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Can Google TV replace your monthly cable bill? WCPO-TV in Cincinnati explores whether the time is right for getting rid of cable television. (3 minutes)
Finckenstein at Thursday's hearing. Turn me over when I'm done on one side.
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission chairman Konrad von Finckenstein appeared before a Commons committee last Thursday to answer questions regarding the growing scandal of so-called “usage-based billing (UBB).” The Commission’s decision to enforce this pricing scheme, ending unlimited broadband service in Canada, has created major headaches for the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Seasoned political observers were shocked when Industry Minister Tony Clement earlier tweeted his support for overturning the CRTC decision. Thursday’s hearing at the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology also suggested the decision was made without any prior consultation with von Finckenstein, who appeared to be learning most of the details of the Clement’s decision at the hearing itself or in the morning newspapers.
Facing a grilling from members from just about every major political party in Canada, from the Liberals to the Bloc Quebecois, von Finckenstein only managed to add fuel to the fire, blaming “heavy users” for forcing the end of unlimited usage plans, all to protect what he called “innocent users.” He also blamed online video services like Netflix for forcing new pricing policies on Canadian consumers, who were increasingly using their broadband connections for more than just “e-mail and Facebook.”
At times exasperated, the chairman seemed to rely on industry talking points to address concerns with MP’s in attendance, occasionally without fully understanding their meaning.
At one point, he insisted Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), was never delivered over the Internet. At another, he claimed that providers would certainly use all of the funds collected from new, higher-priced broadband plans to rebuild their networks, asking rhetorically, “how else would they use that money?”
The head of the agency that is tasked with protecting the interests of Canadian consumers regularly compared the Internet to a power, gas, or water utility, which he said justified usage pricing. But von Finckenstein ignored landline telephone service, which is most related to broadband — a service moving towards flat rate pricing. Instead, he relied on cell phone pricing, which caused several reporters to cringe, as they reflected on newly-introduced flat-rate calling plans among new wireless competitors.
At this point a reporter for the Globe & Mail bemused with all of the utility comparisons tweeted: “Main difference is I can’t watch movies on my furnace.”
Watch the entire 90-minute hearing by clicking here and choosing the English version, which provides simultaneous translation as the hearing moves back and forth from French to English.
The CRTC’s decision to ignore hundreds of thousands of petition signers across Canada while quickly acceding to Bell’s request for a 60-day temporary delay in implementing the pricing scheme brought an angry response from Openmedia.ca, a pro-consumer group highly critical of UBB.
“The CRTC’s stubbornness in the face of a mass public outcry demonstrates the strength of the Big Telecom lobby’s influence,” said founder and national coordinator Steve Anderson . “While government officials have recognized the need to protect citizens’ communications interests, the CRTC has made it clear that their priorities lie elsewhere. Now is the time for citizens to demonstrate that they, rather than incumbent ISPs, are the real stakeholders.”
Some media observers and consumer groups are also scoffing at the government’s suggestion the CRTC should be allowed to review its own, earlier decision, claiming it is a virtual certainty the regulator will find their original decision was the correct one.
In fact, von Finckenstein’s relentless defense of usage-based pricing, even in light of recent political realities, suggest the Commission’s authority could be swept aside to keep the matter from becoming an issue in future elections.
“I would like to reiterate the Commission’s view that usage-based billing is a legitimate principle for pricing Internet services,” the chairman told members attending the hearing. “We are convinced that Internet services are no different than other public utilities, and the vast majority of Internet users should not be asked to subsidize a small minority of heavy users. For us, it is a question of fundamental fairness. Let me restate: ordinary users should not be forced to subsidize heavy users.”
The CRTC also claims the UBB policy will only impact residential customers — business accounts are exempt. But several MPs questioned that statement, suggesting home-based businesses, farmers and other entrepreneurs would face Internet Overcharging schemes.
Canada’s Liberal Party is using the occasion to embarrass the Tories’ handling of what they’ve called an Internet fiasco. Liberal’s industry critic, Marc Garneau, used some of his seven minutes of question time to ask whether the CRTC first heard of the Harper government’s stance on UBB through social media network Twitter.
Quotes from the CRTC Chairman; Image by Vojtěch Sedlák & Openmedia.ca
This message appears in place of the original websites that were formerly hosted under the domains seized by the U.S. government.
Just days before the Super Bowl, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security temporarily disrupted several popular online video websites that showed live streams of major sporting events. Late last week, the agency launched “Operation In Our Sites,” which redirected site visitors to a notification claiming the “domain name has been seized.”
But critics charge the effort ultimately was a waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars and questions are being raised about the legality of interfering with one of the websites based in Spain, deemed legal by that country’s courts.
Rojadirecta, a Spanish website, does not actually host any live web streams itself, instead publishing links to other websites that do. In operation since 2005, the enormously popular site today attracts more than one million visitors a day, most looking for live streams of game coverage. After two Spanish courts found the website operating within Spanish law, the site’s profile and popularity only increased.
