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Canada Call to Action! Bell Canada Petition Would Limit Competitive Internet Access in Ontario & Quebec

Phillip Dampier April 14, 2009 Canada, Public Policy & Gov't 10 Comments
Bell Canada attempts to muscle the competition with "Usage Based Billing"

Bell Canada attempts to muscle the competition with "Usage Based Billing"

Bell Canada provides wholesale access to independent Internet Service Providers across their service area at wholesale rates.  This allows a limited number of competing ISPs to provide broadband service at affordable rates in cities where competition has been limited, at best.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC), which regulates telecommunications in Canada, ordered Bell Canada to provide equitable access to those independent providers at the same pricing they offer their own retail customers.  But now Bell Canada wants to introduce punitive Usage Based Billing on those wholesale accounts, which would immediately destroy many independent providers who could not begin to compete on price or service.

Not only would customers find their Internet access limited, but substantial overage penalties imposed for exceeding those limits would also be introduced.

TekSavvy, an Ontario-based company providing DSL service, has sent e-mail to their customers pleading with them to contact the CRTC and oppose Bell Canada’s petition.  If you are in Canada, you can make a difference by sending comments to the CRTC opposing this proposal.  You need not be a TekSavvy customer to participate.

Usage caps and limits designed to bolster big profits and thwart competition are not just an American problem.  These issues impact on customers wherever limited competition and lack of informed oversight is common.

The deadline for comments is midnight tonight!

Dear Valued Customer,

We are writing to you today as many activities are underway to shape/reshape Internet use as you all know it. Over the last year some of you have been made aware and/or have seen activities on throttling in the news or in your daily lives. Another proceeding relating to the Internet in Canada required Telecom providers (Bell/Telus/etc.) to provide ISPs with wholesale service speeds that match those that they offer to their own retail customers.

Specifically, Bell has been directed by the CRTC to provide matching speeds which would allow us all to have more flexibility in our day to day online requirements. Instead of adhering to these directives, Bell decided to take this issue to the federal Cabinet and at the same time file a tariff application with the CRTC proposing to introduce Usage Based Billing (UBB) on its wholesale customer accounts.

What does this mean for you, the consumer?

Bell provides TekSavvy with last mile, wholesale DSL access services, which TekSavvy uses to provide you with your Internet access. If Bell were to be allowed to introduce UBB on this service, a cap of 60GB would be imposed on all of its users, with very heavy penalties per Gigabyte afterwards (multiple times more than our current per Gigabyte rate of $0.25/GB on overages). This would inherently all but remove Unlimited internet services in Ontario/Quebec and potentially cause large increases in internet costs from month to month.

If you’d like to make your comments/concerns known about what Bell is attempting to do, please do so here.

Select the word “Tariff” from the drop down list.

Add the following in Subject Line “File Number # 8740-B2-200904989 – Bell Canada – TN 7181” and make your thoughts known!

The deadline for filing your comments is today at midnight, so hurry!

Regards,

Rocky

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Diane
Diane
14 years ago

This is Spreading like a Virus!

Smith6612
Smith6612
14 years ago
Reply to  Diane

Heh, tell me about it. It’s getting ridiculous.

mattliving
14 years ago

Good luck the CRTC. They so much as told Bell to do this. Contact your local government and DEMAND that any BELL lease for telecommunication line access on YOUR public land be immediately revoked and renegotiated. If Bell is refusing to honour or is breaking contract with independent ISPs then local governments should NOT be supporting Bell with public leases. If telcos like Bell can not get land leases then they can’t run the lines. If they can’t run them then local government should! This is getting well out of hand. I think it’s criminal that companies like Bell and… Read more »

mattliving
14 years ago
Reply to  mattliving

Oh and one more thing regarding this metered bandwidth bullshit.

If I were a Bell customer I would demand Bell immediate start blocking every advertisement that I did not personally agree to view/pay for. See how long players like Google will tolerate any such BS.

If you’re going to get metered then you had better have a say in what is stuffed into your pipe. Otherwise you’re paying for everyone’s advertising so maybe send Google a bill for the difference!?

Lesty420
Lesty420
14 years ago

They just keep pushing. Hopefully now we’ll start pushing back.

Stephen
Stephen
14 years ago

It is entirely unreasonable to permit a de facto monopoly like Bell, to arbitrarily impose limits on the services they provide to third parties. The imposition of caps on data transfers is merely a means to profiteer on existing, antiquated and inadequate backbone services rather than investing in appropriate and long overdue upgrades to backbone bandwidth in proportion with their alleged high speed consumer Internet products. It borders on criminal misrepresentation to sell 8Mbps DSL services when a cap at 60GB per month actually results in an effective averaged 23Kbps service. “An advertisement will contravene the law if it contains… Read more »

soldout
soldout
14 years ago

This is what I wrote to send to the CRTC, but it asks for my name and I am afraid to identify myself to them for fear of reprisial or future punishment: “I am furious that Usage Based Billing is even being proposed by Bell Canada, let alone considered by the CRTC. It is infuriating that the majority of Canadian citizens ALREADY pay an overpriced and grossly inflated internet access fee for an already substandard internet connection, and no regulations are put in place to protect the consumers from such blatant price gouging, yet mechanisms are in place to allow… Read more »

JamesM
JamesM
14 years ago

Concerning Canada, isn’t the Rogers data capping as low or lower than the proposed TWC plans?

Soldout, I don’t understand what you’re afraid of, aside from any ISP in Canada denying you Internet access at all — and if they don’t have your business, they don’t have your $ either?

Unless you’re afraid of the Canadian government … which may be another issue entirely? 🙂

bryan
bryan
14 years ago

Another thing that people don’t realize about bell and DSL is that they do resell to local providers at their “fixed” rate, which is alway higher then the amount they charge the customer for signing up. They get around this by claiming the amount charged is an “introductory offer” to the consumer for signing up. Thus they provide service to the end user cheaper then to other providers. This is killing the DSL market. Europe already has 16mb DSL as standard practice. Ontario and Quebec is still stuck at 3 or 5mb. Bell has no need to increase capacity or… Read more »

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