EnMasse

Searosia · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 9:21 pm Post subject: Scrap the CRTC!

Canoe article here:Here

I'm not sure the awareness of Usage based Billing (UBB) for internet companies, but there has been a relatively large push on the CRTC to get this through. CRTC will repeatadely side with the corporations (considering it's mostly ex-corporate officers running the place), and they are more than prepared to accept the UBB proposal infront of them.

Just to put it out there...UBB is beyond absurd and is a step towards the ability to completely moniter internet traffic on a packet level. Hidden apps on your computers that check for updates automatically will now be running up your bill...a virus could run up your bill into the thousands of dollars quite quickly.

NDPer Charlie Angus has been quite vocal for us...but the general outcry by internet users is pretty impressive right now (Who would have thought 'social media' would turn on you if you allowed a bill to go through to allow people to be charged based on how much they use that social media. I hate the term social media ). There also appears to be a growing movement of programmers openly willing to go after the bell network (Telus to a lesser degree) had this passed. CRTC did pass it, and as Angus put it: "CRTC fumbled the ball on this"

Oddly enough, all parties are in agreement...Tories have announced (Tony Clement) that :

Searosia · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 9:26 pm Post subject:

I appear to have double posted. delete one for me? Embarassed

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TS. · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 9:40 pm Post subject:

It's gone.

On the merits, I'm in agreement on the basic point. This is a regulator hopelessly captured by the market actors it is supposed to be regulating. I don't think the solution is to abolish the CRTC though, since then there would be no regulator. I do think that there needs to be a wholesale cleaning of house. Fire all of the members of the CRTC, and reassign all the staff into other jobs in the federal bureaucracy - get a whole new draft of staff into there, ones that aren't in hoc to the telcoms.
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Senor Magoo · He's got a big one Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 8700

LOL! When TAT shows a thread titled "Scrap the CRTC" and then the most recent post is "It's gone"... well, that's how rumours start. Very Happy

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Searosia · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 10:01 pm Post subject:

Lol magoo, I put the post asking for the dupe to be deleted...and I still thought the same thing you did when I browsed tat ^^

And yes TS, I agree that leaving the communications unregulated isn't the best idea either...it still needs the regulatory side, just the CRTC is as infiltrated by corporate interests as it can possibly get and it needs a pretty heavy wholesale purge to get it even close to representing Canadians interests once again.

2 years ago, i was at a 'town hall' conference put on by Bell (I was an employee at the time) where a Bell VP (now former VP) were taking questions along with a CRTC representative. My question on usage based billing was answered with something along the lines of "Bell is the owner of telecom infrastructure (not canadians/other IP providers) and will make these descisions as it sees fit". The comment would have been expected from the Bell exec, but the CRTC representative said that before the Bell VP could. The CRTC and Bell are literally are one of the same at a certain level (I was also approached afterwards for my intent in having asked the question like that).

ETA a little correction to myself. Former VP isn't correct, it appears Eugene Roman is still a Bell executive and one of the staunchest supports of "Bell and Bell alone owns the network"
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Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

Maestro · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 10:34 pm Post subject:

And here was me hoping usage based billing was finally going to happen. I'm not sure why I should pay the same amount for internet service as someone who downloads movies, spends hours playing games on the web, or other heavy usage.

Perhaps someone could explain that to me.
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Raos · Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 10:52 pm Post subject:

Do you honestly expect that the cost of your service would go down under UBB, or do you think it more likely that others would just get gouged more?

And are you similarly stymied by the logic of a landline costing the same for somebody who uses it sparingly as for a chatty gossip who never lets the thing stay hung up for more than a minute a day?

sparqui · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:27 am Post subject:

Searosia · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:31 am Post subject:

Alot has to do with implementation Maestro. For this to be successful, Bell (or whomever) needs to have the right to open the data packets you are sending and read from it:

A) Who's sending it
B) Type of data contained (flagging peer to peer for example)
C) Destination

Tis a slippery slope...if I have the right to bill on my network, I need to read packages going across the internet to see who they are from and what 'type' of info it contains (peer to peer will be identified as undesirable traffic and given low prioirty, or completely dropped...also known as throtling ..er..sp?).

