At least 20 percent of Canadians lack Internet access, according to a new survey published by Statistics Canada.  That means one out of every five homes either cannot afford, don’t want, or can’t get online.

The lack of access is most acute in low income households, where only about half with incomes of $30,000 or less access the Internet.  The income and access disparity was readily apparent when comparing broadband rich, income poor New Brunswick (70% have broadband) with service-deprived British Columbia, which has an 84% penetration rate.  In NB, you can get it but you can’t afford it; in BC if you can get it, you already have it.

Although cities in southern Canada are well-wired, smaller communities further north are often not, and the access some get is slow and unreliable.  But few are willing to live with dial-up access.  At least 96% of Canadians rely on broadband or simply go without the service.  The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has set a goal to deliver at least 5Mbps broadband service to every interested Canadian by the end of 2012.

Some statistics, starting with those without Internet service:

• 56% lacked interest or need;
• 20% cited the cost of the service;
• 15% don’t have access to a computer;
• 12% don’t understand enough about computers or the Internet to use it;
• 93% of households with children had Internet access while just 58% of single-person homes had the service;
• 81% of urban homes had access to broadband, just 71% of rural homes do;
• 71% of Canadians access the Internet from a traditional desktop computer, 64% use a laptop, 35% use a tablet or smartphone for access, and just 20% rely on a video game console to get online.

Statistics Canada surveyed 30,000 Canadians as part of its research.

Shaw’s wallet-biting usage billing shark finally gets the net, at least for some of the company’s broadband plans.

After a firestorm of protests from customers across western Canada, Shaw Communications this week unveiled new Internet packages and pricing that dramatically increases usage allowances and introduces unlimited use plans.  Stop the Cap! reader Mark shares the good news that consumer pushback can make a difference:

Today we are excited to share our new direction on Internet pricing and packaging with you, our customers. With your help, we’ve created a model that we hope you’ll agree is fair, flexible and offers a variety of options for customers today and into the future.

We’d like to thank the hundreds of customers who took time to come out to the 34 sessions and those who shared their ideas online. Many of those who participated are the technology innovators who told us they wanted an Internet experience that worked not only today, but for the needs of tomorrow. We also heard that our customers wanted transparency, more choice of internet speed and data options, increased flexibility to meet their varied needs, and above all, fairness.

The decisions we have made coming out of those sessions are far reaching. We went into the session thinking it was a discussion about pricing and packaging, and came out with a new vision for the future. Put an end to your struggles, as the perfect packaging solution to enhance your product is available at https://www.andex.net/blister-cards/.

One of the biggest decisions we have made is to undertake a major upgrade of our network by converting our television analog tiers to digital. In making this move we will triple the capacity of our network, freeing up space for more Internet, HD and On Demand programming. This conversion will start in June and will take sixteen months to complete. As a result of this upgrade, it will open up opportunities for Shaw to offer industry leading broadband performance.

While it is unlikely many Shaw customers clamored to see the cable company convert to an all-digital system (which requires a set top box on every connected television), the aggressive move to expand DOCSIS 3 technology will provide Shaw the option of pitching faster Internet speeds to customers — exactly what they intend to offer:

1. Increased Data Consumption with our Existing Model: Customers can choose to stay with their existing packaging and pricing except with much higher data levels. Our existing acceptable use policy will remain the same as it is today.
   

   Package	Speed	Current Data	New Data	Bundle Price	Standalone Price	With Personal TV (SPP)
   Shaw Lite Speed	1 Mbps	15 GB	30 GB	$27	$37	$64.90
   Shaw High Speed	7.5 Mbps	60 GB	125 GB	$39	$49	$74.90
   Shaw Extreme	25 Mbps	100 GB	250 GB	$49	$59	$84.90

2. New Broadband Packages: We have created new packages featuring industry leading performance and greater value. These broadband packages will come bundled with TV and will roll out in two phases. Phase 1 will be available in June, 2011 and Phase 2 will become available as the network upgrade occurs. Our advanced digital network will be activated neighbourhood by neighbourhood over the next 16 months starting in August, 2011.Customers who choose one of the new packages will enter into an automatic upgrade program. Those who go over their data consumption will be placed in the next higher package for the remainder of the month. The following month’s data will be reset and customers will return to their original package unless they choose to stay at the higher level.We have also created unlimited data options for our customers, an Unlimited Lite and Unlimited 100. As the new network becomes available, we will also offer Unlimited 250.
3. Phase 1 Broadband Packages (Available June, 2011)
   

   Package	Download Speed	Upload Speed	Data	With Legacy TV	With Personal TV (SPP)
   Unlimited Lite	1 Mbps	256 kbps	Unlimited	Add $59.00	$84.90
   Broadband 50	50 Mbps	3 Mbps	400 GB	Add $59.00	$84.90
   Broadband 100	100 Mbps	5 Mbps	500 GB	Add $69.00	$94.90
   Broadband 100+	100 Mbps	5 Mbps	750 GB	Add $79.00	$104.90
   Unlimited 100	100 Mbps	5 Mbps	Unlimited	Add $119.00	$144.90

   Phase 2 Broadband Packages (Rolling Launch Starting August, 2011)

   Package	Download Speed	Upload Speed	Data	With Legacy TV	With Personal TV (SPP)
   Unlimited Lite	1 Mbps	256 kbps	Unlimited	Add $59.00	$84.90
   Broadband 50	50 Mbps	5 Mbps	400 GB	Add $59.00	$84.90
   Broadband 100	100 Mbps	10 Mbps	500 GB	Add $69.00	$94.90
   Broadband 100+	100 Mbps	10 Mbps	750 GB	Add $79.00	$104.90
   Broadband 250	250 Mbps	15 Mbps	1 TB	Add $99.00	$124.90
   Unlimited 250	250 Mbps	15 Mbps	Unlimited	Add $119.00	$144.90

While this represents a welcome change for Canadians long weary of stingy usage allowances, the pricing for the company’s unlimited use options is on the high side, and is not an available option for the most popular lower speed tiers, with the exception of the company’s 1Mbps “Lite” plan, where it carries a ludicrous monthly fee of $59, the exact same price customers will pay for a 50Mbps plan with a 400GB monthly limit.

