Usage Base Billing.

It's something that will be installed in five days in Canada. Or at least they want that date to be the date they put it in motion.
And you have Bell to thank for it.

What is it?
Most Canadians don't know about it, because it was mostly done in secret. Some bribery and what not, and the usual stuff.
February 1st, they want to install this new thing. UBB.

You will pay your monthly fees for your Internet, but no longer will your "30 or whatever gig" per month will be included.
Instead you will be billed for every gig of upload, and download. So, 1 gig? 3-5$ each. (Actually it's every byte you are charged for, INCLUDING advertisment on website, and pop-up).
Basically if you do something more than check your email, welcome 500$ bill every month.

Also, they do not have to warn their clients that they will do the changes, meaning once they do it, you might not know, and all the sudden you will have a one thousand dollar bill.

openmedia.ca/meter.

ouch

What the hell. Way to go canadian government. Good job making me hate you even more.

By the way, your link doesn't work. Don't have long to try and look up info on this, have to leave for college in a few minutes, today's my first day hehe.

But isn't this only for Bell costumers? Since we have Videotron, which you should get if you don't have it since they've given us way less problems then Bell, wouldn't something Bell is doing not effect us?

And I am being serious, since the link doesn't work, I couldn't just double check for myself hehe.

arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2011/01/canada-wages-youtube-war-against-metered-internet-billing.ars?comments=1&start=0#comments-bar

This isn't just effecting one company.

What Bell is doing is charging its customers more money for less service. This, naturally, makes people want to go to smaller suppliers. (Where it is possible, from what I understand most ISP services do not overlap areas so it is difficult for people to pick another company)

Bell then is going to start hammering those supplies for taking up bandwidth that THEIR customers are being robbed of because all the internet is being supplied to on the same ISP lines. (I forget what they are called, but they are the underground wire dealies that the internet runs through.)

So effectively what they are doing is raising the prices on their services, CUTTING their services and then beating their competition up-side the head with a billy club (fines) for selling the same services for cheaper. (Eventually those services will either be forced to raise their prices as well, or disappear all together.)

Effectively Bell is creating an ISP monopoly in Canada.

I am in the US, so this doesn't effect me, but I DO know that I use a TON of bandwidth a month because I work on the computer. Anything I DL I will eventually have to upload, so I would charged for that. Not to mention all the E-mails, e-mail based chat etc etc etc that eats up your MBs.

People are MORE outraged that their bills are changing without notification.

January: 60 bucks/ 65 gigs
February: 60 bucks/ 25 gigs. )If you go over, a extra 3-5 bucks per MBGig depending, but it only costs BELL .01-.05 cents to service that Gig to you. It is a gigantic mark up.)

That is what it'll be changed to-- and this is all in efforts to stop companies like Netflix.

See-- the driving force behind this is that people are doing something smart. Using netflix instead of paying for cable TV. (They just use the internet.) I believe I read that Bell has ties with Cable/ Satellite TV as well, so by making a lower cap-- things like netflix/ hulu/ youtube become HUGE sources of eating bandwidth. So people have to stop using them if they want to surf and whatnot.

So then what about television? Naturally, they'll go back to cable/ satellite TV.

See what it is? They are cornering their customers into paying more money for less service in all directions. Even when they CAN change directions, it is at a cost-- which inevitably they will have to pay.

Maddie,

You need to do more research into this. This does nto affect Canadians with their home usage.

www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2011/01/27/technology-internet-usage-based-billing-mezei.html

read teh article by CBC.

The deal allows companies such as Bell, Rogers, Shaw to charge smaller ISPs and internet wholesalers by byte for selling their service.

This is like company A buys internet from Bell and becomes a small service provider under a no name company. Thsi does not affect the home consumer. This affects businesses that sell internet service to people, but buys it from the larger companies.

Well, this had been happening for two years.
When it passed the point was to affect home users, and reduce piracy by doing that.
it was never on CBC until the petition was put up, and the petition went through CBC, hence why I guess the link might nor work anymore.

Their point was to do it secret, and have home users affected.
Maybe it changed along the way, the more people knew, or now the whole story changed cause it's out there, but it was not what they intended to be two years ago when they started the whole process.

Thanks for the article link Skye. That was an interesting read. I wouldn't be too concerned yet though, unless you have a habit of over-running your GB limit on your monthly internet plan already. I'd advise to contact your ISP that provides your internet service and to enquire if you're likely to be affected at all. They should generally be pretty transparent about costings for household consumers, since you're effectively paying for them to provide your internet service.

It's a good idea to regularly check your internet service/package billing too. I you've been with the same ISP for the last six months, then check your statements to see if there are any irregularities in charges and or cost. I'd suggest to keep an eye on costings too for the next couple of weeks to months to see if there are more changes, like an extra couple of dollars here or there, stuff that might appear unusual.

~ Pyre

we have had caps on our internet usage for years. 80gb is a lot. mine is actually the lite plan with 25gb and I've never once come near to reaching that cap. So the cap isn't really new, nor is it problematic.

If you were buying net service from one of those small ISPs, then yes, I could see your home usage fee going up, but at the same time, 90% of Canadians are using service from one of hte big three.

Really though, it's not news right now because it's not new and it's not important. As a former journalist, somebody would have found it long ago if it was a big deal and reported it. News agencies aren't really concerned about it. It's teh small business owners that are, and so they should be.

I'm going to be very honest; I didn't realize that monthly data transfer caps were still commonplace. The two main providers in my area (Qwest, the phone company, and Comcast, the cable company) don't put caps on the plans; the monthly fee is based on speed only.

Ouch, Canada. Big ouch.