A handful of large sized Internet Service Providers threaten to strangle Canada’s transition to a digital-ready economy.

The Globe & Mail, Canada’s largest national newspaper, this week called out the country’s broadband conditions.  The country is falling behind, says the editorial, and without fast action to change things, “the innovations that could employ our future work force could well pass us by.”

One passage should puncture Canada’s complacency: “Canada … is often thought of as a very high performer, based on the most commonly used benchmark of penetration per 100 inhabitants. Because our analysis includes important measures on which Canada has had weaker outcomes – prices, speeds and 3G mobile broadband penetration … it shows up as quite a weak performer, overall.”

The newspaper was particularly critical of current providers, and the regulatory body that oversees them — the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).  Recent CRTC policies and rulings have allowed a handful of providers to place a strangehold on the Canadian broadband marketplace, reducing competition and controlling wholesale pricing and access policies.  Bell, Canada’s largest telecommunication company, was awarded approval of a policy to implement usage-based billing on the company’s wholesale accounts.  Many independent service providers obtain broadband access from wholesale accounts with Bell.  When they themselves face usage-billing, so shall customers, who now have fewer reasons to choose an alternative provider in the first place.

There is no magic recipe, but some prescriptions are worth heeding as Canada develops its Internet strategy. The report recommends open access policies, in which companies that build infrastructure for mobile and fixed broadband access are encouraged or required to lease that infrastructure to the competition.

But in Canada, limits on foreign ownership and inconsistent CRTC decisions have lowered the amount of competition needed to spur new and better offerings. There was less stimulus spending on projects to support more widespread Internet access in Canada than there was elsewhere. Decisions on related policy issues, such as copyright reform, have been delayed. A national conference on the digital economy generated buzz – ministers Tony Clement and James Moore are reputed to “get it” – but yielded few results. Our best hope to lead on Internet innovation, the Long-Term Evolution platform being developed by Nortel as a successor to 3G, is now largely in foreign hands.

The editorial provoked a response from Jay Innes, vice-president-public affairs, at Rogers Communications, one of Canada’s largest cable and wireless operators.  He sought to change the subject:

For Canada to win in a global digital economy, our country needs to establish a national vision that looks beyond the often-flawed statistical rankings of broadband infrastructure. What we need to understand is why so many Canadian households still don’t have computers, why Canada is lagging in scientific research, and how we should best promote the development of Canadian content and applications.

Internet providers called out for offering slow service at high prices routinely attack surveys that measure broadband speed as beside the point, and then just as quickly blame something else for their problems.

Innes fails to recognize that Canadian broadband service, speed, and access policies are directly on point when answering his question about the dearth of Canadian content and applications.  The fact is, with near-universal Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and usage-based billing, no innovative high bandwidth developer is going to plunge headfirst into the Canadian market.  When that developer realizes Canadian ISPs also have the right to artificially impede their content using “network management” speed-throttling techniques, they won’t even dip a toe in the water.

Canadian media websites, for example, contain dramatically less multimedia content for visitors to explore than their American counterparts.  Multimedia eats into your monthly usage allowance, so Canadians think twice before watching.  Hulu and other online video enterprises don’t bother to license content for Canada because usage limits and overlimit amounts discourage viewing.  Canadians who don’t want even higher telecommunications bills may simply decide the Internet is not for them, and they can get by without a computer.

If Innes wants to get in touch with his fellow Canadians, who are already well aware of his industry’s pricing and usage schemes, he can read Canadian bloggers like Éric St-Jean, who calls out Vidéotron and Bell:

It’s funny how we hear about Vidéotron‘s Ultimate Speed 50 Mbps access, and now Bell‘s Fibe 25 Mbps access and we’re told how great they are. They’re actually both humongous ripoffs, if you have even basic math skills and five minutes ahead of you. Why? They both advertise great speeds, but hidden behind those figures, in very small print, behind two or three clicks from the product pages, you’ll find abysmal monthly transfer caps. This means that, yes you have a very fast connection. But if you were to use it fully, you’d very quickly fall into a lot of debt.

