Citywest is introducing caps

[quote=“jase”]

[quote=“MeepMeepZoom”]

Well, i’m sure they would monitor where the traffic is coming from, Shaw doesn’t monitor netflix traffic so i guess i’m safe.[/quote]

so what you are saying is they will be charging you for accessing only some websites? Asinine.

OK, I am oblivious to all this as I pay my bill online, have not received any “news” and there is nothing on their website and due to the fact I am NOT a teckie, can someone explain to me exactly what I will and will not be able to do? I don’t download music or anything but will this affect and limit my everyday usage? Help !!!

Where in the letter did it even mention different kinds of traffic being monitored or not monitored?

It didn’t. They’ll be counting bandwidth. Period.

I have to ask, if I pay $50/month for 75 GB, and $2/GB over that, what happens if I only use 2GB for the month. All I do is e-mail and HTMF. Is my internet going to cost only $2 in total? That seems fair.

So go to Netflix here next month and you’ll get a page telling you to buy a TV you cheap bandwidth hog.

[quote=“sandimas”]Where in the letter did it even mention different kinds of traffic being monitored or not monitored?

It didn’t. They’ll be counting bandwidth. Period.

I have to ask, if I pay $50/month for 75 GB, and $2/GB over that, what happens if I only use 2GB for the month. All I do is e-mail and HTMF. Is my internet going to cost only $2 in total? That seems fair.[/quote]

And by the way, as a sneaky tactic I see they are using “techie” jargon to baffle and bullshit the customers before the system is even in place.

GB = Gigabyte. Gb or Gigabit (as stated in the letter) is 1024 Megabytes (1GigaBYTE) divided by 8 (8 bits = 1 Byte) so every 128 MEGABYTES over your subscription level you will be billed $2. Big difference.

[quote=“sandimas”]Where in the letter did it even mention different kinds of traffic being monitored or not monitored?

It didn’t. They’ll be counting bandwidth. Period.

I have to ask, if I pay $50/month for 75 GB, and $2/GB over that, what happens if I only use 2GB for the month. All I do is e-mail and HTMF. Is my internet going to cost only $2 in total? That seems fair.[/quote]

You may downgrade your service level to a basic package but with the downgrade to the basic package (so you don’t have to pay for gigabytes you wont use) you will also be simultaneously subject to a degradation in speed per second you are allowed to achieve aka SLOW.

I had basic DLS service at a second location once - and I am not lying here - it wasn’t much faster than regular anolog dial-up.

[quote=“sandimas”]Where in the letter did it even mention different kinds of traffic being monitored or not monitored?

It didn’t. They’ll be counting bandwidth. Period.

I have to ask, if I pay $50/month for 75 GB, and $2/GB over that, what happens if I only use 2GB for the month. All I do is e-mail and HTMF. Is my internet going to cost only $2 in total? That seems fair.[/quote]

Well on the ‘old’ system you and others like you would be subsidizing the high bandwidth users. A relatively fair system since you could use your connection to its fullest should you so choose. Apparently NOW they want to double dip, charge you the same AND charge per GB after the low limit (and if we listen to jason the ability to charge more for certain websites kind of like a tv subscription model).

What they should have done if they priced themselves under what they were paying for bandwidth was raise rates across the board or charge a reasonable rate per GB. $2.00/GB is a ridiculous price and given they have a monopoly should be fucking illegal.

Again I say SCREW YOU CITYWEST!

the letter was poorly written it should have said bandwidth usage, even though you watch netflix via http you are still using bandwidth, Citywest buys x amount of bandwidth from Bell, and if ppl overuse the bandwidth i’m sure Citywest has to pay extra, for the majority of users which is probably 90% of us we don’t have to worry about the caps since we don’t download every movie and tv series, or watch them online, we have cable or satellite service for that. Bell has had caps since beginning of this year in Ontario, but they grandfathered current users that didn’t want to switch to newer plans by allowing them to still keep their unlimited download/usage status but they weren’t allowed to have the lower fees, and if they wanted to have the higher speeds they had to give up their current plans and accept the caps
And yes they can monitor your usage at citywest for you go through their switches and each IP traffic is monitored in its own switch.

Citation needed

Citywest in no way shape or form pays anywhere near 2.00/GB for traffic over whatever their commit is. In fact (I’m not sure if bell offers it) but group telecom (their bandwidth wholesaler) offers unlimited full duplex 100Mbit connections as do shaw (bigpipe).

Citywest likely uses more than 100Mbit so they likely have a Gbit connections and monthly bandwidth commit of some number of GB/TB and pay a rate based on traffic over that. So either citywest didnt do their due dilligence when they signed the agreement with bell/whoever their upstream provider is or demand has gone up (which they should have planned for) in which case they should have raised rates across the board to compensate for the new demand. I have no problem paying my fair share but 2.00/GB is absolute lunacy and a fleecing of the citizens who own this company.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs379.ash2/65736_479640466688_678491688_6212215_3560380_n.jpg

I was under the impression that we were on the 75GB cap already anyways, the Cable users at least…

Man this is crap.

so genius wheres this exception for netflix?

Sounds to me like Citywest is abusing a monopoly.

You can watch TV on Citywest Cable. If you choose to watch TV shows via iTunes or Netflix, then you’ll have to pay twice.

This is why internet providers shouldn’t be cable companies as well. They don’t want you to stream that baseball game that you pay MLB directly for. They don’t want you to buy episodes of your favourite shows from iTunes. They don’t want you to watch movies from Netflix.

They want you to pay them for this stuff, not to bypass them!

Soooooo does this mean ShittyWest will have to pay for the same usage as us? Or do they get off scott free?
Im sure they are using the internet etc there.

Shittywest rapeing us again

[quote=“Dill the thrill”]Soooooo does this mean ShittyWest will have to pay for the same usage as us? Or do they get off scott free?
Im sure they are using the internet etc there.

Shittywest rapeing us again[/quote]

They pay cents per GB you pay dollars.

Is this a download cap or an upload cap? Or do they just add the two together?

Appears to be both together.

How do we organize to fight this ?

I emailed them this morning to ask about Netflix and this is their reply:

“Netflix will count as part of your traffic usage. That usage should be fairly low as Netflix is streaming on demand isn’t it?”

[quote=“MrGonzo2006”]I emailed them this morning to ask about Netflix and this is their reply:

“Netflix will count as part of your traffic usage. That usage should be fairly low as Netflix is streaming on demand isn’t it?”[/quote]

OMG they have no clue do they at Citywest, one person watching a two hour movie would transfer roughly 1.8GB of data. For high definition movies, the average encoding bitrate is around 3200Kbps and one user would transfer about 3GB of data.

fairly low my ass…