Bell's Broadband Shell Game (image: Dave Blume)

The digital equivalent of a Trojan Horse was laid at the feet of Canadian telecom regulators Monday when officials from Bell, Canada’s largest phone company, announced they were withdrawing their controversial proposal to mandate usage-based billing on all wholesale broadband accounts.

The original proposal would have mandated that independent Internet Service Providers bill each of their individual customers a monthly fee based on their Internet usage in addition to the wholesale access rates paid to Bell all along.  The pricing proposal would have forced every ISP in Canada to abandon flat rate Internet service, raise prices, reduce usage allowances, and increase overlimit penalties.

Now Bell has told the Globe & Mail newspaper it wants to introduce something called “Aggregated Volume Pricing” instead — a plan Bell claims will shift financial penalties for “high usage” away from individual customers and onto the ISPs themselves. Bell also slashed the proposed overlimit fee from a heavily-defended-as-fair $2.50 per gigabyte to a more modest $0.30/GB, perhaps echoing AT&T’s forthcoming overlimit fee.

In fact, Bell’s revised plan is the same Internet Overcharging scheme under a new name.

The radical reduction in overlimit fees only further illustrates the “phoney-baloney” of providers attempting to monetize broadband usage under the guise of “fairness” and “congestion relief.”  Last week’s ’eminently fair’ $2.50 is this week’s ‘more than reasonable’ $0.30.

Bell exposed their hand — showing they have been bluffing about congestion all along.  An analysis of the proposed rates shows the company is still trying to target “heavy users.”  But instead of penalizing them into reducing their consumption, Bell is now seeking to monetize that usage, not control it.  By shifting aggregate usage costs to the wholesale market, Bell hopes individual customers will blame independent ISP’s for higher bills, not them.  Independent providers have to pass along their wholesale costs as part of the retail price of their service.  It’s a high tech shell game, one that consumers will always lose.

Despite this, Bell assumes the revised plan will take the bipartisan heat off its backside since it first proposed doing away with flat rate Internet service in Canada.

“With our filing today, we are officially withdrawing our UBB proposal,” said Mirko Bibic, Bell’s head of regulatory affairs. “Let’s move on, in my view, and use the CRTC hearing as an opportunity to approve those principles and get the implementation details right.”

"We don't like (Bell's proposal)."

Several Canadian officials were not impressed and one — Industry Minister Tony Clement — said exactly that.

Canada’s consumer groups and politicians have the giant telecom company on the run after using Bell CEO George Cope’s own words against him.  Cope openly admitted in conference calls with investors UBB had everything to do with monetizing broadband usage for profit.

Bell’s attempt to serve warmed-over Internet Overcharging from a new recipe isn’t flying among consumer groups either, who recognize it as more of the same leftovers, just under a new name.

Bill Sandiford, who heads a coalition of wholesale ISPs called the Canadian Network Operators Consortium, told the Globe & Mail Bell was simply presenting its usage-based pricing model in a more acceptable guise.

“We don’t think this is an about-face. It’s the same thing, just dressed up differently,” Mr. Sandiford said. “We don’t like it. It’s still wholesale UBB.”

Openmedia.ca, an online activist group, said Bell’s new proposal shows consumers are having an impact, but the fight is by no means over.

“We’re pleased that Canadians will now have the option to use indie ISPs like Teksavvy and Acanac to access the unlimited Internet,” said OpenMedia.ca’s Executive Director Steve Anderson. “This is a giant step forward for the Stop The Meter campaign, and a victory for those who support competition and choice in Canada’s Internet service market.”

“While this is a positive move, it is only a Band-Aid solution to a much larger problem. We at OpenMedia.ca hope the CRTC takes Bell’s submission as a sign that widespread usage-based billing is not an acceptable model for Internet pricing, and that it creates policy to support the affordable Internet.”

Q.  What moves faster than North Carolina’s cable and DSL service?

A.  Legislation to make sure the state’s telecom companies can continue to provide slow, expensive, and hit or miss service for years to come.

Big Telecom money has greased the process as H.129, the Telecom Monopoly Preservation and Protection Act is rushed to the House floor before North Carolina consumers know what is happening.

Residents have until Monday evening at 7pm to make their feelings known on this anti-consumer nightmare for cities and small towns:

• H.129 will shut down the digital economies of small cities like Wilson and Salisbury just as they are primed to sell themselves as a great home for high-tech, high-paying jobs.
• H.129 guarantees rural North Carolina will resemble the 21st century equivalent of Oliver Twist — begging for whatever limited broadband the state’s phone companies refuse to deliver.

The appalling truth is that the companies pushing for this bill only want broadband service on their watch, under their control, with their high prices and virtually no competition or choice.  And now AT&T is prepared to limit your broadband usage as well, establishing usage caps and overcharging customers who exceed them.

