Computers & Electronics

CRTC Decision on UBB?

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Nov 19, 2004
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i6s1 wrote: I'm confused too. I know that it costs more than $500 to install FTTH. The ONT and battery backup alone is over $200. I'm speculating that $500 is enough for the construction crews to run it from the office to the curb or pole. When a person actually orders a service over fiber, and installer comes with the ONT and runs fiber from the pole or pedistal to the ONT, and gets the service working. And that they intend to account for the actual installation cost in a seperate account.

Maybe the actual connection is a separate cost if someone subscribes. Obviously this would make most sense. Make the service available and only if the customers subscribes would you finish the install.

So in you experience, would you say it costs more or less to install FTTH in a denser population?
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Nov 1, 2009
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Mark77 wrote: Well good luck with that -- but do you really have any other alternatives other than Bell or Rogers? No. So you're stuck,
Bingo - and THAT is why we have regulation to control this duopoly. In this country, monopolistic practices are not tolerated due to the benefit of the consumers. Same reason why the doctor's union cannot go on strike. Same reason cops can't strike. "Bell" and "Rogers" are not special enough to not be subjected to these regulations. Just b/c they have something (whether it be unique infrastructure or knowledge), you cannot legally exploit the residents of this country. If the government had balls, what they SHOULD do is break up the last mile/re-routing layer of Bell/Rogers and force new corporations to be formed. This is normal regulatory practice and occurs in every industry. If they do not want to do that, they yeah, Bell/Rogers will simply have to live with heavy regulation into this part of the infrastructure.

That said, especially considering they want to screw over the customer, do I want them to get my "upgrade money" and upgrade their own networks and retain ownership? Hell no. If upgrades are absolutely required, after independent analysis of the network, then fine the government can collect the money in a fair and appropriate manner, but I want them to retain ownership of the new infrastructure.
Mark77 wrote: It most certainly isn't ridiculous that Bell uses its pricing power to set a price for the service.
See above. Bell/Rogers duopoly isn't any more special than any other industry. When a monopolistic type environment exists, government regulations come into play. Otherwise, society would collapse. To take an extreme example, think what would happen if the doctors' union and cops' union were to go on strike. **** would literally hit the fan.
Mark77 wrote: They're delivering more than 10X the service today that they delivered a decade ago and are only charging, at best, a small fraction of the original price.
And I want it to be cheaper. Computers are more than 10x more powerful than a decade ago and a fraction of the cost. Same goes for home network gear. I am relatively sure the same applies to commercial network gear as well. After all, the "bulk" of this congestion has to do with re-routing "network gear" and NOT the actual last mile of copper/fiber (THIS is just a flat cost as we all very well know and has nothing to do with congestion/speed/usage).
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http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShp_Bell ... g_UBB.page
Canadian Internet customers have many questions about usage-based billing (UBB). While special interest groups and individuals have generated a great deal of hype and confusion about wholesale UBB, lost in the noise has been an explanation of some very straightforward facts.

UBB is fair

UBB for wholesale ISPs affects a very small number of people

If we can't apply UBB to the most excessive users, costs will have to absorbed by all of us

The average Internet user won't be affected

Those with an interest in maintaining unlimited Internet access for themselves – that minority of wholesale customers who often download hundreds of gigabytes per month – are eager to confuse regular users of the Internet into believing they will be negatively impacted by usage-based billing for wholesale. But the reality is quite the opposite: If super-heavy downloaders are allowed to keep using up extraordinary amounts of network capacity, we’ll all have to pay more. And that’s just not fair.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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Sep 15, 2004
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Time to let them fail, break them up into regional telecomms and let the chips fall were they may. let's get back into a competitive environment that would see government involvement in building a fibre backbone and the regional carriers supporting that backbone and the last mile.
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Feb 9, 2003
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S150PM wrote: You can impose UBB whatever you want for your own Bell retail customers but you're not allow to impose UBB on other ISPs customers.

The problem is that wholesale customers only pay operational cost plus regulated profit to Bell for backhaul. So wholesalers can sell bandwidth for considerably less. Bell customers get saddled with their own operational costs and profit, plus they pay for thier own capital expenses, plus they pay for wholesale customer's capital expenses. And it's the wholesaler's high volume customers that are causing the bulk of the need for the capital spending.

