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Bigger picture! (Score:4, Informative)
Living in Canada and working in Telecommunications a bit (and my father still does) you begin to learn a few things about these two big companies. Where I live there are 2 basic Internet Service Providers, Shaw (cable) and Telus (Telecommunications).
Telus, being the Telecommunications company - actually OWNS most of the physical infrastructure, or the wiring, that runs across the city. Shaw basically sets up a deal (not sure of the terms) so that they can provide internet access THROUGH telus' wiring. You can try both service providers, but essentially you have two choices: Regular speed with random faults of downtime (telus) or something slightly slower but pretty reliable.
The big wigs of these companies are by no means in competition, with the way they charge rates, make deals to use each others services*, I wouldn't be surprised if they both play Golf together, all the while discussing "How can we make an extra few Million this year. A little for me, a little for you..."
*(for example, 411 directory service from ALOT of providers that aren't Telus is done by Telus Employees)
Re:Bigger picture! (Score:4, Informative)
FYI, while they "own" the infrastructure, they didn't pay for it. Your tax dollars did.
And they use up BILLIONS of dollars per year worth of free right-of-way that only they have access to.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm ...What?
Shaw and Telus may be entangled somewhere way up on the upstream side, but the local wiring in the city is completely different. Telus is a DSL provider, and Shaw is a Cable provider.
Perhaps you're thinking of Bell and Telus?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
From your physical house, yes, Shaw will handle the cable, Telus will handle the DSL. As soon as it hits a Shaw building - and it needs to hop outside of the city, it sure ain't over a Shaw Cable, and when it needs to hit a different server inside the city to get outside the city, they go through Telus wiring.
Similarily Shaw offers Phone services. Telus offers Television services. They both provide the EXACT same services, whatever you want (if you wanted dialup you could still go through Shaw) because the
Re:Bigger picture! (Score:4, Interesting)
Shaw uses the cable lines.
Telus uses phone.
Where does the cable start going through the phone?
Parent
Re:Bigger picture! (Score:4, Informative)
Where does the cable start going through the phone?
As soon as it hits a Shaw building and needs to go somewhere else.
Parent
Articles like this make Slashdot great. (Score:3, Insightful)
I consider myself lucky that in my area, the cableco isn't big and mean (Eastlink), and Telus is (AFAIK) the only telco for ADSL in my area, which I would never in a million years use.
How many shenanigans and payola are Rogers and Bell throwing at the CRTC anyways?
Re:Slashdots slashdots great articles like this (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
There are still DSL wholesalers, that use Telus's or Bell's last-mile infrastructure, but have their own transit/DNS/e-mail/etc. I'm with TekSavvy, which I know services both Bell and Telus areas. Otherwise I'm not sure about Telus, I live in Bell-land so I mostly know Bell-area ISPs. I think TekSavvy is the only one that services both Bell and Telus areas (Yak does, but they just re-sell TekSavvy).
Re: (Score:2)
I hope the 'competition' is better with those than it is here.
I can use Qwest, the telco, as my ISP for $30/month. Or I can use a 3rd party ISP and only have to pay Qwest $28 for the line and pay the 3rd party $20+ for access......
While i do have a 3rd party ISP, you can bet there are darn few people who wish to pay almost twice for no particular reason. Even cable is cheaper than 3rd party DSL here :(
One of these days i need to get off my vintage DSL line i suppose. Still works great for gaming even at onl
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Right now the competition is better. The rate that Bell (Qwest in your example) can charge the competition is regulated by the CRTC to costs + 15% profit margin. This whole article is about the CRTC removing that regulation, creating a situation like you have with Qwest where the independent ISPs will cost significantly more.
Dear Canada, welcome to our world! (Score:4, Insightful)
Signed, the USofA.
Very few of us down here have any choice for broadband other than the duopoly of telco/cable, and both providers are usually some combination of pillaging our wallets and skimping on service.
Just maybe, you can head this off.
Good Luck!
Re: (Score:2)
I wish we could - but its already too late. Any of the smaller ISP's have basically already shut down because they couldn't compete with the two. This latest move by the CRTC was the last nail in the coffin, sealed the deal.
Re:Dear Canada, welcome to our world! (Score:4, Informative)
TekSavvy [teksavvy.com] (the best DSL provider I've ever worked with, Google for reviews, you'll understand) is still around, but this decision will probably kill them. It's a real shame.
Parent
I swear to you (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, you do NOT want to have to deal with Bell Canada customer service or support for any reason whatsoever. They are legendary for the atrocious level of customer care, for bilking their customers, for owing customers money but never giving it back, for simply getting every last little thing amazingly wrong, for the amounts of pain inflicted and for their sheer level of unfairness.