Do you want your broadband choices limited to these phone and cable companies?  Considering North Carolina broadband is ranked 41st out of the 50 states, it’s clear they don’t consider the state a priority.

But it does not have to be this way.  Where providers drop the ball, communities should have the choice to pick it up and run with it.  That is what Wilson and Salisbury did, and the result is the best broadband service in the state.  That’s a threat Time Warner Cable and CenturyLink can’t afford to ignore, which is why they want these networks stopped at all costs.

Defeating H.129 is critical to the state’s broadband future.  As written, it delivers no new broadband connections, does not promote or provide any competition, or help any individual or community.  It was written by the state’s telecom companies to benefit them, and them alone.  It guarantees you will be stuck paying ever-increasing bills for limited service indefinitely.

Tell House members they must do what is right for the voters, not what is right for the cable and phone companies.  Tell them to VOTE NO ON H.129.  The broadband saved may be your own.

You can find your individual representative and their contact information below the jump.  Please get writing and calling today!

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[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Kelsey Sees Higher Wireless Rates After T-Mobile Deal 3-24-11.flv[/flv]

Getting the mainstream media to cover issues in the telecommunications sphere usually means wading into the “business news” sections of newspapers or watching business cable news channels.  Unfortunately, too often these outlets cater to the whims and preconceived notions of the audience — big business.  In the case of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, Wall Street loves the idea, but consumers do not.  Watch as Free Press’ Joel Kelsey handily deals with the gang at Bloomberg News, who are convinced mergers and acquisitions never result in price increases for consumers.  Has your cell phone bill gone up or down in the last three years?  (4 minutes)

Despite today's setback, North Carolina's broadband hero is Rep. Bill Faison, who stood up for rural broadband.

In the North Carolina legislature’s Finance Committee, a one week timeout “to hear views from the public” actually means giving breathing room for cable and phone lobbyists to strip away surprise amendments not to their liking.  This morning, in a catastrophe for consumers, the state’s largest phone and cable companies got legislators to wipe out a provision that would have helped guarantee rural North Carolina at least 4Mbps broadband service, either from existing providers or new ones that develop in their absence.

During debate of H.129, the anti-Community Broadband bill, North Carolina consumer interests were kept out of sight and mind as lobbyists worked their magic to get rid of Rep. Bill Faison’s (D-Caswell, Orange) amendment that would set the state’s minimum acceptable definition of broadband at 4Mbps with a 1Mbps upload speed.  With the help of several flip-flopping representatives, they got their wish.

Faison’s amendment was designed to open the door to someone — anyone — to bring broadband into rural areas of the state.  While Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and CenturyLink dawdle, large numbers of rural residents simply go without any broadband service.  Faison’s amendment was simple and reasonable — if at least half of an area is not served with 4/1Mbps service, provisions should be made to allow local communities, if they wish, to establish service themselves to get the job done.

Last week, when Faison’s amendment appeared to be headed for incorporation into the bill, industry lobbyists blanched and fled the room, raising vocal objections and demanding a week timeout before a vote was taken.  After winning their reprieve, they managed to get the Republican majority in line to throw rural North Carolina under the bus, uniformly opposing Faison’s amendment.  Two Democrats, one representing the city where Time Warner Cable’s regional division is headquartered, joined them.

Hall of Shame: Rep. Carney does not care about North Carolina's digital divide.

In its place, they substituted a new amendment which defined broadband in the state of North Carolina as any service occasionally capable of achieving 768kbps downstream and 200kbps upstream.  That represents “well-served” among these industry-friendly legislators.

Among the worst offenders that stood out today were Reps. Jeff Collins (R-Nash) and Becky Carney (D-Mecklenburg).  Last week, they were standing with North Carolina consumers.  This week, they are voting for the interests of the cable and phone companies.  Rep. Carney, who lists her occupation as “homemaker”, voted to guarantee North Carolina families years of slow, expensive and erratic broadband service, if available at all.  Collins supported an amendment that says Nash County residents should do just fine with broadband speeds that don’t even manage to break 1Mbps.

The bill next moves to the floor of the House for consideration.

What is missing from this debate is a realization on the part of the legislature cable and phone lobbyists do not want anyone delivering basic broadband service in rural North Carolina unless it comes from them, and to date they have shown no interest in delivering it.

After all the debate, here is a fact no one can ignore.  The only networks in the state capable of delivering world class 100Mbps broadband are two fiber based community-owned networks in Wilson and Salisbury.  The companies that want to see them out of business see 768kbps as more than adequate to define broadband availability in North Carolina.  When members of the Finance Committee agreed, it helps explain how the state has managed to rank 41st in broadband excellence.

It’s time to ask your legislators what side they are on.  Yours or the state’s cable and phone companies.