If wholesalers didn't get subsudized access to Bell's backbone, then the CRTC wouldn't have approved wholesale UBB. This is a nuance that most people don't realize, and the CRTC decision would be a lot less outrageous if this was common knowledge.
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Sep 10, 2009
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Mark77 wrote: No its not. Only a very small percent of the population hates UBB or even cares. The average user wants reliability, at an affordable price, and that's what UBB delivers. They don't want their Internet to be unusable between the hours of 5-10pm in the evening, because some people on unlimited plans consume the entirety of the scarce resources available on the network.


Mr. Garneau is asking Canadians to co-sign his submission to the CRTC asking for its latest decision to be reversed.
More than 470,000 Canadians have signed an online petition opposing the UBB regime.



http://business.financialpost.com/2011/ ... d-billing/
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don242 wrote: Maybe the actual connection is a separate cost if someone subscribes. Obviously this would make most sense. Make the service available and only if the customers subscribes would you finish the install.

So in you experience, would you say it costs more or less to install FTTH in a denser population?

It costs less in denser areas. There's also a difference in new vs existing houses. New houses that are built for FTTH with conduit or a direct path to a main telco panel, with a couple power outlets, are considerably less time. Existing houses sometimes have a living room against the telco entrance conduit, so that's not really an ideal place to put a bunch of boxes, so it's a few hours extra to run cable around the house to a logical spot.
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S150PM wrote: You can impose UBB whatever you want for your own Bell retail customers but you're not allow to impose UBB on other ISPs customers.
-on-usage-based-billing/[/url]
You're still a Bell customer if you use Bell infrastructure. Why should Bell be giving its own customers 'the shaft' in terms of higher prices, while letting people who aren't even their direct customers, essentially have a reduced-cost ride?

That would be just as bad as, for instance, Canadian universities having two prices; $5000/year tuition for Canadian students, and $1000/year for foreigners.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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Mar 7, 2010
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Mark77 wrote: You're still a Bell customer if you use Bell infrastructure. Why should Bell be giving its own customers 'the shaft' in terms of higher prices, while letting people who aren't even their direct customers, essentially have a reduced-cost ride?

That would be just as bad as, for instance, Canadian universities having two prices; $5000/year tuition for Canadian students, and $1000/year for foreigners.

lol but those "losses" are made up by whatever teksavvy pays bell to rent the lines anyway. From your terrible example up there, its like if China paid each university a million dollars just so that its students would only be charged 1k a year.
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Mark77 wrote: No its not. Only a very small percent of the population hates UBB or even cares. The average user wants reliability, at an affordable price, and that's what UBB delivers. They don't want their Internet to be unusable between the hours of 5-10pm in the evening, because some people on unlimited plans consume the entirety of the scarce resources available on the network.

Source?
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Truemana wrote: Source?

Bell's been doing UBB since 2006, and they still dominate the market. The average person simply doesn't care. Non-infrastructure owners like Teksavvy still can't capture more than 2% of the market. 400k signatures on a petition out of 20M Internet users in Canada, that's 2% of the population. If Clement wants to cater to that crowd, then he's an utter fool as a politician.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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Oct 3, 2006
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Mark77 wrote: Bell's been doing UBB since 2006, and they still dominate the market. The average person simply doesn't care. Non-infrastructure owners like Teksavvy still can't capture more than 2% of the market. 400k signatures on a petition out of 20M Internet users in Canada, that's 2% of the population. If Clement wants to cater to that crowd, then he's an utter fool as a politician.

I think he's smart as a politician. Him and his party will be getting lots of votes out of this. There aren't any votes to lose because there are few who actively supports the UBB.
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Sep 30, 2003
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Mark77 wrote: Bell's been doing UBB since 2006, and they still dominate the market. The average person simply doesn't care. Non-infrastructure owners like Teksavvy still can't capture more than 2% of the market. 400k signatures on a petition out of 20M Internet users in Canada, that's 2% of the population. If Clement wants to cater to that crowd, then he's an utter fool as a politician.

That's just a flat out lie. I cared plenty when UBB came in, but what choice did I have? In Toronto there's a choice of 2 major providers, both of whom are doing it. And I'd be willing to bet that the 2% are all tech people, responsible not just for providing technical advice to their own households, but also to extended friends and family. I guarantee you the average person cares plenty, and more average people will care as overall usage rises over time.
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Happy13178 wrote: That's just a flat out lie. I cared plenty when UBB came in, but what choice did I have?
Moving to Teksavvy has been a way, for at least the past 4-5 years, to evade UBB. Teksavvy also offered a system to essentially evade throttling.
In Toronto there's a choice of 2 major providers, both of whom are doing it. And I'd be willing to bet that the 2% are all tech people, responsible not just for providing technical advice to their own households, but also to extended friends and family. I guarantee you the average person cares plenty, and more average people will care as overall usage rises over time.

