The CRTC Betrays the Canadians it’s Suppose to Protect
Like browsing the internet? If the CRTC had their way, you would be paying more for it. As if Canadians don’t already have enough expenses and raising prices and not to mention that 80% price gap with the United States… Don’t we all just love it when the rich play a monopoly on the powerless?
The Liberal Party of Canada, being in attack-mode against the Conservatives, were the first on their website to denounce the ruling that would favor big internet corporations such as Bell and Rogers in their quest to make us pay big bucks for their signals. The regulation would allow them to scrap unlimited internet deals and reduce the bandwidth allowance that they give for the same price.
Therefore, if you had Bell’s Internet Essentials Plus package for $33 per month, (Including the added fees – modem rental, taxes) which includes free wireless home networking, 2 to 7 MB upload and download speed and 20GB of free upload and download before a $2/GB charge incurred every month, would now see a package for the same price, with the same speed, but would only have 5GB per month before the rate occurs. Realistically, no one who needs the internet regularly can have a usage cap at 5GB and not go over. Every web page, every document on the web, every video costs Bandwidth. This would imply that if Bell wasn’t considerate to give the extra 40GB per month to existing customers who have an average usage above 5GB per month, people would pay up to $30 extra per month to have the same internet usage as before.
After the Liberals screamed that they would stand up for Canadians to rescue them from their protection, Harper, in fear of giving the Liberals more ammunition to use in an election campaign decided to over-turn the ruling which would send the CRTC back to the drawing board.
“Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordered a review of the CRTC ruling on Tuesday, a day after the opposition Liberals said they would raise the issue in Parliament. The left-leaning New Democratic Party also complained.”
Reuters
Americans don’t have this problem. Their providers are very generous with their clients. For $30 in the US, a customer would receive infinite usage with a ranked speed increase per price increase. The cost for this kind of deal in Canada at one point, required close to double the cost.
“A typical Internet package with Bell costs C$32 ($31.70) a month for 25 gigabytes. If a user exceeds that amount they are charged C$2 for each additional gigabyte.
“By comparison, Verizon’s landline Internet plans in the United States are all unlimited, and priced between $30 and $55 based on download speed.”
Reuters
For users who are already with Bell or any other affected provider who already has a cap system in place, just be sure to fight to keep the same plan for the years to come and the bulk of this ruling won’t really affect you. However, when our ISP watchdog decides to take sides with the big guys, there is plenty of room created to be concerned.