Since the domain names affected were registered through a U.S. registrar, it opened the door for the Department of Homeland Security to obtain a seizure warrant through the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
An affidavit filed with the court stated that piracy threatens “the leagues’ ability to sell game tickets and secure local television and radio carriage, and the value of advertising revenue generated by broadcast, radio and new media partners.” The agency also blamed online video piracy for high prices charged for stadium admission and for cable networks showing sporting events. “Sports fans are also victims, as the costs expended by sports leagues in an effort to address online piracy are passed on to fans when they purchase tickets or subscribe to sports networks.”
Rojadirecta wasn’t alone. Other web addresses seized included:
The agency’s actions commenced without any prior notification to the website owners.
“We have not been notified,” Rojadirecta’s Igor Seoane told TorrentFreak, a BitTorrent news site. “In our opinion the U.S. authorities are completely despising the Spanish justice system and sovereignty.”
Critics have attacked the agency for wasting taxpayer money chasing the video websites instead of finding Osama bin Laden.
Thanks to lobbying from Hollywood studios, language was inserted in the Patriot Act directing the agency to enforce U.S. copyright law at home and abroad.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) called the web domain seizures “alarmingly unprecedented,” and could “stifle constitutionally protected speech.” Wyden’s office has been in touch with the agency seeking clarification and justification for the domain seizures.
Questions about how worthwhile the effort ultimately was are also being raised, considering virtually all of the affected websites were restored and re-indexed by major search engines under new domain names within hours, sometimes minutes, after being seized.
Several of our readers who shared this story with us suggest the move by the federal agency backfired, because it gave new prominence to these websites many never heard of before last week. We sure didn’t. There are no sports enthusiasts here at Stop the Cap! HQ, but we were intrigued to find several of these sites linking live-streaming news channels, including CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, BBC World, and Fox News. In fact, a few are even streaming ABC, CBS, and NBC stations for free. Quality varies considerably. The MSNBC feed has audio sync problems and CNN stutters.
At least one angry fan of the websites compiled a guide recommending websites be removed from Hollywood’s copyright enforcement ‘overreach’ by registering domain names through overseas providers. They do not answer to the Department of Homeland Security.
High gain Wi-Fi antennas like this one allowed one Ontario couple to leave Canada's cable companies behind and sign up for Time Warner service in the United States.
Last week, Stop the Cap! compared prices from two Internet Service Providers — Rogers Communications on the western side of the Niagara River — in Ontario, and Time Warner Cable on the eastern side in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
The price disparity is no secret to one Canadian family who read our piece and let us know they import their broadband service, thanks to long distance Wi-Fi, from the United States.
The couple, Neil and Michelle (we’ve been asked not their reveal their real names) and their three boys have lived along the Niagara River, which divides the United States and Canada, for over a decade. Jim has been fascinated with low power, long distance communications since his days in amateur radio.
“I’ve always been trying to see what stations I can pick up, especially low power ones,” Neil tells us.
That curiosity came with Neil to his interest in broadband wireless communications. Living along the river, Neil was fascinated to see Wi-Fi signals make their way across the river from the United States’ side.
“Thanks to a clear shot across the river, and a lot of businesses located adjacent to the Robert Moses Parkway, it’s easy to pickup Wi-Fi signals from businesses on the American side,” says Neil.
Neil discovered many networks wide open for public use and began to consider the implications of “importing” his broadband service from the United States to escape Rogers’ high prices.
“For Canadians, the idea of escaping the country’s communications providers is not that unusual,” Neil says. “Some already have ‘gray market’ satellite dish accounts with America’s DISH or DirecTV, and some even use American prepaid cell phones, which are much cheaper than our own services and get good local reception across Niagara Falls down to Fort Erie.”
“So I began wondering what would happen if we could install a decent Wi-Fi system high enough on the house to get a good signal from a partner on the other side of the river,” Neil pondered. “We started by putting a test signal up and driving through some Niagara Falls neighborhoods on the American side and found some good prospects.”
A long-shot advertisement on a well-known “for-sale/trade” website paid off, when an American family responded, intrigued by the experiment.
“The fact we were willing to pay their cable bill as compensation didn’t hurt either,” Neil suggests. “The chances appeared very good for success, because we can see some of their trees from our roof.”
Niagara Falls, Ontario (left) and Niagara Falls, N.Y. (right), divided by the Niagara River.
Neil guessed right because today, with the help of two raised directional, roof-mounted high-gain Wi-Fi antennas that can literally “see” one another, the Ontario family enjoys its cable-TV and broadband service from Time Warner Cable.
“The signal is rock solid and the only time we get some speed problems is if someone in one of the bed and breakfast places nearby ends up on our channel,” Neil says. “We can even watch television with the help of a Slingbox we installed on the American side which works perfectly fine on a Wireless N connection.”