Vidéotron’s transfer cap for their 50 Mbps service is at 100GB/month combined up/down – this means you will bust your cap within 5 *hours* if you were to fill your pipe. In turn, this means that you simply CANNOT reasonably use this service.  If you were to use your service fully – at 50Mbps – for the whole month, you would get a bill for $24,132.50. Granted, that’s a lot of data. But I just want to point out how ridiculous the terms of that offer are – it should not be legal.

Bell’s 25Mbps service has – get this – a 20GB transfer cap on it. They offer an extra 40GB for 5$/month. The base rate is $64.95/month (after 12 months).  The overage is charged at the whopping rate of $2.50/GB. So, if we take the base service + the extra 40GB, we’ll get to that limit within about 5.3 hours.

All I have is a 5Mbps (DSL) connection from Teksavvy. But for $43.95 I have no transfer cap at all, a fixed IP, and immediate access to support techs who’ll know what I’m talking about.  But they can’t offer more than 5Mbps.

I honestly don’t understand how the media isn’t picking up on Bell and Vidéotron’s tactics, and how this can be legal. To me it’s completely false advertising: they advertise great speeds (barely on par with the international market, though), which you can’t reasonably use. All this needs is a lawsuit.

When will we get decent Internet access in Canada?

That’s a question Innes is not prepared to answer because, for him and his provider friends, “decent” access is already here.

Innovation requires freedom to innovate.  Rationed broadband service guarantees “stick to the basics” thinking.  But as long as providers can live comfortably off the proceeds, why should they change the winning formula that provides them with financial success?

from Digg

Phillip "My Essay Would Never Get Accepted" Dampier

Wonder where Time Warner Cable is spending this year’s rate increase?  Look no further than Time Warner Cable’s all-new Research Program on Digital Communications.

For a 25-35 page essay on the topics that interest Time Warner Cable’s lobbying and Re-education campaigns, the cable operator will fork over a whopping $20,000 “stipend.”

Why?  They get to use an ostensibly “independent” researcher from a major university or non-profit group to promote their agenda with the veneer of credibility.  It’s not Time Warner Cable that suggests Internet Overcharging schemes are warranted — it’s this researcher guy from a respected university who said so.  Net Neutrality should be opposed not because we have a vested interest in doing so, but because this non-profit group catering to a minority or disadvantaged group says it will harm their members.

Copies of the “dollar-a-holler” essays get spread around Washington to influence public policymakers and other legislative movers and shakers, and inevitably become talking points in the public policy debate.  Long forgotten is who paid for them.

What kinds of questions does Time Warner Cable want answers to?

• How are broadband operators coping with the explosive growth in Internet traffic? Will proposed limits on network management practices impede innovation and threaten to undermine consumers’ enjoyment of the Internet?
• How can policymakers harmonize the objectives of preventing anticompetitive tactics and preserving flexibility to engage in beneficial forms of network management?
• Regarding these issues, describe a vision for the architecture of cable broadband networks that promotes and advances innovation for the future of digital communications.
• How might Internet regulations have an impact on underserved or disadvantaged populations?

See below for my exclusive tips and strategies to help would-be applicants succeed in getting their essay proposals approved!

Some companies have paid stipends to researchers to consider market trends, new product possibilities, and be on top of the next biggest thing.  This isn’t that.

This “research program” is being overseen by Fernando R. Laguarda, Vice President, External Affairs and Policy Counselor at Time Warner Cable.  Laguarda joined Time Warner Cable last April from Wiltshire & Grannis LLP, a boutique law firm involved in telecommunications policy strategies as part of its practice.  The firm describes, among its strengths, a “first-rate understanding of the law and policy with a keen understanding of the political and public relations forces that shape public policy battles to help fashion innovative, winning strategies.”

Time Warner Cable admits he’s there to help Time Warner re-educate lawmakers and the public about Time Warner Cable’s agenda.  From their press release announcing his hiring (underlined emphasis ours):

Laguarda will play a significant role in helping the company develop and advance its policy positions, and will assume primary responsibility for working with third party policy influencers, including think tanks, academics, public interest and inter-governmental groups, and diversity organizations.

