Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenTeaFrapp
The conflict of interest that arises due to the the cable providers owning the last mile should be what gets dealt with. If the companies that own the last mile want UBB then they should be forced to be spun off from the Shaws, Bells and Rogers that own them. Have these last mile companies sell exclusively to independent ISP's and cable tv providers which then sell to the consumer.
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This I agree with, although I am not totally convinced that the sole purpose of the bandwidth caps is to discourage normal use of Netflix. I do think that the purpose is to ensure there isn't abuse by Netflix customers (or people who use massive amounts of bandwidth, like file sharers) and I think there is certainly a cash grab motivation behind it, since they have reduced the caps.
For example, shortly after Netflix arrived, in November I think it was, I signed up for the free trial. At the end of the month, I had about 200GB of total usage (about 140GB more than normal ). Despite there not being any hint of any UBB, I was still in violation of my caps.
Shaw wanting to enforce the caps with a paying for overage system is going to restrict the usefulness of Netflix as a platform to get cheap content, but the simple fact is these caps have pretty much always existed, even before Netflix existed, means that you would have been going over anyway and facing disconnect every month had they decided to target you.
Taking that into consideration, I don't think you can clearly say that this is anti-competitive behavior that needs to be regulated. You can call it a cash grab, to target people who want to continue abusing Shaw's previous lack of commitment to enforcing caps, and I would support that 100%. You can call it a poor business choice, considering the position Telus is trying to establish in the market, and I would agree totally.