There would be a couple funny effects mind you...imagine being charged a dollar a month for windows automated updates traffic.

Unless you are on a dial-up connection, odds are you'll pay more. These web pages can run a couple megs each (especially with pics) and it's not long before you run up large amounts. Ya, movie downloaders will pay more...alot more...but I doubt you'd see savings unless you're barely using the internet (in which case, I suggest subscribing to compuserve for $10 per month on a dial-up connection as a cost saving measure Razz

)
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Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

Maestro · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 1:23 am Post subject:

well. there are three replies, none of which answers the question.

TS. · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 2:36 am Post subject:

Raos · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:05 am Post subject:

Senor Magoo · He's got a big one Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 8700

Raos · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 5:14 pm Post subject:

For fuck's sake.

Rufus Polson · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:10 pm Post subject:

Information going through cables is a natural monopoly anyway. You don't have competing providers running a dozen different cables to your home. Right now we do have two competing networks, but that's a historical accident--two different single-purpose analog networks, telephone and cable TV, were both discovered to be usable to pass digital information. Different ISPs don't all maintain a national network of fibre. Most of them are basically subcontractors. And one of the major purposes of this decision is precisely to allow the major network owners to squeeze these subcontractors by overcharging them for bandwidth, forcing them to pass on costs that the big boys don't need to bear.

That's bad, but in a way it points to a basic problem with trying to have competition in a natural monopoly. As a natural monopoly, internet service (and landline phone, and cable TV) should probably be a public utility. To the extent that there is anything like limitation on total network capacity, that's mainly because the oligopoly owning that capacity hasn't invested much in increasing it. What we should have is public investment, put in something with the kind of bandwidth they got going in Korea. Then make internet and phone access a public service that everyone gets free (at least at levels below "big server" kind of bandwidth), and to Hell with the telcos.

Incidentally, the workability of DoS attacks has nothing whatsoever to do with general network capacity. It exploits the bottleneck of individual server capacity, duh.

Searosia · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:34 pm Post subject:

Magoo - the bottleneck for the internet is the routers for the most case. signals going over wires to computers on the same network is infact pretty close to infinate when it comes down to it and there is absolutely no incremental cost (short of wire replacement after many many years of use). Traffic across routers and to servers is not quite so and the router/servers cost money to create and maintain (happy for why a DOS attack on a server is effective?).

Maestro -

Searosia · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:38 pm Post subject:

Rufus - you got it, ILEC vs CLEC. ILEC (incombant) owns the network. Bell in the east, MTS for manitoba, sastel in saskatchewan and telus further west. CLEC uses the ILECs network by buying portions of it through the resale rules of the CRTC. It's a confuisng mess at the best of times....The government of Ontario is serviced by Telus, who buys the network from bell, heavily subsidizes it, and resells to the Gov't of Ontario. The government of Alberta is a Bell account, Bell buys from the Telus network and sells to the Gov't of Alberta for cheaper than Telus can.
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Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

Senor Magoo · He's got a big one Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 8700

Raos · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 7:07 pm Post subject:

So at what point did your university run out of bits to transfer, or are you inappropriately conflating rate and volume again? Wait, that's a stupid question, you clearly are. Are you doing it intentionally out of dishonesty or do you just not get the difference?

Senor Magoo · He's got a big one Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 8700

Raos · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 7:25 pm Post subject:

Which doesn't answer the question, because you're still jumping willy-nilly between rate and volume again. There is a difference between the two, are you ignoring it because it makes your argument inconsistent or just not aware of it?

Searosia · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 7:44 pm Post subject:

Senor Magoo · He's got a big one Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 8700

Vundo Draxon · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 9:56 pm Post subject:

Searosia · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:31 pm Post subject:

Simon Vallée · Fulltime enMasse Member Joined: 13 Apr 2006 Posts: 546

Personally, I am not opposed to charging per gig downloaded per se, it's just that the fees they charge now are aberrantly high and illogical. I think the CRTC or someone else with the power to regulate should impose a 15 or 20 cents maximum per gig download (considering apparently the costs are 3 to 10 cents) and maybe forcing service providers to ignore downloads in off-peak hours because the capacity is wasted and there's no reason to punish people downloading at those times.

