French ISP and mobile provider Free has boosted its promotion for inexpensive wireless calling with a family plan that provides unlimited calling within France, its territories overseas, the United States, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, China, and nearly 100 other countries, unlimited SMS/MMS messaging, and up to 20GB of 4G data for $15 a month. The old off-promotion price (and for non-bundled customers) is around $20 a month.

The promotion increases to four the number of family members that can participate, which means taking full advantage will result in a monthly cell bill of around $60.

A comparable Family Share plan from AT&T offering 20GB of rollover 4G data costs customers $150 a month… for one line.

Dunedin is New Zealand’s “Gigatown” and ISP Orcon sells residents unlimited access to gigabit speeds for $68.50US a month.

New Zealand is now the world leader in fiber optic broadband deployment, achieving an annual growth rate of 272 percent and on the way to becoming one of the top 10 nations for broadband speed.

“We are now ahead of Australia, the United States and Japan for fixed broadband, with more than 31 broadband subscriptions for every 100 New Zealanders signed up for this service,” said Amy Adams, New Zealand’s Communications Minister. “This is an impressive jump and demonstrates the impact that the government’s $2 billion investment in the Ultra-fast Broadband and Rural Broadband Initiative program is having on the telecommunications services available to New Zealanders. People are increasingly choosing fiber for its superior speeds, capacity and reliability as the build continues across New Zealand.”

Before the government intervened, broadband in New Zealand was notoriously slow and rationed with low usage allowances and speed throttling. Most of the country received ADSL service, a technology that is rapidly being discarded by most developed nations in favor of VDSL in rural areas and fiber optic broadband in urban and suburban communities. Government policy defined broadband as an essential service for the country’s current and future economic growth and implemented a nationwide broadband improvement plan designed to replace or augment outdated copper telephone lines with fiber optic infrastructure.

While countries like the United States and Canada effectively allow private corporations to define and control their digital destinies, New Zealand believes transformational ultra-fast broadband is too important to leave in the hands of industry alone.

“Fiber is very much like electricity was 100 years ago,” said Maxine Elliot, CEO of Ultra-Fast Fibre (New Zealand). “It’s the single biggest infrastructure build we have done in a long time and it will make that kind of difference in our lives. I think when they first began building out electricity, it was all about a light bulb. No one could have imagined we would have microwaves and computers. We cannot begin to imagine the change that we are about to see with fiber.”

The explosive growth of fiber broadband has helped the country leap ahead of much larger OECD members like Australia and the United States.

“Over the past ten years, we have moved up from 22nd place out of 30 OECD countries in June 2004 to being 15th out of 34 OECD countries for fixed broadband subscriptions as at June 2014,” Adams noted. “At the same time, the quality of people’s broadband packages is improving, with greater numbers of customers using VDSL or fiber, rather than the older ADSL technology.”

The fiber infrastructure has also led to other benefits not originally anticipated. Wireless companies throughout the country have tapped into the fiber connections which deliver backhaul connectivity between cell towers and the fiber broadband network, allowing greater wireless broadband speeds and more capacity. Today, New Zealand is in the top 10 in the OECD for wireless broadband.

New Zealand’s fiber network has allowed providers to cut prices, increase speeds, and offer unlimited access as an affordable option for customers who want the service. It is also expected to dramatically cut the costs of maintaining the country’s telecom network, which were growing as older copper infrastructure aged.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Ultra Fast Fibre Why ultra-fast broadband.mp4[/flv]

New Zealand believes its digital future depends on fiber optics, not on last generation DSL from the phone company. This video explains the immediate benefits of discarding century-old copper infrastructure in favor of fiber optics. (3:17)

[flv]http://phillipdampier.com/video/Ultrafast Fibre Installation process.mp4[/flv]

Ultra-Fast Fibre installation is orderly, on time, and technicians will even plant new grass seed and color-match any replacement concrete or driveway patches. This video explains the three-step process customers go through to get fiber service installed. (3:59)

Charter Communications has quietly dropped usage caps and allowances from the company’s terms and conditions, once again giving Charter broadband customers unlimited access to the Internet.

