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.