More fodder for the debate, more items for Citywest to explain to/for us.
“We have a fundamental structural problem where (ISPs) are ridiculously inflated,” Anderson said. “The caps that are in place are really low, and the prices are out of step with other countries. People are frustrated in general about the state of Internet in Canada.”
Sounds familiar: boingboing.net/2011/03/29/ca … admit.html
"Canada’s cable-based ISPs have filed regulatory comments on their “Usage-Based Billing” model that caps bandwidth use and then charges high rates for overage. In these comments, they admit that the rates they charge have nothing to do with what it costs them to provide their service, and are instead aimed at punishing their customers for “overusing” the Internet. In other words, they’ve set out to limit the growth of networked based business and new kinds of services, and to prevent Canadians experimentation that enables them to use the Internet to its fullest. "
Did anyone see this on Citywest’s Site?
citywest.ca/latest_news/nathan_c … t_citywest
In-Public AGAINST. In-Private: FOR. Not impressed Nathan. Not impressed.
[quote=“MeepMeepZoom”]Did anyone see this on Citywest’s Site?
citywest.ca/latest_news/nathan_c … t_citywest
In-Public AGAINST. In-Private: FOR. Not impressed Nathan. Not impressed.[/quote]
He must have misspoke because he was too busy racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses to understand the issue fully. Hey citywest, I just paid telus 200.00 last month because you are such a shit company. What does it say when a mobile internet stick provides better value for my money than your shit overpriced so called ‘service’ but hey ignore your customers its clearly good for your bottom line. Time to raise municipal taxes again in order to pay for the bloated mismanagement salaries.
Going against his own party’s official stand on the issue as well. The NDP (as well as the Liberals) both campaigned against internet metering in the last election, with the NDP saying they would make the practice illegal.
Nathan Cullen is either a hypocrite, or he really believes the Citywest bullshit about customers costing the company thousands of dollars. It’s bullshit, of course, since Citywest doesn’t pay by the gig for bandwidth. He’s at odds here with the rest of the NDP, including their internet critic, Charlie Angus, who calls UBB a shameless money grab. Which it is.
Has anybody asked Cullen to clarify?
I wonder if someone can convince the City of Prince Rupert to pass a motion against the practice, much like Vancouver City Council recently did?
Followup: Vancouver City Council:
I wonder if there’s anybody we can approach on the issue on the Prince Rupert City Council? Or do you think that Citywest has convinced them that “nobody” is against UBB (despite the hundreds who have signed the facebook petition)?
I e-mailed Nathan Cullen on the issue, but haven’t heard back. He’s probably hoping that it will all just go away.
He initially blasted Citywest in the media, then flip-flopped. I guess he didn’t realize that it was part of his party’s election platform and current policy to oppose internet metering. Now he has to decide which is worse, flip-flopping again, or disagreeing with your own party on something like this?
For someone who uses the internet a whole bunch (he’s even on twitter all the time), the silence on the matter is deafening.
Come on Nathan, I know you’re reading this, and I know people who work for you are reading this.
Don’t tell us that Citywest’s propaganda convinced you that your party is wrong on the matter of internet metering. Even Citywest’s Chief of Propaganda admitted that Citywest doesn’t pay by the byte. I’d imagine if they tried to convince you that Citywest cable viewers should now pay by the minute, that you’d agree with that too?
Hey Anna Ashley, how about introducing a motion at City Council asking Citywest to consider the other options they have available instead of this unfair and unpopular practice?
I don’t meter our users. Unfortunately other competitors here do, and I maintain that as a business I have the right to if I wish to without gov’t telling me otherwise.
It may be unpopular but I fail to see how charging heavy users more than light users is unfair.
FYI I do record traffic use, and once I did have to inform a home customer using over 50 Gigs a day we were no longer interested in serving him and he could go elsewhere. Which he couldn’t as he told me the other ISPs had already terminated him too.
It would be like charging you by the minute for watching cable TV, or charging customers by how far away they are from the telephone company (running that copper that extra mile, etc).
I don’t know about your case, but heavy users on Citywest are using their bandwidth outside of peak times, when it is essentially free. The difference between light and heavy should be the speed, not the amount transferred. Someone who uses dropbox to transfer 50 gigs at 20k/sec is less of a load on your network than someone watching youtube during peak hours.
If you have a customer using 800 gigs, then do some traffic shaping and slow him down during peak times. But what does it matter if he’s using 10 gigs overnight when nobody else is “on the highway” ?
The problem with Citywest, as I understand it, is that they have rising costs for many reasons, none of which are because of heavy users. For example, one of their costs is that they are losing money by bundling services. How is that heavy users fault?
I think Citywest should be charging for internet bandwidth, not how much you use. If you’re a light user, then great, you’ll be ok with 512mb/sec for $20/month. If you’re a heavy user, how about 15gb/sec for $100/month?
You do have the right to charge whatever you want in any way you want but citywest does not. Their customers are also the owners so you’d think the company would do as they say… the other big 3 well they are a monopoly and should be regulated as they do not have the best interests of canada at heart and are in a position to seriously damage our economy.