Still Not Measuring Usage Correctly

Bell Canada’s Internet usage meter is still giving wildly inaccurate measurements of Internet usage, some customers allege.

Eleanor White, a Bell broadband customer, found Bell measuring some 30-44GB of usage, despite the fact the biggest bandwidth application in use by the account holder is a 16kbps audio stream running regularly throughout the day.

White estimates the monthly usage from that radio stream can’t be more than three gigabytes for the entire month, even leaving the stream running 16 hours a day.

“I hardly ever watch online video, and I estimate my usage from the radio stream and doubling it to account for e-mail reading and web browsing to be no more than 5.6GB a month,” White says. “But Bell measures at least 6-8 times as much, month after month.”

Bell’s usage meter has been implicated repeatedly for being inaccurate, occasionally by the company itself.  But the tool remains online and Bell continues to maintain its Internet Overcharging schemes, even for customers on its hybrid fiber-copper Fibe network.

Customers accuse Bell of overmeasuring usage on Fibe broadband as well.

“From the moment I got switched to Fibe, my traffic [measurement] went through the roof, at least according to the traffic monitor,” says Jurjen.  “[But that measurement doesn’t reflect] what we were actually using the Internet for.”

“Don’t try to get this solved; Bell won’t do anything (trust me, I tried for about five months),” Jurjen says. “The only solution: switch ISPs.”

Jurjen thinks the day holding Bell accountable for their broken usage meter is long overdue.

“For every service that you get billed by a unit, you must be certified by Measurements Canada. Just check your local gas station, it’ll have stickers all over. Same for your electricity provider,” Jurjen says.

“However, Bell is not certified by Measurements Canada. If you have a lot of spare time and money, do us a favor and start a trial against Bell.”

Industry Minister Christian Paradis just completed nearly two weeks of private meetings with some of Canada’s largest telecommunications companies regarding issues important to the industry, but has not scheduled face time with ordinary Canadian consumers or the public interest consumer groups that represent their interests.

Minister Paradis

Wire Report provided the schedule:

Aug. 16
Cogeco Cable Inc.
Shaw Communications Inc.
Quebecor Media Inc.
Globalive Wireless Management Corp.
Xplornet Communications Inc.
Public Mobile

Aug. 17
EastLink
BCE Inc.
Mobilicity
Telus Communications Co.

Aug. 22
Rogers Communications Inc.
MTS Allstream

Aug. 24
SaskTel

Bloomberg reports the primary topic on the agenda is upcoming spectrum auctions for additional wireless frequencies and loosening restrictions on foreign-ownership rules regarding would-be wireless competitors interested in entering Canada’s cell phone marketplace, which currently has the third-highest prices for mobile-phone services in the world, according to the OECD.

A rules change regarding foreign ownership may open the door...

Canadian telecom providers may not have more than 20 percent of their operations owned or controlled by foreign entities, a percentage that could be adjusted in the coming months.  But while changes in foreign ownership rules may benefit new entrants like Globalive Holdings, which operates Wind Mobile, it could also spell profound changes for millions of Canadians.  Industry analyst Dvai Ghose told Bloomberg he expects any relaxation of foreign-ownership rules may also pave the way for a mega merger of Bell and Telus.

“If you allow foreigners into our market, it becomes much more compelling to say we should allow one Canadian champion,” said Ghose, co-head of Canadian research at Canaccord Genuity.

That “champion” could quickly become Canada’s version of AT&T, dramatically reducing competition and raising prices, especially for captive landline customers who rely on the companies for broadband and landline service.  Telus and Bell currently compete with one another in the wireless market, where they would have an enormous share and combined market power should they be permitted to merge.

That would be a high price to pay for many Canadian consumers who do business with Bell or Telus, especially when contrasted with the fact Wind Mobile has attracted only 271,000 customers as of the end of March 2011.

...to a mega-merger of Bell and Telus.

Unfortunately, consumers are not included in Minister Paradis’ day-planner to share their views of further marketplace consolidation or wireless spectrum reform.  In fact, they don’t even have a right to learn what exactly was discussed during the closed door sessions.

A spokeswoman for Paradis, Pascale Boulay, would only confirm the minister met with 13 companies since Aug. 16, but refused to elaborate on the meetings.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski tried this approach with some of America’s largest telecommunications companies last summer, holding a series of closed door meetings.  They eventually produced telecommunications policies so watered down, they neutralized Genachowski’s earlier commitments to protect Net Neutrality and foster additional competition.  Will Canada repeat America’s mistake?

