Internet 'Usage Based Billing' on the way - TekSavvy as alternative?

Started by Kithop, January 14, 2011, 01:23:38 AM

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Kithop

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one - internet access is becoming so important in our society, I see 'unlimited' as being the ONLY long-term solution - just like how we used to pay for usage on landline telephone in the past, until it got so cheap that for local calls it just doesn't matter anymore.  I'd rather have a slower line I can pay a flat fee for unlimited usage on and not worry about than a crazy fast line that can burst to some insane speed, but you can only use at that speed for 15 minutes before you start getting charged even more. :p

I have no problem with those profits being rolled into the base flat rate - if it costs them $30/mo +/- $5 depending on usage to provide it, and they charge $50/mo +/- $10, so be it - I'm not arguing that they're not allowed to make a profit, but this whole issue was never about the 'cost of bandwidth' or usage, and that's what we're getting hung up on... it's strictly a punitive measure aimed squarely at people like me who cancelled their TV and landline phone services to go entirely internet-based.  Why would they kick up a huge stink about it now when they've dealt with high usage patterns, etc. in the past?  Netflix isn't the only high-bandwidth service out there - it's just because it enroaches on their TV crap that they went through all this hassle.

I will pay more up front to ISPs like TekSavvy so that the profits go to a company that will actually provide better service at reasonable costs, rather than get suckered into a deal that looks cheap on the surface but will actually cost me more in the long run with incumbent telcos.  That should mean that TekSavvy gets rewarded with more income, the ability to build out their infrastructure more, provide better service, etc.  Instead, Bell/Rogers/Telus/Shaw/et al decided they want to crush them out of business with punitive rates.  Purely anti-competitive, unfair, and should be downright illegal.  Thankfully it sounds like even the Conservative government has sided with the NDP and Libs on this to say enough is enough.

Selkit

Quote from: Accophox on February 03, 2011, 01:40:30 PM
I just don't think that "unlimited" by the sense of the word is a workable solution for the future. UBB is a solution, if reasonable rates are put into place. And 5-15c is a fairly reasonable mark up in today's world. When we start consuming data by the 10's or 100's of GBs, we can look into a new system then. Until then, it's a reasonable system that I could live with.

You have to remember that these corporations employ people too - there has to be some markup along the way for support/maintenance costs... and profits for the shareholders (as they are public entities), but decreasing the markup from ridiculous to pennies more is a good step.

(Sorry, wall-o-text incoming!)

While I admire capitalism, it has its flaws, and the current oligopolies like Shaw or Telus have some serious cracks in their ethics. The amount they charge is ludicrous for what they actually provide, and "Data by the 10s or 100s of gb" is not an exorbitant figure, it's actually well within normal, legitimate use, not "LOL I DOWNLOAD HOLLEEWOOD WHOLE". For a bit of a reality anchoring, I personally use ~60-80 gb per month. For my job alone. Why? Because I work in graphics, and the version control repository has images that I need to upload, download and otherwise alter (sometimes several times) that are individually several dozen or even hundred megabytes. If you watch YouTube, there's 96 kbits of FLV audio coming your way per second, and the video stream itself to account for (They've recently begun offering 4k resolution instead of just 1080; That runs a few gigabytes per hour of content). Netflix; 1-4 gigabytes per piece watched. VOIP service at anywhere from 40 to 96 kbit/sec. Video conferencing (I do this daily with my workmates), and so on. My monthly usage runs in the 150-200 gb range. The actual cost of my usage to the ISP is about $45-60, at 30 cents per gigabyte (A fair rate which assumes that infrastructure, personnel, electricity and other costs are taken into account). 30 cents is actually a very, very high estimate of cost-per-gigabyte. The actual raw cost of bandwidth is a fraction of that. This means that on my previous connection with Shaw, I am not getting things at cost, they still have a profit margin. We were (key word 'were') doling out ~$100 per month to them. I'd say a profit margin of 80% over cost in the worst case scenario, is pretty damn good. The margin in my own industry is at best ~15% (And no, piracy does not make the margin so low, but that's another story).