Like Cox Cable, Charter almost never enforced their usage caps, which were specified as 100GB for its “base” service, 250GB for “Plus” and “Max” tiers and 500GB for “Ultra” service. Customers threatening to cancel service over usage cap matters were assuaged with a commitment by retention specialists that the caps were just a “guideline” and would not be enforced except in the most egregious instances of customer “overuse” of the Internet.

In place of the caps, Charter has returned to boilerplate language found in almost every ISP’s Acceptable Use Policy:

Excessive use of bandwidth that in Charter’s sole opinion, places an unusually large burden on the network or goes above normal usage [is prohibited]. Charter has the right to impose limits on excessive bandwidth consumption via any means available to Charter.

Customers routinely exceeding a terabyte of usage a month have never been contacted by Charter, so such usage apparently does not place a burden on their network. However, Charter also reserves the right to cut your speeds through “reasonable network management tools,” some that may now be forbidden by the FCC’s Net Neutrality policy:

Charter uses a variety of reasonable network management tools and practices consistent with industry standards. In the event the periods of congestion necessitate such management, Charter has available the following tools and practices (without limitation and as may be adjusted over time): (i) use of an upper limit of bandwidth allocated for uploading of files during congested periods; (ii) Subscriber Traffic Management (STM) technology to temporarily lower the priority of traffic with the greatest impact on peak congestion; (iii) spam filtering and detection techniques; and (iv) measures to protect the security and integrity of its network, resources and subscribers. In limited instances if employed, these techniques may affect the throughput rate at which subscribers may send and receive data, the ability of users to establish session connections within the network, or result in the delay of certain traffic during times of peak congestion.

Charter has “simplified” their Internet offers down to two for most customers: 60/4Mbps for Spectrum Internet ($59.99) and 100/5Mbps for Internet Ultra ($109.99). A source at Charter tells Stop the Cap! the company is conducting very limited trials raising speeds to 100/25Mbps for its base package and boosting its Ultra tier to 300/50Mbps, in case fiber competitors arrive. Those tests are not expected to become widespread however as the prevailing view at Charter is to wait until it deploys DOCSIS 3.1 and then raise speeds to 300/50Mbps for its entry-level package and 500/300Mbps for Ultra.

Starting in January, Charter began notifying its broadband-only customers it was raising prices $5 a month (from $54.99 to $59.99).

More than three years after Canadian regulators required Bell Canada’s northern subsidiary, Northwestel, to undertake a $233 million modernization and upgrade plan, the CRTC has ruled the company is overcharging consumers for Internet access and has ordered rate cuts.

Customers in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and Yukon pay some of the highest prices in the world for DSL Internet access, more than three times higher than what comparable broadband costs in southern Canada. The CRTC has found those prices unjustifiable, especially after its 2011 finding that Northwestel enjoyed strong financial performance while chronically underinvesting in its network.

The CRTC decision requires the company to cut prices for its DSL Internet 5 (5Mbps/512kbps) and DSL Internet 16 (16Mbps/768kbps) in N.W.T. and Yukon by 30% this May. Northwestel’s budget plans DSL Internet Lite (768/128kbps) and DSL Internet 2 (2.5Mbps/384kbps) will be reduced in price by 10 percent.

Customers of Northwestel’s most popular DSL plans pay between $65-90 a month for 2.5 or 5Mbps service with usage caps of 40 and 125GB per month, respectively.

Customers will also no longer face a $20/month broadband-only surcharge if they don’t want landline service and Northwestel’s overlimit fee, now $2-3/GB in the Northwest Territories, will be cut by at least $0.50/GB.

“Although we recognize the exceptional situation that exists in Northwestel’s territory, we must not let these challenges hinder the development and affordability of telecommunications services in the North,” said Jean-Pierre Blais, the CRTC’s chairman, in a March 4 release. “Access to reasonably priced Internet services plays an essential role in the North’s economic and social development. With this decision, we are reducing the gap between what consumers pay for Internet services in the northern and southern parts of Canada.”

Because of the company’s past pricing practices, Northwestel will not be permitted to increase residential Internet rates until the end of 2017 at the earliest, and will need CRTC approval for any other rate increases.

Northwestel’s operating service area includes the Yukon, Northwest Territories, northern British Columbia and Nunavut.

