yaaaawn! really people? is Internet billing what we want our politicians thinking about? other companies in other towns all have caps too so what makes you think that a little company in Prince Rupert can afford to provide a service with no caps - when the other guys can’t?
and by the way - Bell turned around and said they were not going to charge for individual usage on the wholesale lines they were selling to other internet providers. they are still charging their customers.
heres what I think… the government loves that Internet billing is the issue that voters want to talk about… means we are not talking about our resource strategy, our environmental strategy, our free trade deal with the EU, our security deal with the US that could mean the states will have a say in who we grant citizenship to… sorry peeps but you are buying into the bait and switch on this one.
Citywest, Telus, Shaw, and (I think) Bell Internet caps aren’t enforced regularly, or not at all. However, caps are usually enforced on those who are heavy users.
[quote=“enviroguy”]
heres what I think… the government loves that Internet billing is the issue that voters want to talk about… means we are not talking about our resource strategy, our environmental strategy, our free trade deal with the EU, our security deal with the US that could mean the states will have a say in who we grant citizenship to… sorry peeps but you are buying into the bait and switch on this one.[/quote]
Welcome to HTMF.
You are making some interesting observations. You may wish to consider using some capital letters at appropriate points in your posts; using all lower case letters detracts a bit from your message in my opinion.
The bottom line is just that, the bottom line. All these ISP’s are in the business of providing a service for a profit. You can either go along with them or rebel against them.
If you disagree with their policy, the most effective way to get their attention is through boycotting of what they sell. When they see their own revenue drying up, they’re more interested in your opinions. Plan B would be to start a non profit co-op and put them out of business. You get all the internet addicts together, buy X amount of bandwidth, and share the costs equally through subscriptions. WiFi is the way to go anymore. You don’t need to bother with stringing cable all over town and paying fees to those who own the poles.
Welcome to the 21st century. Nobody holding your leash but you…
[quote=“DHCollins”]Well, I can see this is worthy of a bumpski.
The bottom line is just that, the bottom line. All these ISP’s are in the business of providing a service for a profit. You can either go along with them or rebel against them.
If you disagree with their policy, the most effective way to get their attention is through boycotting of what they sell. When they see their own revenue drying up, they’re more interested in your opinions. Plan B would be to start a non profit co-op and put them out of business. You get all the internet addicts together, buy X amount of bandwidth, and share the costs equally through subscriptions. WiFi is the way to go anymore. You don’t need to bother with stringing cable all over town and paying fees to those who own the poles.
Welcome to the 21st century. Nobody holding your leash but you…
x[/quote]
buy bandwidth… sure but from who? oh right… It sure is about the bottom line and these companies are profiting in the billions but thats not good enough apparently (citywest is obviously the miserable failure of an exception to the profit statement). They have decided to rape their customers charge leased line rates do not provide leased line service rad.
Give you an example. Here in the Fort cable vision decided to come in in the 70s. Everyone knew they’d cable downtown and to hell with rural people. So they started a rebroadcast society.
30 years later that wasn’t good enough. They wanted to pay $100 a month instead of $4, and wanted their $4 back.
THen they got together so that 10 years after everyone else got cell service, we were prepared to put the money down. As soon as the papers were on the table, Telus rushed in a small repeater using the tiny tower on top of their CO and scooped ALL the downtown customers. Didn’t work for anyone out of town and fucked over any alternative.
So the gov’t got sold a Rogers built all the way to Rupert. They installed a mountain tower with lots of range, told everyone including Ottawa it was 3G and it wasn’t. Fucked over again.
Now the mine’s going in and a boom is predicted. Cablevision roared into town. Because over the air TV was going off the air Aug1. They told everyone that.
Forgot to mention that rebroadcast society that now transmitted 17 channels and 10 FM radios, including some digital service that only requires a $35 adapter on your antenna. But they convinced people they had to pay someone; satellite or cable $100 a month instead of $4 (it had dropped to $2 after the public outcry of 'subsidizing tv).
On top of that, all they’ve cabled is the downtown core so far.
So every large entity fucked the public over, lied, cheated and misled the gov’t. NO CONSEQUENSES.
They OWN the country.
Funny thing is I started my WISP business because nobody wanted to do a co-op.
I feel your pain. We’re still in the early days of all this. Here we are driving our Model T’s down the two lane information highway. It’s all going to get better, but not until the people of had enough of what is already in place. Gaming is driving the conumer level hardware market. Commerce will be what demands more bandwidth eventually.
Those of us who used to have 14.4 phone modems can wait.
Back when I was a kid, pre-internet, my trusty shortwave brought me the world. May have to go back to that someday. Because if war breaks out, you can kiss your internet goodbye. They’ll shut it down for reasons of national security.
Like most people, It irritates me when costs for anything I consume increase. However, the pragmatist in me has to look at the cost/benefit picture and I can only speak for myself and my own usage. The first connection I ever had was a 300 bit/sec over a dial-up telnet connection in the eighties. It was all text based communication and was slow. You could easily read faster than the text appeared on the screen. I don’t remember the exact costs but it was high. There was a monthly connection charge and a per kiloByte usage fee. We’ve come a long way since then and capacity has grown tremendously. Back then, I used my connection to check stock prices, but now I use it for banking, communications, reference, shopping, gambling and entertainment. All of these activities with the exception of gambling, save me money. Online banking saves me time and money, I use skype and voip because it saves me money, I look up information on any and all things I can think of( no more encyclopedias to buy). I can buy stuff online (cheaper than going downtown). I like to play Call of Duty online( easier and cheaper than playing paintball or a round of golf although I like that too). Netflix, OMG (all the movies you can watch for less than a sawbuck, C’mon).
As much as I enjoy all of these online activities, I understand the affect they have on bandwidth as a whole. Lets face it there is no shortage of new start-ups looking to join the list of large cap companies that have made billions by finding new ways to chew through bandwidth. And with every new Netflix/Youtube/Facebook etc. subscriber, more demand is put on the system. My point is that everyone out there in cyberland is using the net to make their fortune or keep more money in their pocket, but nobody seems to be putting a value on the positive affect it has made to their lives and pocketbooks.
In a glass half empty society there’s always a lot of blame flying around. I prefer to blame who drank the other half and not the store that sold the glass, and I’m not going to whine about paying more than the person who just checks there emails.
I’m not sure I understand your point. Youtube netflix etc buy their bandwidth we pay for ours telus bell rogers etc are profiting hugely from us and do not. Need to increase rates. Youtube netflix etc don’t cost an isp anything in spite of what they want you to think.
Communication companies turn a good profit, no doubt. But I think it pales in comparison to any of the internet heavyweights. My point is that the bandwidth you use has a value and judging by all the complaints it seems a lot people don’t think it’s worth much. I have a different opinion on that point.
Well this is interesting, not sure how all the Harper haters of the main frame are going to react to the Conservatives wading into the Internet billing debate
I’m sure Nathan Cullen feels like a real schmuck for breaking his campaign promises, going against his party’s stand, and taking the side of the corporations on this issue. Or maybe he doesn’t.
The fact that the Conservatives have stepped up for consumers in the matter, when Nathan wouldn’t, is even more ironic.
I think the whole issue has given many a new insight into how Nathan “Ethics Committee” Cullen operates.