With UBB as it stood, Shaw would have made $50-100 per month on overage charges on me, on $15-30 worth of cost incurred to them (Which is already essentially covered in what I paid for basic service with them). So their profit margin opens up by 120% in the worst case, netting them a 200% profit on the same service. Make no mistake, the telecom companies are -not- starving and wanting; They are attempting to subsidize failing cable and phone offerings, while quashing the competition that is making their outmoded services increasingly less profitable. Rather than attempting to compete fairly, Bell with UBB, attempted to simply stake their competition in the heart. This is anticompetitive, it's anti-capitalist, and permitting them to do so practically begs for a monopoly. My two cents (or 1 gigabyte equivalent bandwidth exchange, at-raw-cost)? Declare bandwidth an essential utility with regulated rates outside of corporate hands (Anyone over 20 remembers what happened when cable was deregulated... cable rates doubled overnight), mandate reinvestment in infrastructure, and gradually wean Bell away from being a primary service provider AND an infrastructure provider. When one entity controls both infrastructure and service, they -will- attempt to fiercely deny any other attempts to compete on the service level. So. Down to brass tacks:

My own hypothetical proposal-points:

Cap bandwidth charges at a maximum charge of 30 cents per gigabyte. This is literally 1,500% higher than the bulk cost of bandwidth. Even the most bloated corporation can keep its overhead below that; If they can't, their competitors will, and capitalist Darwinism has its chance to operate as it should.

Declare network access a vital utility. It's about damn time it was seen as a vital service. I would almost wager that in Canada, computer access in a household now outstrips landline telephone service, and the gap is widening.

Permit network traffic shaping by providers, but only on a content-agnostic level; Nevermind penalizing bittorrent users or any specific P2P action (This actually will impact my version control activities, which are to a degree peer to peer and decentralized, along with other legitimate traffic). Allow network providers to level off problematic over-usage with reduced speed, not bandwidth caps. Bandwidth use is not the problem; Network activity spikes are.

Levy a bandwidth tax against overall usage, to pay for reinvestment into physical infrastructure. Exempt no provider, Bell and top level infrastructure holders included. A small rate adjustment irrespective of all other concerns, as a top tier tax, to ensure that technological trends can be kept up with regardless of profit margins. Divorce infrastructure advancement from corporate profit, and progress should be a more steady, ongoing thing as opposed to a periodical product release. Canadian infrastructure right now is -very- poor for a developed nation. As an essential resource, it should fairly be taxed like one, alongside fuel, heating gas, and other infrastructure dependent resources. Fund grants to expand and upgrade obsolete sections of the network, under strict review.

Simply leaving something this important up to companies to decide "on competition" is going to lead only to one conclusion: They will make a decision that damages their competitor as much as humanly possible, in the interests of maintaining their near-monopoly in their respective fields. More radical changes about how bandwidth and net access are legislated, will be necessary going forward. That said, sorry for the Wall 'o Text; I agree, something must be done regardless (Unlimited usage is a nice notion, but it needs some safety fencing to work). But that something needs to be examined in a new way, not jammed into the obsolete framework old telecom legislation is built on; Something as amorphous and multipurpose as the internet cannot be legislated in the same fashion as single purpose services like telephony.

Kithop

Selkit, I love you. :P

Seriously, I can live with the 'full speed for first X GB and then reduced speed beyond that', as long as I don't get *charged* extra for it.  That's the real kicker; in a house with multiple people I can't be going around being usage police, and I can't afford to have random unexpected increases in my monthly bills because of it.  If I can pay a little more to not worry about usage, damn right I'm going for it - and that should be a legitimate marketable option for an ISP if they choose to provide it, right?  Especially if that $10 option covers their upstream costs and such.

I'm a nigh-communist bastard, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'd be more willing to have the gov't or crown corp own and operate the raw last-mile connections to your house the same way they could do water, electricity, etc. (this is what you mean by vital utility, in part?), and then hand that off to your ISP and plan of choice on the backend for a reasonable fee, with whatever taxes they want to impose to call for that continued infrastructure improvement.  Gov't builds the roads, we buy the cars to drive on them and pay taxes to have said roads maintained/improved.  Car makers can still make a profit by differentiating models/specs, but the roads themselves are completely agnostic.

Okay maybe that's a bad analogy, but still. ;)

Selkit

Quote from: Kithop on February 03, 2011, 02:26:27 PM
Okay maybe that's a bad analogy, but still. ;)

Actually, the analogy is surprisingly apt. In this case, the infrastructure can be likened to the roadway, and Bell to the contractor that maintains the road. The ideal scenario, is that the government pays Bell out of taxation, to upgrade the "roads" where necessary. Bell permits the car makers on their roads with transponder-equipped "vehicles" (service plans). The consumer buys a "vehicle" that fits how they like to "drive" (speed and slowdown cap). Unfortunately, that's not how it is with UBB. With UBB, it's as follows: The contractor Bell, upgrades the "road" only when absolutely necessary and only when they decide it's appropriate to do so. The vehicle makers (Your provider), are forced to equip cars with devices that charge you based on how far you drive, not how fast you drive. And you get dinged whether you drive slow and careful but for long distances, or in a mad dash to get somewhere.