On September 13, most PBS stations will premiere a new documentary, “Bill McGowan, Long Distance Warrior” exploring the many trials and tribulations of MCI Corporation, the long distance and e-mail provider that was instrumental in breaking up Ma Bell’s monopoly in telephone service.

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Long Distance Warrior.flv[/flv]

A preview of PBS’ Long Distance Warrior, which premieres on most PBS stations Sept. 13  (3 minutes)

For those under 30, “MCI” may not mean much.  The company that helped pioneer competitive long distance calling was absorbed into the Worldcom empire in 1997, where it continued to provide service until a major corporate accounting scandal brought Worldcom down in 2002.  Most of what was left was eventually sold to Verizon Communications in 2005.

Remarkably, Microwave Communications, Inc. (MCI) was founded all the way back in 1963, but not as a provider of telephone services.  That MCI sought to build a network of microwave relay stations between Chicago and St. Louis to provide uninterrupted two-way radio service for some of the nation’s largest trucking and shipping companies.

The Bell System

By the late 1960s, William G. McGowan, an investor and venture capitalist from New York won a seat on MCI’s board of directors and part ownership of a newly-envisioned version of MCI — one that would provide businesses with a range of telecommunications products, including long distance telephone connections.  With many American corporations maintaining branch and regional offices, connecting them together was a potentially very lucrative business, especially if MCI could deliver the service at prices cheaper than what the monopoly Bell System was charging.

With their microwave relay network, now expanding across the country, MCI could distribute long distance phone calls cheaply and efficiently, if they could find a way to connect that network to Bell’s local phone system.  After all, it does little good to offer long distance service if you cannot connect calls to the businesses’ existing telephone equipment.

That’s where AT&T and its Bell Operating Companies objected.  For them, only calls originating on and delivered over their own network should be allowed.  MCI, as an interloper, was seeking to use the network AT&T built and paid for.  It’s an argument that has echoed more than 30 years later, when AT&T’s then-CEO Ed Whitacre objected to outside Internet content providers “using AT&T’s pipes for free.”

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/MCI First 20 Years.mp4[/flv]

On the occasion of MCI’s 20th anniversary, the company produced this retrospective exploring the difficult times competing with AT&T and the Bell System.  (9 minutes)

MCI's best argument: AT&T's long distance bills

McGowan confronted arguments from AT&T executives who warned that competitive long distance would destroy the business model of America’s Bell System, which provided affordable local phone service to all 50 states, in part subsidized by long distance telephone rates, mostly paid by its commercial customers.  Tamper with that, they warned, and local phone bills would be forced to soar to make up the difference.

MCI called that argument a scare tactic, and suggested instead that AT&T’s monopoly had grown inefficient, bloated, expensive, and resistant to innovation and change.  MCI could deliver a substantially less expensive service and would force AT&T to increase its own efficiency to compete.  AT&T wasn’t interested in that argument and sued, repeatedly, to keep MCI out of its business.

By 1984, federal courts declared AT&T a monopoly worthy of a break-up, and opened the door to MCI’s long distance network.  By that time, MCI was already thinking about evolving itself beyond a business long distance provider, whose network was largely idle after business hours.  Because most Americans were accustomed to making long distance calls at night when rates were substantially lower, MCI developed new residential long distance service plans that encouraged customers to use that idle network at night and on weekends.

[flv width=”640″ height=”447″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/crying_mother.f4v[/flv]

One of MCI’s most memorable ads features a sobbing mother who reached out and touched her son over long distance a little too much.  (1 minute)

Thus began more than a decade of heavy advertising and competition for the long distance telephone market.  With equal access rules in place, consumers could choose their own long distance phone company and shop for the one with the lowest rates.  Competitors like Sprint, WilTel, LDDS, RCI, LCI, and yes, even AT&T all pitched their own calling plans.

MCI also pioneered MCI Mail, one of the first commercial electronic mail systems.  The original concept had businesses typing letters on a computer terminal, printed on standard paper at an MCI office closest to the destination, and then mailed in an envelope through the U.S. Post Office.  This poor-man’s version of a telex or telegram worked for businesses that wanted overnight delivery, but not at the prices charged by shippers like Federal Express.  In larger cities, MCI Mail could offer businesses delivery of their electronic communications within four hours, something closer to a traditional telegram of days gone-by.