“Fernando is an accomplished attorney who comes to Time Warner Cable with a unique mix of experiences and he will bring a fresh perspective to the many policy issues we will be addressing,” said Steven Teplitz, Senior Vice President, Government Relations, adding “he knows our business extremely well and will play an essential role in helping to advance Time Warner Cable’s advocacy agenda.”

Time Warner Cable is taking a page from Verizon and AT&T, who back research “think tanks” and have contributed heavily to organizations that suddenly declare a burning interest in their corporate policy agendas.  Take a look at Broadband for America’s member roster for a review of how that game is played.

Time Warner Cable customers are probably wondering why they are paying for this.  After all, $800 a page for essays that “will provide new information, insights, and practical advice” is mighty pricey.

Ordinary consumers are not invited to apply.  Had we, my essay proposal would have been, “Time Warner Cable Should Stop Wasting Customers’ Money on Bought-And-Paid-For Essays and Instead Use the Money to Upgrade Their Network.”  I was even planning on including some nice graphs and charts and stuff.

I would remind the nation’s second largest cable operator it earns billions from selling broadband.  Instead of blowing $20k-an-essay down a Washington public policy rathole, it could instead spend it on solving their burning network management issues with simple, cost-effective upgrades that deliver better service to customers.

Since I don’t qualify — I’m just a Time Warner Cable customer, what do I know, I’ll be a giver and not a taker and share free advice with would-be applicants.

1. Since Time Warner Cable doesn’t want a breakdown of your expenses or need to know what you are going to do with the $20k, you are going to spend most of your time and effort first learning what policy positions the cable company wants you to parrot in order to improve your chances of being a big winner.  Remember, Time Warner isn’t going to give you the whole 20k upfront.  According to their FAQ, one half of the award ($10,000) will be issued at the start of the project.  The second installment ($10,000) will be made only after your advocacy essay is delivered.  There’s a built-in incentive to tow the line.

2. You can’t write on just any topic.  You have to write about one of the company’s pre-selected topics, which is why I’m out of the running for this already.  If you’ve been paying attention to the policy debates about Internet Overcharging, Net Neutrality, and Network Management, you are already half-way there!  You know what side of the issue the cable company is on, so don’t blow your chances by saying things like “a free and open Internet should never discriminate against the traffic carried on it,” or “at a time when the broadband industry earns billions in revenue and recently increased rates for customers again, the idea of implementing usage limits or usage based billing would make Tony Soprano awe at its audaciousness.”

Polly wants a stipend

(Statements in green keep you in the running.  Statements in red will likely get your proposal introduced to the circular file.)

• Reputable equipment manufacturers predict Internet growth so great, it threatens a vast “exaflood” which could bring the Internet to its knees.  Without wise network management and traffic control measures, just like those used on any big roadway, a cataclysmic global traffic jam is inevitable.
• Network Neutrality should be a given for any provider because no company wants to make money by slowing down someone’s content.  That would be like extortion — pay us or we put the brakes on you.
• Network management techniques guarantee your call from grandma will be crystal-clear, your movie download from your cable-partnered movie service will always play worry-free, and by organizing online traffic, Internet chaos is reduced.
• There is nothing wrong with cable companies colluding with one another to preserve the industry’s flexibility to manage its own traffic, even if it means putting some questionable, independently-owned traffic at the back of the line.  Nobody wanted to view that anyway.
  
• Today’s cable broadband provider is investing billions of dollars to improve network capacity and deliver customers an unparalleled online experience.  The cable industry has pioneered innovation in cable network programming they own, operate and distribute to assure quality and excellence.  Now, by taking that same formula for success to online content, and cutting out unnecessary middlemen, the industry can do for broadband what it created for cable television.  Now that’s a win-win for everyone!
• Internet regulations have unintended consequences.  It means providers have to funnel large contributions to interest groups, or place a company employee on a group’s advisory board, so that the industry can rest assured that groups with an interest in maintaining valued contributions will advocate anything we ask, starting with “these regulations are bad for our groups and our members.”
• Unnecessary Internet regulations will create widespread depression and anxiety for investors.  That means money to expand broadband availability in underserved or unserved communities will dry up faster than the Mojave Desert.
• If the cable industry doesn’t get its way on this, it will punish consumers like the credit card industry did after “credit card reform.”  Word to the wise.