I remember when I got my first telephone line back in the mid-80's, within months I had an unexplained and impossible charge, and I simply couldn't contest the charge - it was either pay it plus (growing) interest or have no phone.
My god, recently I moved to an apartment and had to endure two months of support calls to get my line moved too, and a Bell representative tried to sell me something called Line Insurance - basically, for an extra $20/mo it would guarantee that this sort of thing didn't happen. They wanted to charge me extra to ensure that I got what I already paid for! Can you imagine?!
No, Bell Canada is evil incarnate and must die.
Re: (Score:2)
I can vouch for this. When we moved our office, Bell neglected to enable the phones at the new place for a week (they only had about 2 months' notice), so we had to forward the public number to my boss's cellphone and do business like that. And that's one of the GOOD stories!
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I had a cell phone through Bell, and when my contract was up, I decided to switch, only because I didn't like any of their phones and mine was outdated (3 year contract right).
Anyways, so for whatever reason, Bell simply could not let me go. I told them, the contract is up next month, I'm cancelling my plan at the end of the contract. And the customer service rep was unable to understand that I was giving him advanced notice, and he was like, "You can pay the 200 dollars to buy out of your contract now.. Or
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Bell employees call it: "Bell Hell."
My horror stories are endless. They somehow messed up my move, and after 1 year and many many lengthy and repeated phone calls, still were not billing me at the correct address. I finally canceled all my Bell services. It was the only way I could get them to stop billing the wrong address.
Once, someone hacked Bell's backbone routers. All the tech support people would do is go: "We do not support trace route. We do not support trace route. Trace route is not install
Pluralizing with an Apostrophe? (Score:2)
Me fail English? That's unpossible!
Seriously... it's "ISPs" not "ISP's".
stop the never ending struggle (Score:3, Insightful)
Gah, this crap is so tiring.
Any new regulation can only be a band-aid solution.
The correct solution is to break the monopolies by creating a free market.
Municipal public fibre optic infrastructure.
Layer 2 (maybe even layer 1) service to every building as a public service.
Access to that infrastructure with the same access rules we use for the roads.
(In other words, completely open for private and commercial use)
with a fibre bundle to every home any service provider who wanted to provide Internet, TV, Telephone or any other innovative service could go to the municipal exchange and patch us in to their gear.
This would set the stage for a vibrant competitive market for telecoms.
It would allow private, non-commercial telecoms activities.
It would be CHEAPER than running cable and copper to every building as we do now.
It would be future-proof because the fibre has effectively unlimited capacity.
There is already great competition for IP service, the Internet is a vibrant market place except for the last mile.
Go to any public exchange and shop for IP transit and you will have dozens of providers competing for your business.
Throttling, DNS hijacking, p2p filtering.... these are exclusively last-mile monopoly problems.
We all know that last-mile telecoms infrastructure is a natural monopoly just like power lines, roads and sewers.
So why don't we stop beating around the bush creating heavily regulated and subsidized private monopolies then constantly fighting with them and just run the last-mile ourselves?
Letter of appology from Telus (Score:2)
Somewhere around here I have a letter of apology from the past president of Telus!
They started to shut off my phone service. You see - I had to build a time division reflectometer and shoot the line that I wanted my DSL service on. This is pretty easy to do. We went to Radio shack and bought about $20 worth of stuff and a 1.5 volt battery and hooked up a dual channel oscilloscope. About 15 minutes later we knew where the line taps were. So I called in Telus and asked them to remove the line taps and tol
WISP (Score:2)
Re:Goverment (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:2)
Bell holds Ontario, Quebec, and the maritime provinces (I think), Telus controls BC and Albeta, Saskatchewan has Sasktel (The only crown corporation of the bunch), and Manitoba has MTS (Formerly a crown corp, now a publicly traded company).
None of them compete with each other.
Re:Goverment (Score:5, Insightful)
Very true. Just like the power company and the piped natural-gas company are regulated, so too does the Internet service company need to be regulated. Since the government granted these monopolies, it also has the right to control their pricing.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, these monopolies/limited markets derive from ownership of wired infrastructure. ADSL is either bought directly from Bell/Telus, who own the phone wires, or a reseller.
The other option is the cable company, who owns the coaxial cable network.
Re:Goverment (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry but I don't see the distinction. Whether you're talking about the power company, the natural gas company, or the internet provider, they still have a monopoly over the market, which was granted by the government's express permission. (Example: Comcast was granted monopoly by my local politicians.) That grant gives the government the power to control pricing. That grant also gives the government power to revoke the monopoly and give it to somebody else.