MCI Mail’s hard copy deliveries wouldn’t last long, of course.  As the 1980s progressed, the fax machine and the more familiar all-electronic e-mail we think of today became firmly established.  As MCI Mail became less relevant, the company innovated into offering low priced telex services, mass-faxing, and data backhaul services to provide connectivity for online networks.

[flv width=”504″ height=”400″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WIBW MCI Mail 1984.flv[/flv]

WIBW explores a new concept in communications — something called ‘electronic mail,’ a service that bewildered consumers in the early 1980s.  This report from 1984.  (2 minutes)

Bill McGowan: Would not approve of AT&T's plans to restore the glory days of the past.

AT&T, in contrast, was still getting over the loss of its local Bell Operating Companies — the regional phone companies most Americans did business with, and the loss of revenue earned from renting telephone equipment.  For years, AT&T long distance was branded as a quality leader, not a price leader.  It maintained its enormous market share partly through consumer indifference — customers who did not initially choose a new long distance carrier remained with AT&T, the default choice.

It took only about a decade after the Bell break-up for telecom industry lobbyists to begin advocating for enough deregulation to allow many of those former Baby Bells to re-combine through mergers and acquisitions.  The result is today’s AT&T, formed from its long distance unit, BellSouth, Illinois Bell, Indiana Bell, Michigan Bell, Nevada Bell, Ohio Bell, Pacific Bell, Southwestern Bell, Wisconsin Bell, and Southern New England Telephone.  Its largest competitor is Verizon Communications, which itself resulted from a combination of Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, GTE, and what was left of MCI after Worldcom was through with it.

McGowan’s fight was a personally costly one.  A workaholic, McGowan routinely put in 15 hour work days and drank up to 20 cups of coffee daily.  His heart finally had enough and McGowan succumbed to a heart attack in 1992 at age 64.  But he leaves a legacy and two decades of fighting to break up AT&T’s monopoly, which he always believed was bad for consumers and business (unless you were AT&T, of course).  That’s an important message as AT&T strengthens its resolve to acquire one of its significant competitors in the profitable wireless market — T-Mobile.  McGowan would have never approved.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KCSM San Mateo Electronic Mail 6-18-87.mp4[/flv]

“The Computer Chronicles,” a production of KCSM-TV, spent a half hour in June 1987 showing off electronic e-mail service from MCI and how consumers and businesses using something called a “modem” could connect their home computers with online databases and services to exchange information and communications back and forth.  And for those business travelers on the road, away from their office computers, Speech Plus offered a product that could still keep you “connected,” by reading your e-mail to you over the phone.  In 1987, outside of commercial pay networks like CompuServe, Delphi, PeopleLink and QuantumLink, most Americans with modems used them to connect to typically-free hobbyist-run computer bulletin board systems.  Widespread access to “the Internet” would take another 5-6 years.  (29 minutes)

Next time you wonder why you are paying substantially higher cell phone bills than your neighbors abroad, take note: just three cell phone companies control 94 percent of the wireless marketplace in Canada, with more than 23.5 million combined subscribers.  The four other significant carriers have a combined subscriber base of around 1.5 million, hardly worth noticing by the largest three:

Rogers Communications

The telecom giant Rogers controls the largest share of the Canadian wireless market with 9,127,000 subscribers as of the end of June.  Nearly 7.5 million of those customers are on two year contracts and pay an average bill of $70.07 per month.  Prepaid customers pay substantially less for their occasional-use phones: $16.14 a month.  Rogers adds more subscribers than it loses, picking up 591,000 new customers during the first quarter, while losing 456,000 current customers, winning a net gain of 135,000.

Data revenue is becoming increasingly important for Rogers, now constituting 35 percent of earnings for the company’s wireless division.

Bell

Coming in at second place is Bell Canada, with 7,283,000 customers.  Over 5.7 million are on contract, 1.6 million are using Bell prepaid phones.  Bell added just under 38,000 new customers last quarter, the smallest net add among the three largest providers.  The average contract customer pays Bell $63.18 a month; prepaid customers pay $16.88.

Telus Mobility

Telus, western Canada’s largest phone company, sells wireless service across the country and has become the third largest wireless provider with 5.8 million contract customers and 1.2 million prepaid clients.  Together, they pay an average of $58.88 a month.  Telus picked up 94,000 net additions last quarter, which is better than Bell but worse than Rogers.

Everyone Else

Among the rest, Saskatchewan’s phone company Sasktel had managed to reach 568,000 subscribers, mostly in the province, as of late March.  MTS Allstream Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Manitoba Telecom came in with 489,722 customers.  Videotron, Quebec’s biggest cable company, had 210,600 clients, mostly in Quebec.

