Hugh Thompson has an interesting column on the actual bandwidth costs for ISPs. He cites one provider that three cents per gigabyte is the likely cost. Even assuming a ten cents per gigabyte “inflated cost”, that still represents as much as a 50X markup given that some providers charge $5 […]
Post Tagged with: "ubb"
Clement Confirms Plans to Overturn UBB Decision
Industry Minister Tony Clement has confirmed that the government intends to overturn the CRTC’s usage based billing decision. In a twitter exchange with CBC reporter Rosemary Barton, Clement was asked “is it true you will overturn internet decision if CRTC does not back down?”. Clement responded “True. CRTC must go […]
The Government’s Review of Usage Based Billing: What Should Come Next
With Clement indicating that a decision will be forthcoming by March 1st, there is just one month for cabinet to address the issue. So what comes next?
Independent ISPs Speak out on UBB
The Canadian Network Operators Consortium, which represents dozens of independent ISPs, have written to Industry Minister Tony Clement to ask the government to refer the CRTC’s UBB decision back to the Commission for review. The letter notes: Under section 12 of the Telecommunications Act, the Governor in Council can within […]
Unpacking The Policy Issues Behind Bandwidth Caps & Usage Based Billing
The Stop the Meter Internet petition now has over 200,000 signatories and is growing fast, which may help explain why UBB has emerged as a political hot potato. The NDP was the first to raise it as a political issue, followed yesterday by a response from Industry Minister Tony Clement (who promised to study the decision carefully “to ensure that competition, innovation, and consumers were all fairly considered”) and the Liberals, who called on the government to reverse the CRTC decision.
Yet despite the obvious anger over the issue, there remains a considerable amount of misinformation about what has happened and uncertainty about just what to do about it. This post attempts to unpack the issue, by discussing two related but not identical concerns – the recent CRTC UBB decision and the broader use of bandwidth caps by virtually all large Canadian ISPs.