I would personally be behind any plan that rather than charging exorbitant overages, started to ride a speed gradient instead; Do it in three ways. Use per month, sustained use, and spike use. We are not stuck in the days of analog switching, people; Hardware and software can react in realtime to these figures. Huge usage spike? Back gradually off on speed, especially if the network is congested. Sustained high use? Back off further and level out the connection at a percentile. Over the monthly use cap? Throttle it down to another percentile figure. Then combine as necessary. Unless this behavior is aimed at specific kinds of traffic (I'm looking at you, Shaw, dicking with my working connection for its P2P nature...), it's a fine way to smooth out network traffic, and the fellow consistently running up 25 megabits of traffic torrenting whole seasons of TV will no longer be so much of a nuisance when the use-calculation algorithms push them back to 5 megabits. They will still be a nuisance on UBB at 25 megabits, only in that instance, the problem is not solved (Do fuel costs stop a lawyer from driving an SUV, blocking traffic, polluting at a higher rate and otherwise being a problem? They only dissuade poorer individuals from it), and Shaw's pockets simply get fuller than they already are. Cost based deterrents only deter those who can't pay them (Or are unwilling to steal a non-tech-savvy user's wireless service; This has already happened in Quebec where a waitress got slammed for a $1800 bill).

Silvermink

Quote from: Kithop on February 03, 2011, 01:10:15 PMI really don't like how ISPs oversell their bandwidth

This is kind of the key right here, isn't it? We wouldn't be where we are if ISPs had been up-front about expected usage and caps instead of yelling "UNLIMITED UNLIMITED UNLIMITED"!

I also agree with the implication of what Selkit said about his data use, which is that "high" use is becoming the new normal, and our ISPs need to be prepared to deal with the ramp-up in a constructive way that doesn't choke off the benefit for Canadian citizens.

Selkit

First impression of TekSavvy is that they dramatically *undersold* their service. I did speed tests just out of curiosity, and at 6 PM on Saturday, I would expect the network to be relatively flooded. It isn't. I could scarcely believe that the average of 3 tests was 31 mb/sec down and 0.95 up. The advertised speeds were 15 and 1 respectively. So TekSavvy gets major, major points in my books for this one. Even if UBB does go ahead in some fashion, I will be staying with them based on my evaluation of both their service itself and their support. Intelligent agents, a no-nonsense phone system, prompt hook-up, and more than twice the advertised average speed. Win. Oh, and at half the price Shaw gouges.

Kithop

That's actually part of Shaw's 'PowerBoost' service where your modem is uncapped for the first few seconds of a download; part of the Xtreme-I package I was on before... if you did a longer sustained test with like, a 1GB+ file, it'd probably settle down to the 15/1 they offer.

That said, it's still nice. :P

FurryJackman

I still would like to give an example of stinky bandwidth vs insane bandwidth:

Shaw and Teksavvy with powerboost give you 30ish megabits down, 1 up.

BCIT's network on a hard line in their library gets me 70 megabits down, 50 megabits up. It's uncapped the whole time...

Choice is what's needed in Canada. The big telcos are still the ones ruling the pack and no real competition has sprung up. We need affordable FTTH in this country.

Peli

Comparing the bandwidth capabilities of a government funded tech institution with that which a mid/high level ISP can provide is completely pointless. The disparity will always be huge, and is nothing Shaw or Telus or whoever can control, nor offer to customers. Nor will it be in the foreseeable future.

Possibly when we get a fully implemented fiber to the home infrastructure. That's a good ways off though.

Acco

Eh, the University of Alberta has commercial agreements with Telus and Bell for traffic. Granted, they're probably a) very expensive and b) require a ton of infrastructure that's not in place in every home.

Point is, these ISPs can provide it. But the amount of money required on both sides makes it a moot point.

Acco

I thought it was worth reviving this topic in light of Shaw's increased caps on their plans... at the top tier, a 100Mb/10Mb pipe uncapped for 140 a month, being upgraded to 250/15 in the fall.

But 85 seems like a nice sweet spot for 100/10 with 500GB cap, with a sliding scale for overage - they just bump you up to the next usage tier.

At least it certainly beats roger's amnemic 50/2 175GB cap for 100 a month.

Selkit

Necro aside, it is relevant. However, after having spent several months on TekSavvy cable, the initial teething troubles have disappeared. I am now getting 25/2.5 with them for $36 a month with a 300 gb cap. More than adequate for my needs. I suspect they will follow suit on offering even higher speed service soon, as they have tit-for-tatted Shaw lately quite handily.