CRTC green lights usage-based internet billing

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Do you honestly think you're going to somehow pay less for your internet than you do now?

This is about making the heavy users pay more than the light users... not making the light users pay less than the heavy users.

Maybe not right away.

The whole concept of competition will eventually set the prices right.

Under this model I could see the market forces creating a whole new breed of plans. If I need 15MBs with 20GB transfer a month, eventually someone will offer that at a discount over the 100GB transfer and 15Mbs connection because they will be able to make money on it/gain a larger customer base.

The exact same thing you see now with Telus entering the marketplace as a true full spectrum service provider will continue happening. prices will drop. This isn't 5 years ago where the only really good internet bundled with TV is Shaw.

No provider in their right might would maintain high prices for an extended period of time in that situation. Worst case scenario, the low use services would simply not increase in cost as much as the others as time went on.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Do you honestly think you're going to somehow pay less for your internet than you do now?

This is about making the heavy users pay more than the light users... not making the light users pay less than the heavy users.

The heavy users should pay more, because they are shown to disproportionately over-utilize over-subscribed lines.

It's the over-subscribed lines that keep costs low to begin with, for users that fall in a certain consumption range (eg. under 60 GB a month or whatever)

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

It's so backwards trending for Bell to do this. Since when did a market that used to be unlimited move to a limited usage structure? I actually can't think of anything...

Except its never been unlimited, of course. Especially in the ISP space, even when advertised as unlimited, its always been "unlimited, but based on our arbitrary usage assumptions".

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Maybe not right away.

The whole concept of competition will eventually set the prices right.

Under this model I could see the market forces creating a whole new breed of plans. If I need 15MBs with 20GB transfer a month, eventually someone will offer that at a discount over the 100GB transfer and 15Mbs connection because they will be able to make money on it/gain a larger customer base.

Eventually, you'll be able to go even further than what you're describing, once you are paying for the bits. If you pay by the bit, you can purchase on quantity (cap) and performance (bandwidth). With QoS, burstable networks, etc, you'll literally be able to throttle your connection up and down on demand (to the limits of your device and pipe, of course), and be billed appropriately.

If I have a huge file to download, or a big online backup to complete, it would be great to have my machine automatically switch to econo-mode after say 11pm when I've gone to bed, or even daylight hours when I'm away at work. My bits aren't performance sensitive then, so send them tagged with a low QoS and let others leverage the available bandwidth, while I save some money.

Similarly, if I have a serious frag fest going on in CoD, it would be nice to flip the switch and crank the QoS to maximum performance - I know CoD doesn't transmit a ton of data, so its not very much more expensive to ensure those bits get top notch performance.

[mykalberta]

I would like to see that initial limit at 100GB, other than that I am fine with it.

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Except its never been unlimited, of course. Especially in the ISP space, even when advertised as unlimited, its always been "unlimited, but based on our arbitrary usage assumptions".

On paper it might be like that but I have never been asked to dial down my downloads/uploads, even when I ran an FTP site in college.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

I would like to see that initial limit at 100GB, other than that I am fine with it.

That is more than reasonable.

Shaw right now offers monthly transfer caps of 75GB, 125GB and 250GB for their High Speed, Extreme and Warp internet connections, respectively.

http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Internet/

Also, on a somewhat related note I found out yesterday that Shaw has started trials for Gigabit Fiber internet in select Calgary areas, referenced here. From that website the trials seem to be free if you are an existing customer.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

On paper it might be like that but I have never been asked to dial down my downloads/uploads, even when I ran an FTP site in college.

Which is why Bell is moving to a demand based payment system - the existing network is not provisioned for a true all-you-can-consume model, advertising to the contrary.

[Raekwon]

I wonder how they decided to choose here to test it in Calgary?

"and Pinebrook, a suburb west of Calgary, will be the latest area to try out the 1 Gigabit Internet service FREE for six months starting in September"

Originally Posted by Rathji

That is more than reasonable.

Shaw right now offers monthly transfer caps of 75GB, 125GB and 250GB for their High Speed, Extreme and Warp internet connections, respectively.

http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Internet/

Also, on a somewhat related note I found out yesterday that Shaw has started trials for Gigabit Fiber internet in select Calgary areas, referenced here. From that website the trials seem to be free if you are an existing customer.

[Draug]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I persoanlly like this idea if it saves me money. I don't do much downloading, so my monthly bill is based on an average of what everybody uses. I am below that point.

Consider this ... This is yet another measure from our Television providers to make sure that paying for over priced subscriptions is the only option we have to watch TV programming. Notice how Bell advocated this?

Streaming and legal downloading of TV, and other media, is becoming more and more prevalent. For reasonable Picture Quality, a large amount of bandwidth is needed.

In a future world where all of your desired media can be delivered over the internet for a low cost, you wouldnt need to subscribe to Bell TV and their ridiculous selection of over priced SD channels when all you want is select HD. But, the ISP's can now charge per usage, so you are going to be paying more total fees, one way or another; either to a TV subscription or an ISP.

What they have done here is future proof their TV revenue by making Internet media too costly. Given free choice by the consumer, I'd say the internet would eventually replace traditional TV.

[Bob]

In a future world where all of your desired media can be delivered over the internet for a low cost, you wouldnt need to subscribe to Bell TV and their ridiculous selection of over priced SD channels when all you want is select HD. But, the ISP's can now charge per usage, so you are going to be paying more total fees, one way or another; either to a TV subscription or an ISP.

ISPs are almost always cable companies, and they're terrified of being turned into big dumb pipes. On the other hand, if nearly everyone in NA were to suddenly jump ship to Netflix/iTunes, I think a sizable portion of the entertainment industry would collapse from lack of revenues. Somewhere there's a balance.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Well great, this will open the doors for other providers to do the same. Hopefully Shaw isn't one of them.

i can confirm that it is in the works

[ken0042]

I suppose you guys are probably right about it not saving me any money in the end. For me it's just a matter of seeing a lot of people using a lot more bandwidth than I need; but I have to pay the same amount.

While CP is probably a little more "geek-heavy" than your average population sample, I would think that there's a lot of people like me who don't need a huge amount of bandwidth.

It's like moving to a city that only has "all you can eat" restaurants; I got excited to find out an "a la carte" restaurant was looking at opening.