To the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission:For a body that "does not regulate the rates, quality of service or business practices for Internet service providers" the CRTC has done a pretty fair job of sticking its nose in where it doesn't belong.
I'm referring to the Telecom Decision 2011-44 "Usage-based billing for Gateway Access Services and third-party Internet access services".
If this is beyond the CRTC's purview, how in the name of gawd are you rendering decisions in this area?
Doesn't matter, I guess, because this decision of the CRTC is abominable.
Leave it to a bureaucratic arm of the Canadian government to take a transformational tool like the Internet and fasten a meter upon its back, hobbling it, so that its once-limitless usefulness is finally limited.
The CRTC's decision merely passes on more cost to consumers.
What is the limit? When will bureaucrats and politicians realize that the Canadian citizenry isn't some hydra-headed dray horse created to be continually burdened with more and more costs simply to live our lives?
Probably never because Canadian politicians and bureaucrats live in the rarified, publicly-paid-for alternate reality where none of their decisions impact their own lives; what with stipends and perks and taxpayer provided everything.
The CRTC's reputation, already, is that of a whorish, ignorant, eminently stupid body whose decisions benefit corporations always to the detriment of ordinary Canadians.
Following the Telecom Decision 2011-44, no one at the CRTC can argue with that appraisal. No one.
With the Internet you've left me to use, I'm going to mobilize myself and others to disband and eradicate the useless CRTC, which is just a parking lot for patronage appointments.
May I say, in closing, that you put the "rat" in bureaucrat.
6 comments:
At www.reddit.com/r/canada, there is talk of a class action lawsuit; at www.cnoc.ca there's a new website put up by small ISPs who seem to be organizing to respond to the CRTC's decision. Just fyi!
** "UBB" (Usage Based Billing) - Otherwise known as METERED BILLING. The CRTC is allowing ISPs to put a METER on your internet access, so you PAY BY THE BYTE! **
Matt Stein, Vice-President of Network Services for Primus, calls UBB overage fees:
"an economic disincentive for internet use" since the charges levied by Bell Canada are "many, many, many times what it costs to actually deliver it."
The CEO of Teksavvy ISP said:
"UBB is pure profit. IP transport of internet data is somewhere between $3 and $10/Mbps for companies like ours.... So doing basic math we're talking of $3-$10 per 300GB of data... So 1 to 3 pennies per gig of downloading on the Internet transit side."
Shaw uses misleading information, and tells customers that their limits are generous, and overstates the cost of bandwidth. In fact, bandwidth is 1-3 PENNIES per GB, but Shaw is charging $2 PER GB!
Did you know that just as Shaw began charging for "overuse of the internet", they also (quietly) reduced all of their usage caps by 30% without telling customers?
Funny part is, the infrastructure most of these ISPs use was FUNDED BY CANADIANS! Now they are charging us massive overage fees for using it.
Shaw, and other Canadian ISPs are using UBB as a method to control access to their TV competitors, ie: Netflix, Hulu, etc. It is clearly a conflict of interest to allow a TV Broadcaster who is also an ISP, to limit our access to their competition.
With these massive new overage fees, once you are over your recently lowered "usage cap" with Shaw, every HD Netflix movie will cost you an extra $8!
Fight back! Visit Open Media's facebook page, and join the fight - Thousands of Canadians working together to put an END to metered billing!
http://www.facebook.com/openmedia.ca
Please sign the petition! Forward it to your friends, family, and co-workers. We need to act on this, or every single Windows update, web page, and email will cost you money.
http://openmedia.ca/meter
Canadians are pretty complacent, as a people, but I think the CRTC has finally found the hot button that will mobilize citizens.
I will join your movement to eradicate the CRTC
Lets grab a pitchfork and storm the CRTC Bastille style!
Replace all senior levels at the CRTC with regular hardworking Canadians. That Nazi SS CRTC head Konrad von Finckenstein is pure corrupt evil. E-mail your MP and your PM, but most importantly e-mail The Honourable Tony Clement at
minister.industry@ic.gc.ca
FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Cancel your Bell and Rogers services, and save money $$$$$$$$.
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