Among the newest entrants, Wind Mobile, subject to considerable controversy for its foreign financial backing, may one day be a much larger player in Canada’s wireless marketplace, but not today.  It had just 271,000 customers as of March 31st.

Even fewer customers rely on some of Canada’s regional providers, which include companies like Thunder Bay Telephone, Lynx Mobility (co-owned by an aboriginal partner with a mission to serve rural Canada), Calgary-based AirTel, which is popular with oil/gas workers for its “push to talk” service, and Ice Wireless, which is the largest GSM carrier in northern Canada, reaching 70% of the population of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

Canada’s largest three providers also own or control several “competitors” that mostly sell prepaid service.  Customers thinking they are escaping the big boys often really are not:

• Fido is owned by Rogers;
• Virgin Mobile Canada is owned by Bell;
• Koodo Mobile is owned by Telus

Two years after Americans dumped analog television in favor of digital over the air broadcasting, in just over two weeks many Canadians will discover their favorite free-TV signals gone from the analog airwaves forever.

Canada’s transition to digital TV will take a substantial step forward on Aug. 31st when many Canadian local television stations cease broadcasting in analog.  Canada’s pay television providers are taking full advantage of the transition, trying to persuade Canadians who watch their television signals over-the-air for free they will be better off paying for those signals going forward.

Part of the problem is that digital television signals, while “snow-free,” are not pixel-free in many areas distant from the transmitter.  As Americans in suburban locations discovered, those trusty indoor rabbit ears may be insufficient to receive an annoyance-free picture.

Digital television signals are not the nirvana some suggest.  The same passing vehicles and aircraft that caused wavy analog pictures or other interference can turn a digital picture into a frightfest of frozen picture blocks, digital raining pixels, and other effects that can make watching a difficult signal near impossible.

For Americans who thought the days of the external rooftop antenna were behind them, digital television changed all that, especially in more rural areas that could live with a slightly snowy analog picture, but found sub-optimal digital signals unwatchable.

Canada’s vast expanse, and its accompanying large network of low powered television repeater stations rebroadcasting signals from major stations in provincial capitals and large Canadian cities may prove to be an even greater reception challenge, especially in the Canadian Rockies and hilly terrain in eastern Canada.

Some Canadians experimenting with digital-to-analog converter boxes have found reception less practical than they originally thought.

Peter, a Stop the Cap! reader who lives near Oshawa, Ontario delivers some difficult news:

“Reception of digital signals from Toronto’s CN Tower has proved to be a lot more difficult in Oshawa than the existing analog signals,” Peter writes.  “We have no trouble getting truly local signals like CHEX-TV, which has a transmitter in analog serving Oshawa, but watching digital signals from Toronto really requires an outside antenna for good reception.”

Snow may be a thing of the past, but bad digital reception like this may be here to stay for many Canadian viewers.

Peter’s decision to erect a rooftop antenna opened the door to reception of analog and digital signals from Toronto and across Lake Ontario, where he can receive digital signals from some stations in Buffalo and Rochester, N.Y.  But it was an expense of several hundred dollars to get the work done.

“Cable and satellite companies are taking full advantage of the digital switch to try and get free-TV viewers to ‘upgrade’ to pay television, and they don’t hesitate to mention the expense and hassle of erecting rooftop antennas to guarantee good digital reception,” Peter says.

Peter can only imagine what digital reception will be like in the Canadian Rockies, where large networks of analog, mostly low-powered UHF transmitters deliver basic reception to important networks, especially CBC, outside of major cities.

“If you visit western Alberta or eastern B.C., good luck to you — we could barely watch over the air signals in most of the mountain towns,” Peter says. “Most people either have cable or satellite already.”

Not every television transmitter is scheduled to switch off analog service at the end of August.  Many rural areas are expected to retain analog signals for some time, in part because of the expense of digital conversion and concerns about reception quality.  But some areas, particularly near the U.S. border, are scheduled to drop analog signals regardless, potentially causing disruptions for plenty of free-TV viewers.  Ottawa is anxious to auction off the vacated frequencies for cell phone, Wi-Fi and wireless broadband use for an estimated $4 billion, and the demand is highest in cities along the U.S. border.