Certainly, those people who are passionate about the issue have told their friends/relatives to sign the petition. Even then, they can only get 2%, or roughly the user base of the non-infrastructure owners, to sign. As I said earlier, if Mr. Clement wants to hitch his wagon to this special interest, and ignore the interests of a broad swath of users who want reliable service inexpensively, then he certainly does so at his own peril.
TodayHello wrote: ...The Banks are smarter than you - they have floors full of people whose job it is to read Mark77 posts...
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Mark77 wrote: Moving to Teksavvy has been a way, for at least the past 4-5 years, to evade UBB. Teksavvy also offered a system to essentially evade throttling.



Certainly, those people who are passionate about the issue have told their friends/relatives to sign the petition. Even then, they can only get 2%, or roughly the user base of the non-infrastructure owners, to sign. As I said earlier, if Mr. Clement wants to hitch his wagon to this special interest, and ignore the interests of a broad swath of users who want reliable service inexpensively, then he certainly does so at his own peril.

Not when you're in an area that Teksavvy doesn't cover, and if you don't use torrents, there's no throttling anyways. I'm sure if Mr. Clement heard from a large number of users who have bought into Bell's nonsense telling him they want reliable service inexpensively, especially in the numbers that you seem to think are out there, he wouldn't touch the issue. Instead, every political group has firmly placed themselves against UBB. The average user wants nothing to do with your point of view. Even the ones that don't go over the cap on any basis are asking themselves "well, what if I do go over sometime? Do I want to pay more?". The answer is no. On top of that, internet service isn't cheap. Do you think if UBB goes forward that Bell and Rogers are going to drop the prices on their lower tiers, because "then the heavy users are paying for themselves"? Not a chance in hell. I'd bet a year's salary on it. Your argument is on par with "When we take taxes from business and pass it on to the consumer (as per HST), businesses will pass on the savings to their customers." That's also BS.
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Oct 3, 2006
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Mark77 wrote: Moving to Teksavvy has been a way, for at least the past 4-5 years, to evade UBB. Teksavvy also offered a system to essentially evade throttling.



Certainly, those people who are passionate about the issue have told their friends/relatives to sign the petition. Even then, they can only get 2%, or roughly the user base of the non-infrastructure owners, to sign. As I said earlier, if Mr. Clement wants to hitch his wagon to this special interest, and ignore the interests of a broad swath of users who want reliable service inexpensively, then he certainly does so at his own peril.

The average person does not know about Teksavvy. Rogers and Bell simply uses their deep pockets to fund mass advertising campaigns on TV, radio, subway, billboards, magazines, newspapers to raise their own profile over Teksavvy's. Good advertising is more important than having a good product. You cannot assume that the majority of the users don't care about UBB just because they're with Bell or Rogers for the reasons mentioned above. So you and Bell should stop trying to speak on behalf of the large breadth of users, because your thinking does not in any way represent theirs. There IS a reason why there is no pro-UBB campaign from the community.
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Mar 17, 2005
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Mark77 wrote: You're still a Bell customer if you use Bell infrastructure. Why should Bell be giving its own customers 'the shaft' in terms of higher prices, while letting people who aren't even their direct customers, essentially have a reduced-cost ride?

That would be just as bad as, for instance, Canadian universities having two prices; $5000/year tuition for Canadian students, and $1000/year for foreigners.
It is because Bell does not provide full Internet service to indie customers. Heard of GAS? With Bell's GAS alone, you don't go anywhere. If you want to pay a car's price for its four wheels, be my guest. The tariff was calculated based on Bell's own cost analysis. It is not Bell's charity. It is regulated to maintain created competition because Bell is monopoly in telephone. Bell knows opening last mile is worse than current situation. So please don't sound like Bell is doing a favor to indies.

As for reduced-cost ride, you should ask why Bell cannot offer better service for less. Too many Oscar guys in Bell?
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Aznsilvrboy wrote: I think he's smart as a politician. Him and his party will be getting lots of votes out of this. There aren't any votes to lose because there are few who actively supports the UBB.

How come the comments like this never get a quote?

Sure its a smart move. There is no votes to lose, only votes to gain. I question the mentality of anybody who thinks this isn't a smart move.

Smart and this thread do not go hand in hand, though. Most of the smart posts in here are ignored, while people babble about their idiotic opinions on why a couple of garbage companies need our support.

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