News

Usage Based Billing Around the World: How Canada Stands Alone

When the usage based billing controversy grabbed national headlines last month, I posted several long pieces on the issue. My first post attempted to unpack the issue, focusing on the some the misleading claims about the supposed need for UBB at the wholesale level and putting the use of data caps in Canada in context. Later posts discussed concerns with the CRTC approach on UBB, the claims regarding network congestion, and a piece on what should come next, including what the CRTC should do on wholesale UBB and the broader policy measures on foreign ownership restrictions, fostering greater competition, and addressing the retail UBB concerns.

Those posts attracted some attention and soon afterward I was asked by Netflix if I was interested in digging deeper into these issues. The company provided some support so that I was able to quickly assemble a great team of students – Keith Rose, Peter Waldkirch, Tyler Nechiporenko, and Rachel Gold – to delve into issues such as congestion claims, comparative UBB approaches, the cost of transferring a GB of data, and some potential solutions. I completed the paper over the weekend and have posted it here. I’ll be posting on several elements over the next few days, concluding with my proposal for the establishment of a UBB equivalent for Internet Traffic Management Practices (ITMPs), which I’ve dubbed Internet Billing Usage Management Practices or IBUMPs.

This first post features a comparative look at usage based billing in other countries.

March 30, 2011 — 38 comments — News

Rogers Faces More Questions on World of Warcraft Throttling

Teresa Murphy, who filed the original complaint against Rogers over its throttling of World of Warcraft, has submitted a detailed response to the Rogers response. It calls on Rogers to drop its throttling practices and reimburse subscribers for damages resulting from its practices.

March 30, 2011 — 5 comments — News

Study Finds Open Access Increases Citation in Legal Scholarship By Over 50%

A new study from the University of Georgia finds that open access legal scholarship can expect to receive more than 50% more citations than non-open access legal writings.

March 30, 2011 — 3 comments — News

Open Media’s Steve Anderson on Stopping the Meter

Open Media’s Steve Anderson scores with this op-ed on usage based billing that weaves together hockey and Internet access.

March 30, 2011 — 1 comment — News

UBB is Dead. Long Live UBB

Yesterday was the deadline for parties to the CRTC’s hearing into usage based billing to submit their comments. Bell stole the show by dropping its wholesale UBB proposal and substituting it with a new acronym – Aggregated Volume Pricing (AVP) – that should allow independent ISPs to retain some flexibility when it comes to their Internet service plans. The headlines rightly note that this is a significant backtrack for Bell. Just over two months ago, Bell wrote to the Commission to urge it to grant final approval to wholesale UBB, arguing “the implementation of the Companies’ wholesale UBB has already been delayed for far too long.” Of course, that was before UBB became a political firestorm and Industry Minister Tony Clement made it clear he would not approve the Bell proposal as it then was.

Bell obviously saw the writing on the wall and has come back with a plan that allows independent ISPs to purchase 1 TB of data for $200 with an overage charge of 29.5 cents per GB. The aggregation of independent ISP subscriber traffic means that those ISPs can choose to offer whatever plans they like – unlimited, capped, or variations thereof – simply by purchasing aggregated data from Bell under the tariff. The aggregated pricing model was proposed by several people (even I figured it out in my first long UBB post on February 1st) and is certainly better than the wholesale UBB approach it replaces.

Notwithstanding the proposed improvement on wholesale terms, this represents only a small part of the broader UBB issue.

March 29, 2011 — 32 comments — News