Since the rise of Canada’s exchange rate against America’s declining dollar, the savings are dramatic. A comparable cable-TV plan with Rogers runs $80 a month for standard service, equipment fees, and HD service charges. Add another $50 for broadband service with the modem rental fee and Neil would pay Rogers $130 a month before taxes for the two services.
“And we would be limited to just 60GB of usage per month before the $2/GB overlimit fee started making the bill even higher,” Neil says.
Time Warner Cable currently charges Neil’s adopted family $87 a month for television and broadband on a promotion.
Today, Neil’s conscience (and savings) led him to decide “borrowing” another family’s account wasn’t fair, so now he pays for -two- accounts with Time Warner, one for the New York family, the other belonging to him.
“Time Warner thinks of us as apartment renters and bills a post office box,” Neil says. “The other family doesn’t care about cable-TV anymore so we’re just paying for their broadband account.”
The neighbors are certainly amused.
“When they come over, they call us ‘the American Embassy in Niagara Falls’ because of all the ads for Time Warner they see across the cable channels we get and because American cable systems ignore virtually all Canadian TV networks.”
Why go through all this?
“Now that we’re paying for two accounts, it’s a matter of principle,” Neil says. “I will not do business with a company that slaps usage limits on broadband, and now I don’t have to.”
In fact, now that the family’s sons are getting close to teen years, their Internet use is growing.
“We almost don’t care about the cable-TV anymore ourselves — we’re watching shows online, on-demand in this household,” Neil says. “For my kids, they are growing up with the concept of television being always on-demand and it works around their schedule, not the other way around.”
Besides, Americans have access to Hulu, and Canada does not.
“Hulu is very important, and Netflix was even before it was sold in Canada,” Neil says. “Now we can watch what we want, as much as we want, and pay a fair price for unlimited broadband.”
Neil can’t complain about Time Warner Cable, except for the fact it provides him with a U.S. IP address, which locks him out of a lot of Canadian online video-on-demand services from the CBC and other networks’ websites.
“They do a much better job than Rogers ever did with consistent broadband speeds and fewer outages, and we can live without replays of 18 to Life and Little Mosque on the Prairie,” Neil says. “I’m just glad you folks at Stop the Cap! convinced Time Warner to abandon the kind of pricing that is ruining the hell out of Canada’s broadband.”
Verizon Wireless isn’t entirely rolling out the welcome mat for new iPhone customers. PreventCAPS, one of our regular readers, dropped us a note indicating Verizon quietly added something new to the terms and conditions for new customers as of Feb. 3rd, which just so happens to coincide with the date the company started taking orders for the Apple iPhone — it reserves the right to throttle your speeds and “optimize” your browsing experience with caching and network management techniques that could reduce the quality of online videos and other bandwidth-intensive graphics.
As part of our continuing efforts to provide the best experience to our more than 94 million customers, Verizon Wireless is introducing two new network management practices.
We are implementing optimization and transcoding technologies in our network to transmit data files in a more efficient manner to allow available network capacity to benefit the greatest number of users. These techniques include caching less data, using less capacity, and sizing the video more appropriately for the device. The optimization process is agnostic to the content itself and to the website that provides it. While we invest much effort to avoid changing text, image, and video files in the compression process and while any change to the file is likely to be indiscernible, the optimization process may minimally impact the appearance of the file as displayed on your device. For a further, more detailed explanation of these techniques, please visit www.verizonwireless.com/vzwoptimization
If you subscribe to a Data Plan or Feature on February 3, 2011 or after, the following applies:
Verizon Wireless strives to provide customers the best experience when using our network, a shared resource among tens of millions of customers. To help achieve this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand. Our proactive management of the Verizon Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95% of data customers aren’t negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few users.
These kinds of “network management” techniques, which include speed throttles, reduced quality graphics, and caching (which can result in stale web pages being served to your mobile device), are all made possible by the Federal Communications Commission’s failure to implement Net Neutrality protections for wireless providers. While Verizon stresses it will treat all content to the same network management techniques equally, the “improved” broadband experience Verizon claims to offer is more likely to improve the company’s bottom line from reduced spending on network upgrades.
Like most providers, Verizon isn’t willing to be specific about what amount of usage is likely to trigger the throttle, why it needs to be maintained for the remainder of the billing cycle even when network congestion is not a problem, and what speed customers will be stuck with for the rest of the month.
Broadband Reports reached out to Verizon for specifics and discovered the provider has not actually implemented these measures… yet:
“The notice yesterday simply reserves the right for new customers or renewing their contracts,” Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson tells Broadband Reports. “We’re reserving the right to actively manage the network in specific ways should that need exist – and only for customers who are under contract that includes that provision,” he says. “Because this is down the road – if at all – it’s too early to tell what those triggers might be, or what throughput limitations would look like.”
Verizon may be concerned about the potential impact millions of data-craving iPhone customers will bring to its network in the coming weeks. Existing customers with Android devices or Blackberry handsets are safe for now — the provision only impacts customers who sign new contracts as of last Thursday.
Verizon says it will retain its unlimited data option (with the right to throttle service) for a “limited time only.”
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