So our friendly neighbourhood CRTC has yet again shown it exists not to serve the needs of the good people of this country, but rather big corporations. They’ve decided to give the big guys the green light to charge WHATEVER they want for overage fees. What’s the problem with paying what you use, you ask? In principal, I have no issue with that, if that was the case but:
1 – It’s not paying for what you use. They’re going to charge a
flat fee for a certain amount of internet usage (i.e. $59.99 for
80GB) and then however much they want to charge extra per GB
used. No credit for under-usage.
2- 80GB is great, right? Well, 80GB roughly equates to replacing cable with an online movie/tv streamer (apprx 1Gb/hr) and not using internet for anything else (i.e. internet radio (1.4Gb/day), videos, downloading, etc).
3 – Digital cable uses a hell of a lot more bandwidth than
anything you would do on the internet and comes over the
same line. So not really a hardware problem that justifies the
additional expense as the big guys would have us believe.
I’m ok with charging for what you use, if this were the case. But the problem is it’s anti-competitive behaviour because most of Canada has no choice but to pay the same companies for cable TV, telephones & cellphones, and internet.
The internet is poised to kill off both the cable tv businesses (via things like streaming media content) and old-fashioned phones (wired and cellular) and these guys don’t like it.
So this is one way for the companies who are clearly grasping at straws to not only get a piece of the action but to control the game.
CLEARLY anti-competitive behaviour.
So even if you’ve decided, like me, to get rid of cable TV and perhaps subscribe to an online streamer; well, they’re determined to get my $ one way or another.
And I’m PISSED OFF that it’s not big news. WTF?!?! —Sick of this bullshit
This article appears in Jan 27 – Feb 2, 2011.
yikes, thanks for the heads up. we were thinking of dumping the cable as well
OP, you think that’s bad. You should see how they charge internet-usage in Australia. Hot damn it’s insanely expensive per GB downloaded. Down there a lot of providers do have unlimited downloads during off-peak times, but that doesn’t help with your streaming. I used to leech off unsecured networks……hell it wasn’t me footing the bill, and if people are stupid enough to leave their network unsecured, sucks to be them.
ummmm…
you were likely this pissed off over a year ago when they announced it….
but knowing it’s coming for over a year and then flipping is a little odd.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/10…
I find all the TV I want to watch on free online streamers. I don’t even watch the television set anymore, my computer monitor has much better picture anyway. I’ve even discovered a few really good less than popular shows that way, that I would have never had access to otherwise.
Movies too, on demand sucks in comparison to being able to find good streams of pretty much every film ever made anywhere anytime, if you know where to look of course.
Not just that, but the quality of news reporting has gone so far downhill in newspapers and TV news channels recently that all the good journalism is happening online on blogs by independents who aren’t even journalists. Last time I turned on the television to watch the news, some stupid reporter was pointing the camera up in the sky at fucking Jupiter going, “What is that mysterious bright light in the sky? Some think it might be a UFO! What do our viewers think?”. We think you’re a fucking dumbass, that’s what.
And even some sporting events are being broadcasted in real time over the net now, and I’m not just talking about StarCraft tournaments…
I’m just waiting for the day when television becomes completely obsolete.
Actually, we’re really lucky, currently, in the Atlantic end of the country as far as internet is concerned because almost every other province puts limits on bandwith for their customers. I know people in Ontario and BC who were told mid month that they used up all their bandwith and that as it. Plus, the internet was slow as ASS in Ontario last time I lived there, and I had to constantly had to call to get the fucking thing fixed. I’ve never had issues with speed or quality around here…it’s not as fast as say, my network at work, but I’m within a pretty well run organization as far as ITSS is concerned.
if you wants the services, you’s got to pay the prices. unless you get a satilite dish, a wireless adapter from airlink, and a cel phone, pre paid. then you can tell them to pound sand.
years back, i had an occasion to have it out with these assholes in the c.r.t.c. they cut my cable, because i fought back on a price increase, for something i did not get, have or use to begin with. my choice was either pay, or watch 3 channels.
but i put the fuck to them. i put up a 3/4 wave c.b. radio antenna, and ran the cable into a frequency splitter. and a signal generator. thhen i ran the whole shot thru an old commadore 64 computer, and into the t.v.
needless to say, i had more channels than i had buttons on my remote for. i had to figure out what channel went with which frequency. took awhile to fine tune it, but after about a month or so, i had over 700 channels and no cable to pay for.
well those yahoos weren’t too happy when they found this out, tried to have me charged with theft of radio and t.v. waves. judge fucking near pissed himself laughing when it finally got to court. this was using the old anik 1 satilite, by the way. you can’t do that anymore, because they took that one out of service.
well now, it took them almost 3 years to figure out how to block my signal. but til then, they were fucked. i am trying to find a new way, to get this shit, without using any companies equipment. or they will make you pay for that. something to think about, you techies out there reading this.
If you are on Eastlink anything over the 15mb service already has usage limits written into the fine print, they just haven’t started to enforce it yet – Aliant is working on the same thing.
I also ditched my television service – I am looking forward to OTA HD service here starting in August, provided the CRTC doesn’t fuck us over there, as well.
I’m just awaiting the impending outcry of said poor joe the plumber who doesn’t know squat about computers or the internet…
and has 15 people in his building leeching off his wireless connection, raping the web of movies, porn, music, and the remaining .5% of internet content available.
it’ll be like those new-to-texting parents with a kids new cellphone that get the 56 page first month’s invoice totaling $2K.
wait for it….
i have 12 or so feeding of my wireless signal right now zzz, who gives a fuck, not me, they are probly using linksys from cisco, as a connection gateway. but like i said, i know of at least 12, using my feed. and yes, it is non secured for that reason.
how very S-M-R-T of you.
when your ISP charges you for the quantity of all their downloads,
I’m thinking YOU will be the one giving a fuck.
Ya suckster – you’ll end up getting charged when these new rules come into play. It’ll be sucktastic!
they can’t charge you, if you have no i.p, and those little airlink sticks, run at about 54 mbps., easy to download shit, i used one here on my desktop for almost a year, and worked better in misserable weather at that.
there is always a free link somewhere out there, i drove to stewiacke with a bud a couple years back, and only lost wireless signal once, neat the stewiacke turn off.
those fucking things are great, and for the one time price of 50 bucks, and no ever, user fees, wow.
yep, that we is marsies. greedy fucking cunts, and don’t forget the assholes too.
hmmm, 4 comments only… and all with the forbidden untcay…
AND they haven’t been reported, taken down, or booted off.
interesting.
So… OP… if you’re so fucking fired up about this being “CLEARLY anti-competitive behaviour” why do’t you put a complaint in to the Competition Bureau of Canada:
http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/sit…
Do something about it instead of boo-hooing about it here on LTWWB… F–U–C–K!!
As long as there is electronic data being sent on some sort of network some jerk off will find a way to hack into it and get it free. It’s one of the things that hikes up the fees for the rest of us.
http://openmedia.ca/