Be on the lookout. If this actually works up there, how long do you think it'll take to start seeing it down here?200GB to 25GB: Canada gets first, bitter dose of metered Internet
Metered Internet usage (also called "Usage-Based Billing") is coming to Canada, and it's going to cost Internet users. While an advance guard of Canadians are expressing
creative outrage at the prospect of having to pay inflated prices for Internet use charged by the gigabyte, the consequences probably haven't set in for most consumers. Now, however, independent Canadian ISPs are publishing their revised data plans, and they aren't pretty."Like our customers, and Canadian internet users everywhere, we are not happy with this new development," wrote the Ontario-based indie ISP TekSavvy in a recent e-mail message to its subscribers.
But like it or not, the Canadian Radio-Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Approved UBB for the incumbent carrier Bell Canada in September. Competitive ISPs, which connect to Canada's top telco for last-mile copper connections to customers, will also be metered by Bell. Even though the CRTC gave these ISPs a 15 percent discount this month (TekSavvy asked for 50 percent), it's still going to mean a real adjustment for consumers.
This is going to hurt
Starting on March 1, Ontario TekSavvy members who subscribed to the 5Mbps plan have a new usage cap of 25GB, "substantially down from the 200GB or unlimited deals TekSavvy was able to offer before the CRTC's decision to impose usage based billing," the message added.
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2 comments:
Internet cell phone plans have this level of metering now in the US. Time Warner tried it with a higher free cap and got a huge, negative reaction.
And don't believe that Comcast and Qwest are not WATCHING this very closely. (Comcast has a 250GB cap and Qwest 150GB caps on their packages.)
And add to it further, if this goes through, for various other reasons due to copyright violations, parental guidance against porn and many other reasons, there is going to be a big, huge to redesign the internet according to special interests that most people on the internet are really going to hate more.
And that cap at some point is going to go a LOT lower than it is now. And the ISP's are going to push it down so that you cannot watch your favorite thing on the internet from their websites and instead push you back into their spoonfed cable or IP based IPTV networks.
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