We would have liked to see Shaw introduce unlimited options for all of their usage plans (or better yet simply drop the limits altogether).  As it stands, they are effectively charging an extra $20-40 a month to be free from a usage cap on some of their new highest speed tiers. For most customers, the effective result of Shaw’s changes is a more generous usage package.

Shaw’s pricing for high speed plans is aggressive.  For what Americans would pay Time Warner Cable for 50/5Mbps service, a Shaw customer will eventually get 250/15Mbps with a 1TB limit (add $20 for unlimited).

Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor, suspects the looming hearings by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) over usage-based-billing has a lot to to with this week’s changes by Shaw, which just months earlier was lowering usage allowances.

“Shaw is doing this because the writing was on the wall,” Geist says. “When you’re in a position to offer such better pricing and data caps than what you were offering before, it highlights just how uncompetitive this market has been.”

Eastern Canadians in Ontario and Quebec will be waiting to see what companies like Rogers, Videotron, and Bell do in response to Shaw’s new pricing model.  As it stands, western Canadians will nearly get double the speeds and usage allowances those in the eastern half of the country endure from cable and phone companies.  That could be a political nightmare at the CRTC hearings, and would continue to call out the highly arbitrary nature of Internet Overcharging, whether it is found in Calgary, Toronto, or Montreal.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse Banking trojan fakes Verizon Wireless website 5-20-11.mp4[/flv]

If you paid your Verizon Wireless bill on Verizon’s website anytime from May 7 to May 13, you may now be at risk of identity theft. The company’s website was not hacked or compromised, but customers who used computers without adequate anti-virus protection may have fallen victim to a banking trojan that collected personal and banking information and sent it on to points unknown.  WSYR-TV in Syracuse delivers the bad news.  (2 minutes)

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WFTS Tampa The Need for Speed How to test your internet speed 5-19-11.mp4[/flv]

WFTS-TV in Tampa launched a consumer investigation when a local customer noticed the Verizon FiOS Internet service he was paying for — 25/25Mbps — was actually only providing him with 2.88Mbps upload speeds.  Even worse, both providers in the Tampa Bay area — Bright House Communications and Verizon, say actual speeds are not guaranteed, leading at least one customer to file an official complaint with the Federal Communications Commission for false advertising and misrepresentation by Verizon Communications.  WFTS examines whether providers have to actually deliver the speeds they promise, or does the fine print get them off the hook, leaving you paying more than you should for Internet speeds you are not getting.  (3 minutes)

Vermont officials this month are learning broadband maps purporting to represent widespread availability of high speed Internet access across the state are much less accurate than originally thought.  Now into its second week, the BroadbandVT project to identify service gaps and collect actual broadband speeds is showing a chasm between provider claims and actual broadband reality on the ground for the state’s 625,000 residents.

Vermont’s broadband service availability map was originally reliant on service providers voluntarily contributing data about where service was available — data that has rapidly found to be faulty as Vermont residents report their actual broadband experiences to the state’s website.

The state’s Broadband Mapping Team used data from a phone survey conducted in January by the University of Vermont-Center for Rural Studies to verify providers’ claims of broadband availability.  On May 12, state officials reported that their provider-inspired maps were not accurate, and officials wanted residents to help verify coverage.

“I’m bound and determined to have Vermont connected by 2013 — high-speed Internet and cell service to every last mile. One of our challenges is that we don’t have information that we can trust about who has service and who doesn’t,” Gov. Peter Shumlin said. “So we need Vermonter’s help, so we can figure out where to go. So we’re urging Vermonters to use our new website to help us get truth about your service in your home or business.”

In similar cases Stop the Cap! has followed, the biggest sources of inaccurate data turn out to be telephone companies and wireless providers.  Phone companies like FairPoint Communications may advertise DSL available in certain communities, but be unable to actually provide the service to every household due to the distance between the central telephone exchange and the customer’s home, or because of deteriorated infrastructure.  Wireless providers often theorize where service should be available, but real world experience proves otherwise.

FairPoint told the Brattleboro Reformer the phone company intends to do much better delivering DSL to Vermont residents in the coming weeks.  The company claims it already provides DSL access to 82 percent of the state and intends to increase that number considerably higher in June.

“We have a plan with the state to bring total broadband coverage to half of our telephone exchanges in the state, so that’s the first three digits of your phone number. Ninety-five percent of that will be done in the next six weeks,” said FairPoint spokeswoman Sabina Haskell.

Vermont residents appear to be enthusiastic participants in the project, with 1,500 visitors a day using the website’s broadband maps and taking speed tests to share results with the state, who can compare them against providers’ speed claims.

Vermont’s expansion of broadband service is a state priority, and directing resources to areas of need has proved critical as the state receives and spends broadband stimulus funding.  Crowdsourced maps can expose exaggerated claims of broadband availability or confirm them as accurate.  The state intends to update its maps regularly based on data it receives, all part of an initiative to deliver 100 percent broadband coverage across the state.

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WPTZ-TV in Plattsburgh explores Vermont’s new initiative to bring broadband to 100 percent of the state’s residents.  (2 minutes)

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WPTZ-TV also reports on the state’s new website to verify broadband mapping data and speed claims made by the state’s phone and cable companies.  (3 minutes)