BTW, an example of absurd fees.

Let's imagine two friends like in an apartment, both have a computer and are big internet users. They use Videotron's 15 Mbps service, at 56 $ per month, a 70-gig download cap and a 1,50 $ fee for every additional gig downloaded, no limit on these additional fees (even Bell is better, it caps those fees at 60 $, at least up to 300 gigs).

Anyway, let's say they both use 70 gigs, for a total of 140 gigs, 70 over the limit. The total bill comes to 161 $ per month.

Now let's say instead that each one had a different line (not sure if it's possible in an apartment but no matter) with the same plan. They both would have 15 Mbps for a combined maximum speed of 30 Mbps. But since their own personal use of the internet do not go above the cap, they pay only the base price, 56 $ each, for a total of 112 $.

Notice the problem here? Having two lines instead of one results in a lower cost, but this option is actually WORSE for the network. If you really cared about the bandwidth and not just, you know, inflating bills, you should encourage these people to share one line, because that way in peak hours they'd still use only a maximum of 15 Mbps instead of up to 30 Mbps. There is no logic in those fees.

Searosia's analogy with roads is well-put. Roads right now, even the most used ones, have a lot of excess capacity, one lane can theoretically take nearly 50 000 vehicles a day (2 000 vehicles per hour times 24 hours). However, the problem is that too many cars want to use the road at the same time, not that too many people want to use it in a single day. So if you want to lower congestion, then you must take measure that affect demand at that specific time, putting a congestion charge for someone using the road at 1 AM when there is no one else would be absolutely absurd. Yet, that is what the internet providers are doing presently. They are doing the equivalent of making cars taking a road at 1 AM pay congestion charges, arguing that they need to do so to alleviate congestion in the peak hours. It's a complete lie.

Note that previously they used to often just slow down the speed of those who had gone over a certain level when a lot of people were on the net, which was fairer. However, they realized they didn't make money doing so, so they switched to a consumption fee that allowed to inflate bills for many people and since then they've been laughing all the way to the bank. Their claims that they need to do this to preserve the internet for the average schmuck against the evil big downloaders is a dumb argument made just for the ignorant who don't know a thing about how the internet works (and who just happen to rarely download stuff anyway, so are in the first group anyway).
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Raos · Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:51 am Post subject:

Maestro · Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 7:34 pm Post subject:

From a prior CRTC decision on UBB:

Telecom Decision CRTC 2010-255

Raos · Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 8:21 pm Post subject:

It's been done before? Oh, well that certainly settles it; any level of convention being, as we all know, the most definitive characteristic of ideal management.

Maestro · Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 9:17 pm Post subject:

It's not that it's been done before, it's that it is being done right now, and has been for years...at the retail level. In other words, you and I. And it is being done even by those re-sellers (GAS ISP's) who are now complaining that they will have to pay a usage fee.

In simple terms, the companies which do not have networks, but have been re-selling internet service have been charging their customers on a usage basis. Because of a long ago CRTC decision the network owners had to supply internet service to re-sellers at a wholesale price, which, if you read the decision, is roughly half of what the network owners charge their own retail customers. The network owners were not allowed to charge these re-sellers a usage based fee, even though the re-sellers were charging on such a basis themselves.

So this outcry against UBB has nothing at all to do with what you are paying for internet service. It is the network owners who are asking the CRTC to allow them to use UBB to their wholesale customers. Customers who are already charging a usage based fee to their retail customers.

Which makes all the other arguments more or less moot.

The whole thing may be moot in any case, because, if you've been following the news, a court has recently overturned another government decision that reversed an earlier CRTC decision. Or, if the government wants to reverse CRTC decisions, they're going to have to re-write the act.

