After listing to a brief sessions of CBC Radio One's
Ontario Today, I learned of the up-and-coming plan of Canada's
monopolistic jerks super-telecommunications networks, Rogers and Bell, to start charging Internet users higher rates if they exceed a certain bandwidth. On top of this, they already have an undocumented cap (or maximum) per month.
Readers of the Globe and Mail may have seen
this article a few days ago that outline the changes. What interested me was the table at the bottom sporting a new price guide:
Paying for speed
Rogers' usage fees and speed according to service level:
| Service level |
Regular monthly Subscriber rate |
Download speed |
Usage allowance |
Additional usage charge |
| Extreme Plus |
$99.95 |
18 Mbps* |
95 GB** |
$1.25/GB |
| Extreme |
$54.95 |
10 Mbps |
95 GB |
$1.50/GB |
| Express |
$44.95 |
7 Mbps |
60 GB |
$2.00/GB |
| Lite |
$34.95 |
1 Mbps |
25 GB |
$2.50/GB |
| Ultra-Lite |
$24.95 |
500 Kbps |
2 GB |
$5.00/GB |
*Megabits per second
**Gigabytes
SOURCE: THOMSON DATASTREAM
To put things into perspective: 2 GBs a month is roughly 2.8 downloaded movies AND NOTHING ELSE. Do you rent movies online from NetFlix or even Xbox Live?
Now, I'm not big city lawyer, but it seems to me that there are two main companies wanting to cash in on Internet trend. In other words, "Price Gouging or Profiteering"
As a result, questions are being raised about whether Canada's major service providers are prepared to handle the future of the Internet as bandwidth-gobbling activities such as downloadable videos and file-sharing go mainstream.
The exploding popularity of online video is causing headaches for ISPs. Much of that traffic is facilitated through peer-to-peer networks.
SOURCE: Globe and Mail
The world is into downloading massive amounts of data for entertainment, information or otherwise. And yes, "YouTube" is considered bandwidth use because even if you are "streaming it", it is still a bunch of 1s and 0s running through the tubes. Rogers and Bell want a larger cut.
All is fair in the corporate world. It looks like the Internet Service Providers are taking a note from Canada's Long Distance Plan Providers. Oh wait, same
jerks companies, my bad. At least we don't see price gouging in the oil industry. Those guys are class acts.