Residents in the northwestern and north-central regions of Canada have complained for years about poor service and high prices charged by Northwestel for Internet access.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC North Northwestel gets slammed in Whitehorse 6-20-13.flv[/flv]

Back in the summer of 2013, Northwestel was the subject of a CRTC public hearing that got heated after customers and competitors complained the company had a de facto monopoly. (2:53)

At a 2013 hearing, Blais heard from a number of angry residents upset about Northwestel’s performance.

“I know you are frustrated; we heard it from the interveners, but we’ve pushed things considerably,” Blais said at the time.

“The DSL package that I pay for out at Lake Lebarge is absolutely ridiculous in comparison to high-speed in town,” said Jeremy Jones. “[Northwestel charges] $90 for [5Mbps DSL with a usage cap of] 125GB. The only way to increase it would be to put in another phone line and second modem and that would have ended up being another $100+ per month. We’ve decided it is cheaper just to go over it if we need to.”

Customers are also frustrated by the fact the company receives over $20 million annually in federal subsidies, but those benefiting the most from Northwestel’s finances are its shareholders.

Native communities in isolated areas of northern Canada have learned it is better to build their own networks than wait for promises from Northwestel to be fulfilled.

The K’atl’Odeeche First Nation built its own fiber network on its reserve in Hay River, N.W.T. after Northwestel reneged on an agreement to improve existing DSL service. Today, the native community gets better Internet access than the rest of Hay River, and the community is willing to share their enhanced Internet connectivity with Northwestel for the benefit of others nearby if the company would agree to connect to it.

“We saved them millions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades and I think it’s only fair that they lease a small portion of that infrastructure for them to meet their CRTC mandate,” said Lyle Fabian, the IT manager for the First Nation.

Fabian believes other First Nations should strive for broadband self-sufficiency by also building their own networks to take control of their digital future. In almost every case, Fabian said, those networks will deliver better service than what is on offer from Northwestel.

While the CRTC-ordered rate cuts will help customers in the Yukon and Northwest Territories almost immediately, Internet access in satellite-based Nunavut will continue to be exorbitantly expensive until the CRTC completes a review of those rates. Nunavut residents pay $179.95 a month for 5Mbps/512kbps service with a 30GB usage cap.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/First Mile – First Mile Community Stories Tour Katlodeeche First Nation Community Network 5-23-12.mp4 [/flv]

Henry Tambour from K’atl’odeeche First Nation in the Northwest Territories of Canada gives a 2012 tour of the first phase of the locally owned and operated fiber network. The community of 300 elected to take control of their broadband future back from Northwestel. (4:12)

The cable company that used to make you think twice about every online video you watch doesn’t want you to think about that anymore.

Rogers Cable, eastern Canada’s largest cable company, has traditionally been one of the stingiest usage cappers in the Canadian broadband business. But now the company is marketing the fact many of its Internet plans are now usage-cap free.

Today, Rogers introduced Rogers Ignite Unlimited, 100/10 and 200/20Mbps Internet plans that come with unlimited usage, subscriptions to Rogers NHL GameCentre LIVE and shomi, Rogers’ TV Everywhere service.

“We’ve redesigned our plans to give our customers unlimited usage options with consistent, reliable speeds so they can surf more, stream more and share more without worrying about going over their limit or getting a spotty connection,” said Robert Goodman, senior director, Rogers Communications.

Goodman says the new plans are specifically designed to handle the increasing bandwidth demands of video streaming, which can quickly chew through any customer’s usage allowance. Rogers’ officials admit that 50 percent of the traffic on its broadband network is now video streaming and that customers’ Internet usage has spiked by 60 percent annually.

That growth, without a corresponding increase in usage allowances, offers a natural deterrent to cord-cutting and online viewing. Viewers who exceed their usage allowance face stiff overlimit penalties.

Rogers is not expected to lose any money dropping usage caps from its higher-end Ignite plans, which do not come cheap. The least expensive plans still keep usage caps with a $1.50/GB overlimit fee. Customers bundling multiple services together will pay less than these broadband-only prices:

• Internet 30 ($64.99): 30/5Mbps with 100GB allowance
• Rogers Ignite 60 ($74.99): 60/10Mbps with 200GB allowance
• Rogers Ignite 100u ($84.99): 100/10Mbps with unlimited usage
• Rogers Ignite 250u ($94.99): 250/20Mbps with unlimited usage