I'll leave it to others as to whether they would rather have the Harper government making these decisions, or the CRTC.
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Maestro · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 5:24 am Post subject:

In any case, there is a relatively cheap, easy, implementation that would render the discussion meaningless.

Government supplied wireless internet in every city and town in the country. Let the network owners continue to sell wired connections, which have advantages over wireless, and let the re-sellers continue to buy wholesale wired bandwidth.

I live in the city of New Westminster, and they are piloting a project that will supply wifi at a few locations. from their web site:

Raos · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 4:20 pm Post subject:

Searosia · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 4:30 pm Post subject:

lol maestro, read what you cherry pick please:

Searosia · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 4:36 pm Post subject:

This hurt

Maestro:

Maestro · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:21 pm Post subject:

Searosia · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:52 pm Post subject:

I'ma post prolific again today. work must be boring or something.

On the topic of technology reading traffic volume...TCP/IP and forms of are the major internet traffic type. Computers literally just spam messages out onto the network and hope they get there. If conflicts happen (2 signals sent at the same time for example...harder than you'd think considering the speed of these signals is the speed of electricity) the default behaviour to resolve this is to wait a random amount of time (determined by the decimals in the milisecond counter on your computers internal clock) and then send it again.

So sending a 1 meg file...the file is broken into logical pieces called packets, routing info tagged to it, and then spammed out. Failed components (packets get dropped) are re-requested and resent. The actual traffic in relation to sending a 1 MB file is considerably higher than what you would expect.

Add to that...the routers on the network will find their fastest paths...which can include jumping onto a Bell portion then over to a US network then back onto the bell network (Bell and Telus see traffic like this frequently). What does Bell get to bill for there...and can Bell bill for usage that they are simply putting onto a US owned portion of the net? And traffic volume is rarely recorded (because it silly to do so). Back to the traffic on a highway example, if a router on the internet was like a stop light on a highway, the only method that currently exists to read volume is the equivlent of the city assigning a person to sit there with a counter and count cars that go by.

Moreover...all programs have really been designed with traffic issues in mind, not volume (volume is never a limiting factor on the net nor should be). Several programs (google mail for example) are consistently generating traffic through auto-updates and little things it does in the background. Outlook checks exchange servers for email quite frequently...and many many forums that have update functionality are conistently doing little checks that in term of bandwidth are negligable but over long time frames really add up. Windows and any / all software that do automated updates are based on small amounts of bandwidth (rate) used and is therefore negligable, while the long time frame volume is ignored as volume is never the limiting factor on a network.

books online, itunes, direct2drive (games/software purchsed from the net), and netflix are all based on the same idea...limited bandwidth, infinate volume. This outright effects the business model of a huge number of companies and the software they've developed.

If that all isn't enough...the ability to exploit a little bit of knowledge on a setup like this goes an extremely long way. A little web virus to intentionall cause some unintentional data transfers would be funny (the basis of the stronger DoS attacks is using hundreds of thousands of computers that have a lil virus installed on them and telling those computers all to hit the same servers at once). If I wanted to give 20 people a copy of a movie, I can upload to a shell and spam from there. Your internet bill becomes based on your knowledge of how to exploit the net.

I can probably continue...VBB (for volume based billing, probably a better term for this than UBB) is potentially the single most destructive policy for internet users (business and people) and will have rather far reaching impacts. It's contrary to the methodology of almost all software ever designed to operate on the internet. The Harpo's are bright enough to atleast identify this part.
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Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

Searosia · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:19 pm Post subject:

bleh, come now maestro...you're repeating false talking points again and again.

Searosia · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 8:08 pm Post subject:

Maestro · Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:40 am Post subject:

I've nipped off the end of my finger chopping veggies for supper, so for the time being I will read but not respond.

Cut wasn't serious, but enough to call a temporary halt to extended typing and guitar playing.. Sad

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TS. · Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 5:45 am Post subject:

Searosia · Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 5:23 pm Post subject:

Ack...thats no good maestro. hope it heals quickly for ya.

Just to add some articles to the discussion:

activists fighting UBB.

FYI, thats openmedia.ca a great source for info on this topic.