That's not all that expanded in Reno... customer's broadband bills faced $1/GB overlimit penalties as part of an Internet Overcharging experiment

AT&T’s experiment with usage caps appears to have lost them loyal customers, and generated numerous complaints against AT&T with the Better Business Bureau regional offices in Nevada and Texas for false advertising.  Now there are indications AT&T will wrap up the entire experiment by this April and “study the results.”  Stop the Cap! reader John wrote to say the nightmare may be ending… for now.  At least one of our readers arguing with intransigent AT&T executives heard likewise.

AT&T last year subjected Beaumont, Texas and Reno, Nevada to a trial forcing a usage allowance between 20-150 gigabytes per month on customers, depending on the type of broadband plan selected.  The proposed overlimit fee?  $1.00 per gigabyte, although problems with their usage meter often kept overlimit fees off customer bills.

We’ve documented the howls of complaints from customers who were falsely sold an “unlimited” plan from AT&T and were never notified, or notified after signing up, of the existence of the Internet Overcharging scheme.  Some customers received express mail letters officially notifying them of the scheme, others received robocalls.  Complaints to the Better Business Bureau usually got any excess charges refunded, and some managed to secure a complete exemption from the usage cap trial, under threat of canceling their accounts.

Stop the Cap! reader Robin is a typical example of a customer who was sold a bill of goods by AT&T’s marketing, only to be punished with the fine print after signing on the dotted line.

“I just got my Express letter in the mail today. My internet was hooked up yesterday – no one ever said anything about any cap! I was in shock when I received the letter in the mail, I have never heard of anything like this. I live about 30 minutes out of Reno. Needless to say I am very very upset and trying to figure out what I am going to do now as I know I will go over the cap every month, I can’t afford that and I can’t afford cable internet at this time either. AT&T sucks and so does their customer service.”

Robin joins many other customers in both communities stuck in a trial that even some AT&T customer service representatives don’t understand.  Robin’s calls to customer service met with claims the account could not be found, and transfers to four different AT&T departments before being able to address the usage cap surprise.

Albert, another reader, was similarly surprised.

“They are fraudulent in every respect. The state attorney should look into this. They say “unlimited” and when you sign up, they send you a little email saying you are screwed [with the trial],” he writes.

AT&T’s response to Albert was essentially “tough cookies” and if he didn’t like it, he could cancel.

Our readers in Beaumont went through the same AT&T Confusion Circus, transferred between departments until someone recognized the caller was a lucky winner of an Internet Overcharging experiment.

In both cities, delivering an effective message of customer contempt with AT&T’s usage cap scheme means filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.  As an accredited member, AT&T values its rating very highly, and targeting complaints to the Bureau forces them to spend time and money to respond.  Better yet, AT&T executives don’t like it one bit, as Albert writes:

“Go to the Southern Nevada Better Business Bureau and file a complaint. I just had the VP of Regional West of AT&T call.  She was pissed that I filed a complaint, and now she has to personally reply. She hung up on me.”

Being an active consumer willing to make your voice heard is an effective way to deliver the message pricing and usage tricks and traps are unacceptable.  Better yet, it annoys providers with dollar signs in their eyes, especially when canceling your service.

Albert was told the nightmare ends April 1st, when the trial wraps up, but now is the time to deliver the final protest AT&T cannot ignore.

April 1st is an ironic date — the first anniversary of  Time Warner Cable sharing word of its own Internet Overcharging experiment in Austin, San Antonio, Greensboro, NC and Rochester, NY. After two weeks of protest, Time Warner Cable shelved their experiment.