“As many as 1.4 million English-language viewers and 700,000 Francophone viewers may be left without a CBC signal,” Ian Morrison, spokesman for the non-profit Friends of Public Broadcasting, which monitors the CBC and promotes Canadian content on TV and radio told the Toronto Star. “For the most part, these are poorer and older people on fixed incomes who are of no interest to advertisers, but who rely for their news and connection to the community on the CBC, the nearest thing we have in this country to a public broadcaster.”

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission runs a website regarding the transition and includes a list of impacted television stations.  Canadian consumers who elect to purchase converter boxes for their analog televisions will pay full price for them — Ottawa has not followed Washington’s lead subsidizing their purchase with a coupon program.

Meanwhile, many pay television providers are running “digital TV upgrade” specials trying to get Canadians to walk away from free TV in favor of paid video packages:

Shaw Direct: Shaw’s direct to home satellite service has developed the best offer around for qualifying residents in 20 Canadian cities set to lose analog television: free service.

“The Local Television Satellite Solution is [for] households in 20 designated cities that have been receiving their television services over-the-air, and will lose over-the-air access to their local broadcaster because the analog transmitter is being shut down and will not be replaced by a digital transmitter,” a Shaw spokesperson told the Toronto Star. “Shaw will provide a household in a qualifying area with a free satellite receiver and dish that is authorized to receive a package of local and regionally relevant signals from Shaw Direct. There are no monthly programming fees provided that a household qualifies to participate in the program.”

The qualifying cities:

For everyone else, Shaw Direct’s least expensive package is their Bronze – English Essentials tier which runs $41.99 a month.

Rogers Cable: Rogers is marketing a special package called Rogers Digital TV which offers up to 85 channels for $10.14 a month, which includes all fees.  Many of the channels are included for the first year as a teaser.  After that, customers are left with mostly local stations and filler (including — we’re not kidding — the Aquarium Channel, which shows exactly what you think it does.  Remember, this is the same cable company that brought you the Swiss Chalet Rotisserie Channel.)

“It’s a fine way to get people used to paying for television, and Rogers introductory price is sure to increase at some point,” suspects Peter.  “Maybe you can save a few dollars using those Swiss Chalet meal coupons, though.”

Telus: Western Canada’s largest phone company doesn’t offer much, in comparison.  A basic package of Telus IPTV over your phone line — Optik TV — starts at $41 a month for the first six months.  Telus Satellite TV starts at $38.27 a month, for the first half of a year.  Prices run higher after that.  The most Telus will toss in is a $50 credit for a customer referral from a friend or family member.

Look on the bright side: When you pay for Rogers Cable, you can finally get to watch The Rotisserie Channel. The spinning chickens are waiting for you, in digital clarity, 24 hours a day on Ch. 208.

Bell: Another phone company with not a whole lot on offer.  Bell’s basic service, which includes TV stations from the U.S. and Canada, starts at $33.50 a month.

Videotron: Quebec’s largest cable company is pitching a combo mini-pack with basic service for $21.29 a month and a required extra channel package starting at $11.17 a month.  That’s around $33 a month.

Can you watch online?  The CRTC says you may find many of your favorite shows available online for free viewing, but includes the important caveat: most Canadian ISP’s engage in classic Internet Overcharging schemes that include a monthly usage allowance that will curtail substantial online viewing.  It should come as little surprise most of the providers in the pay television business in Canada also happen to be the largest Internet Service Providers as well.

About 93 percent of Canadians currently receive television from some form of pay television provider — cable, telco TV, or satellite, according to the CBC.  But some of the 7 percent who do not are at risk of losing Canada’s public broadcaster after the conversion.  While CBC owns most of the stations and transmitters it broadcasts from, it also affiliates with private stations in certain cities where it does have its own presence.

Come Sept. 1, no over-the-air CBC signals of any kind will be transmitted from London and Kitchener-Waterloo in Ontario; Sherbrooke, Chicoutimi, Quebec City and Trois-Rivières in Quebec; Saint John and Moncton in New Brunswick; Saskatoon, Sask., and Lethbridge, Alta.  These are all cities where private stations provided CBC service.  Viewers in these areas will need a pay television subscription, or simply go without.

For some of those already subscribing to cable, Sept. 1 also signals the end of some of their favorite stations, as CRTC requires cable providers to prioritize local stations over more distant ones.  In southeastern Ontario, for example, a number of viewers will lose access to CBLT, Toronto’s CBC station, and CFTO, Toronto’s CTV affiliate, in favor of “more local” stations in Kingston, Ottawa, and Peterborough.