Searosia · Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 7:59 pm Post subject:

Lil bit of a rumour still...but Shaw is backing off of UBB. Shaw.ca has details (if not now, to come shortly)...shaw's actually decently reactive to it's user base for an ISP. The mass outcry has caused them to re-evaluate their stance on UBB.

Great news on this front.
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Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

Diane Demorney · Bazinga! Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 4746 Location: Calgary

It's not a rumour, Searosia. Shaw is backing off and will be holding "town hall" meetings with anyone interested. Dates/times/places will be announce on 14Feb11 - go to shaw.ca and if interested, you can sign up for an invite.
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Searosia · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 5:06 pm Post subject:

I'm already enrolled Wink

I'll give shaw credit...though I guess in part it might be because their still small enough to respond like this. We'll see how the Town Hall goes and I'll reserve judgement until then.
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Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

sparqui · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 5:07 pm Post subject:

I was under the impression that MTS was also against it. In Manitoba, they are Shaw's major competitor so that might be a factor.
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Searosia · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 5:24 pm Post subject:

I know it might be symantics, but it's actually Shaw that is MTS's competition in Manitboa (MTS is the ILEC). This means Shaw buys wholesale from MTS and resells it within Manitoba...UBB would be MTS trying to bill Shaw for the volume in puts on MTS's network instead of the wholesale connection rate that it's currently billed at. It's quite possible MTS realized this was silly in advance and never entered the discussions. I'm not sure...Manitoba and Saskatchewan are somewhat unique in this situation as they are controlled by unique incombant telceo's (Sasktel and MTS...MTS = Maintoba Tel Services?), which actually means that anything Bell or Shaw attempts to enforce for wholesale volume billing can actually be enforced upon their operations in these 2 provinces. Thats actually kinda funny, I hope MTS charges extreme UBB on it's wholesale products (since bell/telus/shaw are the major wholesale consumers in these 2 provinces).

MTS is also Allstream, is it not?
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Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

sparqui · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 9:20 pm Post subject:

Yup, Allstream and MTS merged sometime in the past few years, Searosia.
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“If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a tractor.”

-- Gilles Duceppe

Searosia · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 11:03 pm Post subject:

I think there's still some degree of seperation between AllStream and MTS though...probably a good example of the ILEC // CLEC setup, MTS is the incombant within Manitoba and acts as such, while All Stream handles the CLEC retail business outside of manitoba.

Is the seperation/distinction between CLEC and ILEC for this discussion understood? I'm never fully sure if I'm using industry terminology that isn't easily identified. As is, I'm blurring the line between Telus/Bell and Shaw (shaw actually isn't an ILEC in any cases...if you're on a shaw IP phone, you're actually using a number that Bell is porting to Shaw...and Bell is buying those numbers as larger connections from Telus and selling them to Shaw using CRTC guidelines. That example is straight forward, should see some of the loops in the rogers/bell setup)

Another correction I should add....as far as I know, Shaw itself is not a nationwide company and you won't be able to access services that shaw provides within alberta anywhere else in the country. Shaw Direct formerly starchoice communications is a national branch of Shaw, but is a distinct business unit. Shaw broadcasting and other media ownerships are national as well. I might be wrong with that...but ultimately it means that only shaw satillite services are in active competition with MTS in Manitoba (Satillite TV is a different thing from the wired network and is regulated seperately). So my line of "Shaw reselling MTS services" is likely incorrect. Bell and Telus are definately MTS resellers within Manitoba though
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Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

Raos · Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:29 pm Post subject:

Diane Demorney · Bazinga! Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 4746 Location: Calgary

Searosia, Shaw Cable is in Northern Ontario to B.C. with a little pocket in Hamilton. Rogers has the rest of the country. This is strictly for cable, though. Shaw Direct is all across Canada. Just an FYI.
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Scissors cuts paper. Paper covers rock. Rock crushes lizard. Lizard poisons Spock. Spock smashes scissors. Scissors decapitates lizard. Lizard eats paper. Paper disproves Spock. Spock vaporizes rock. And as it always has, rock crushes scissors.