If you’re a resident of Reno or Beaumont, it’s critically important to deliver AT&T a message they can understand:

1. Contact the local media and request they publicize the ongoing controversy over Internet Overcharging schemes;
2. Contact your local and federal elected officials and let them know AT&T’s schemes are unacceptable.  See our “Take Action” section regarding support for legislation that would outlaw such schemes;
3. File a detailed complaint with the Better Business Bureau, particularly emphasizing any lack of disclosure about the experiment, bait and switch advertising, ripoff pricing, etc.  Demand an immediate and full refund for any overage charges and a free pass to cancel AT&T services without any early termination fees.
4. Reno residents — contact Barbara DiCianno at 775-334-3112. She is the mayor’s assistant. Call her and ask to have an investigation launched regarding AT&T’s discrimination against Reno with overcharging schemes that put the city at a distinct broadband disadvantage.  Local elected officials can deliver a strong political message to AT&T that such overcharging schemes will lead to robust support for re-regulation of AT&T’s broadband business to protect consumers.
5. Tell AT&T you will never remain a customer of a provider that has Internet Overcharging pricing schemes.  Tell them in no uncertain terms usage limits and usage based billing are unacceptable, and you will cancel service the moment they attempt to implement either.

A year ago, it was the residents of Beaumont and the other cities impacted by Time Warner Cable’s overcharging scheme that fought on the front line to protect every Time Warner Cable customer from facing a tripling of their price for broadband service.  Today it’s Reno and Beaumont fighting for AT&T customers, both inside their own communities and those nationwide.  As Albert reminds us:

“We will be the ones that determine if this continues or stops here and now.”

Verizon Communications has made its intentions clear — would-be broadband customers in its service area who are off the FiOS footprint can pound salt.  The Federal Communications Commission issues regular reports on broadband services and their adoption by consumers across the United States.  In the latest report, published this month, customers in Verizon’s current or former service areas who are not being served by Verizon FiOS are behind the broadband 8-ball, waiting for the arrival of DSL service from a company that has diverted most of its time, money, and attention on deploying its fiber-to-the-home service for the big city folks.

One might think the worst DSL availability in the country would be in rural states like Alaska, or territories like Guam, or income-challenged Mississippi.  No, the bottom of the barrel can be found in northern New England and the mid-Atlantic states — largely the current or former domain of Verizon:

Percentage of Residential End-User Premises with Access to High-Speed Services by State
(Connections over 200 kbps in at least one direction)

Source: FCC High-Speed Services for Internet Access: Table 19

Some might argue that DSL penetration ignores Verizon’s fiber upgrades, but does it?

Providers of High-Speed Connections by Fiber by State as of December 31, 2008
(Connections over 200 kbps in at least one direction)

Source: FCC High-Speed Services for Internet Access: Table 20

A survey of the rest of the country calls out Verizon’s inattentiveness to DSL expansion in its remaining service areas not covered by FiOS.

For example: Alabama, Idaho, Montana, and Oklahoma all enjoy 80 percent DSL availability.  Utah and Nevada achieved 90 percent coverage.  Even mountainous Wyoming, the least populous state in the country, provides 78 percent of its state’s customers with the choice of getting DSL service.  Yet New York manages only one point higher among its telephone companies, largely because of enormous service gaps upstate.

What happened?  By 2002 Verizon began to realize their future depended on moving beyond providing landline service.  The company began to divert most of its resources to a grand plan to deliver fiber connections to residences in larger markets in its service areas.  While great news for those who live there, those that don’t discovered they’ve been left behind by Verizon.  Northern New England got flushed by Verizon altogether — sold to the revenue-challenged FairPoint Communications who assumed control of Verizon’s problems and managed to make them worse.

The argument that rural broadband is “too expensive” doesn’t fly when looking at DSL availability in the expansive mountain west or rural desert regions.  Compact states like Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maryland are far easier to wire than North Dakota, New Mexico or even Texas with its large rural areas (87, 87, and 81 percent coverage, respectively).  Verizon simply doesn’t realize the kind of Return on Investment it seeks from FiOS customers — a dollar amount investors want to see.

Of course, that’s the argument Frontier Communications, and FairPoint behind it, made to regulators in sweeping promises to deliver better broadband service.  FairPoint missed its targets and declared bankruptcy.  Frontier is still in the “promises, promises” stage of its deal to take over millions of rural customers currently served by Verizon.

