaume Theoret April 14, 2009
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  8. meeech April 15, 2009
  9. Ronan O'Driscoll April 16, 2009
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  11. Bob Jonkman August 13, 2009
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  13. Pingback: A Disservice to Canada « in the wind August 15, 2009
  14. richard proulx August 18, 2009
  15. Laurel L. Russwurm August 27, 2009
  16. ted March 23, 2010

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