Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
There's always the cost of the infrastructure to deliver it, that doesn't change peak or off peak, that's what I had more in mind when I said cost, no the $$/GB Shaw pays to their provider.
Say there's a subnet full of competition subscribers. Their usage is high enough that Shaw has to split the subnet and add $150,000 of network equipment to ensure all the customers can get their Internet at the advertised speeds and capacity.
Who pays that $150,000? The competition corp? They're the one generating the demand. If Shaw has to pay for it, then it's actually Shaw's customers paying for it, so Shaw's customers have to pay more so that Shaw's competition can get more without having to pay for it.
But I think I misunderstood your original proposal. Do you mean to say that since Shaw offers Pay Per View movies, any Netflix bandwidth (for example) used is exempt from caps? Aside from being a nightmare to even try and track equitably, or even define, what counts as what, that still means Shaw's customers are paying for the competition's customer's usage.
Shouldn't the costs should be the same? If you are going to have competition by forcing Shaw to share their infrastructure, then the sharing has to go both ways.. benefits and liabilities, so that the cost per unit product per customer is the same.
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Now this analogy may not be 100% correct so please don't blast me, however I would like to use this as an example. This is second hand from a parent of mine who was a school teacher (retired now) and an elected council member.
The Government built the infrastructure for our utilities. As well for our phone line infrastructure we have today. Back before Enmax was formed our tax money went to build this infrastructure. Because it was already built by tax dollars the users would only pay for the gas they used and were not charged riders or transport fees. Then a corporation was formed under the government but not with the Government of Alberta Name (Eg. Enmax) infrastructure was paid for but even though the owners remain the same fees and excuses for more charges began to appear on our home bill. The infrastructure was already built, so why are we paying for it still? The government created this company as a for profit business even though the people have already paid for it. Effectively stealing the infrastructure that was already paid for and began charging the people ridiculous add-ons ; not using the infrastructure for what it was traditionally built for (Free transport of energy)... We see this system in many government controlled companies now. Taxes paid for it already but now we are going to pay more for profit.
Infrastructure was also built for communications and already paid for by tax dollars. Private companies bought the rights to use it, but it is still owned by the government/people and the difference is the profit does not go back to the government/people. Private companies my have upgraded but the main system is still public and if these companies are still dependent on that core system so IMO it would at least be tit for tat.
Bell is building the super net in Alberta on a government contract. So really, who owns the super net and the transport of bandwidth?