HBO Go is currently only available directly to Verizon FiOS customers. Comcast customers have access through Fancast, and Time Warner Cable indicated it wasn't interested in participating in HBO Go, for now.

HBO subscribers who are also Verizon FiOS TV customers are the first to get access to the premium channel’s new online video portal — HBO Go, launched Wednesday with over 600 hours of HBO programming, available free to authenticated HBO and FiOS subscribers.

HBO Go is another project spawned from the cable and pay television industry’s TV Everywhere project — putting television programming online for anytime viewing, for free, as long as you maintain a cable or pay television subscription.

Ironically, the service launched Wednesday on Verizon’s telco-TV service FiOS, leaving lots of cable subscribers waiting for access.  If you subscribe to HBO through cable, satellite, or U-verse, the service remains unavailable to you, for now.  Comcast subscribers already had access to HBO’s programming through the Fancast Xfinity TV website.  If you don’t pay for television, the service remains unavailable to you indefinitely — they won’t sell it to you at any price.

“Ultimately this is about extending the subscriber lifecycle,” HBO co-president Eric Kessler said. “It’s more about subscriber retention.”

Subscriber retention through incumbent providers, he means.  HBO doesn’t want to risk selling direct to online consumers who might want to cut ties with their cable or other pay television provider.

Stop the Cap! reader Jared has FiOS and HBO and let us sample the service through his FiOS connection (his 25Mbps/25Mbps connection with remote access maxed out our Road Runner Turbo connection and still left him plenty of leftover speed).

Let’s start with the viewing experience.

It’s a big improvement over HBO’s Wisconsin trial in 2008 with Time Warner Cable, which required viewers to download Windows Media-encoded video files protected with Microsoft’s annoying digital rights management scheme.  It was cumbersome for trial participants, and dealing with Microsoft’s player and DRM cut Mac owners out of the trial.

HBO Go is Flash-based, using Adobe’s Real-Time Messaging Protocol to keep viewers from saving permanent copies for themselves (and potentially their friends.)  Using Verizon FiOS, viewers should rarely encounter any artifacts or speed-related viewing problems.  The picture was fine, even for me using remote access software. Of course, if your Internet connection is considerably slower than FiOS or your neighborhood suffers from online congestion, you could experience issues streaming HD content, but HBO Go is designed to buffer when encountering slower connections.  The files are encoded in MPEG-4 at 1.2Mbps and 2.6Mbps, which theoretically should be fine for the majority of viewers.  Comcast subscribers – remember watching counts against your usage cap.

Wandering around the HBO Go library was simple  — easier to navigate and less cluttered than Hulu.  The site was intuitive and should be easy to use for just about everyone.

Up to three members of your household can each watch programming from the service at the same time, even away from home, anywhere in the country.

HBO Go claims to be a work in progress — about 25% of the content will be refreshed by HBO every week, with new episodes available on the service immediately following their TV premiere.

But the service hardly offers a comprehensive viewing experience.  It’s much closer to Hulu or your cable company’s HBO on Demand service.

For example, rights issues limit virtually all of HBO’s original series to a handful of recent episodes or seasons.  Only The Wire has a complete library to watch from its premiere forward.  Curb Your Enthusiasm, aptly named when considering HBO Go, is missing completely.  So is Real Time with Bill Maher, although four of his earlier specials are archived on the site.

As for movies, there are gaping holes there as well.  Available titles resemble Cinemax’s selection of movies you’ve already seen.  There are gaps between what you can watch on HBO itself and what is available on HBO Go.  Babe is online, for instance, but anything Harry Potter isn’t.

In other words, what could have been a compelling addition for HBO subscribers feels redundant.  I would never pay anything extra for HBO Go, nor will it be a factor in keeping HBO.

Online viewers need not apply.

HBO could have used the opportunity to sell the service to non-cable subscribers for a monthly fee and pick up some additional revenue, but that wouldn’t sit well with the pay television cartel that is behind the TV Everywhere concept.  They don’t want you cord cutting — those that have are locked out of the HBO Go Clubhouse.  For now, I suspect few were clamoring to get in.