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Re:Goverment (Score:5, Insightful)
They 'OWN' a network subsidized by public funds on land granted by public right of ways providing what has become a CRITICAL infrastructure, there should be no question of whether the government has the right to regulate, it should be MANDATED. How many businesses would be out of the water without the NET these days. Could a local government even function WITHOUT THE ONLINE ACCESS TO RESOURCES ?
I happen to own the right of way behind the houses on my block that was used/granted to AT&T when they were the cable monopoly around here. AT&T has since relocated their wires underground and no longer uses the right of way, but several other companies WHO WERE NOT on the original agreement still do. Astound cable, after some convincing offered me free service, which I accepted, they are my net provider now, but I am demanding the removal of ALL other lines and equipment under the basis that they were never given legal authorization. AT&T decided that their usage meant they had a right to lease out that same space, which they did not have the right to do. My first court date was postponed by request of the defendants lawyers after they realized I was serious, had a lawyer, the deed the land in question, and the ORIGINAL copy of the agreement with AT&T. I am so glad my parents were organized and had good foresight.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If the prices will go too much up, I'm sure customers will be unhappy and there will be new ISP's taking place.
Have you taught about the price to enter such a market? It is not possible for any new player to come in and create its own infrastructure and try to compete with the Bell, Telus, Rogers & Videotron of the Canadian market which all have huge market share. So yes the CRTC has to come in and legislate and force the market to open up especially since all Telcos have been subsidized over the years by the Canadians.
Re:Goverment (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Goverment (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, O Canada, don't emulate us on this one. America needs the "Crazy Uncle" to the north to provide some alternatives to business as usual.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wait... which is the crazy one?
Re: (Score:2)
If I had upvotes, I'd upvote this to the moon. This is exactly correct.
Re:Goverment (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, if I were Bell and the CRTC said I could do so, I would stop offering wholesale internet altogether immediately.
What business wouldn't love the opportunity to instantly and permanently kill all its competitors except those on completely different lines? Why adjust prices when you can just kill them off?
Parent
Re:Goverment (Score:5, Interesting)
The ISP I worked for for ten years, and was the system/network admin for for seven of those years went under because Telus and Shaw basically set up a scenario in which we couldn't compete with them. Yes, we did have a fiber connection via Shaw's Big Pipe subsidiary, but it was damned pricey. Worse was Telus's stranglehold on the PRI dialup lines. Worst of all was that while both technically were supposed to open their networks to us so we could resell DSL or cable, the hoops one had to jump through and the poverty-level profit margins they allowed made it all but pointless. In the end, we tried to roll out our own WiFi, but geographically or area just wasn't conducive to that.
The whole deck was stacked from the very beginning, and the CRTC, despite all these grand proclamations of protecting competition, had already handed the keys to the kingdom. To be honest with you, if I were a small ISP now, I'd close shop. There's no money in it any more.
Parent
Then why do Telcos "own" the networks? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the infrastructure was built with government money, why doesn't the infrastructure belong to the government?
Do the big telco companies lease the infrastructure from the government? If so, can't little telco's also lease it?
How do the telcos own the infrastructure?
Parent
Re:Then why do Telcos "own" the networks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Corruption and lobbying.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Because the government didn't want to pay for building it (nor it should) so it let private companies do it and chipped in some of the money and other incentives. Nothing unusual.
Re:Goverment (Score:5, Insightful)
But the government has given these companies a monopoly over the infrastructure. If the government granted you the same monopoly then it's not a matter of your freedom to set your own prices, it's a matter of your obligation to the government and the public for being granted that monopoly.
What new ISP's? The existing ones have a, say it with me, monopoly. A government granted (and enforced) monopoly at that.
I think you've completely missed the entire issue here. The government historically regulated the prices and forced these ISP's to open up their lines to allow true competition so that the unhappy customers could go to a new ISP. But now they're allowing these ISP's to set the prices for their competitors. They're forced to sell access to their network (due to their monopoly status), previously they were forced to do so in such a way that other ISPs could compete with them, but now they can just set such a high price that their offering is the cheapest on the market, driving the smaller ISP's out of business.
Parent
Re:Goverment (Score:5, Insightful)
There won't be new ISP's taking their place because you can't run a second set of cables throughout the city/region/whatever at a competitive price. Because the previous guys got subsidized.
Possibly you can't do so at any cost because the previous guys where granted exclusive rights or because it's politically impossible to get permission now. Though that's irrelevant due to not being able to afford it if you could anyway.
Parent
No, it's a monopoly. (Score:3, Informative)
Your logic only works in a competitive marketplace.
The wires to the home/business are owned by a monopoly. It would be a rare case indeed where putting new wires to a customer makes sense. Most of the time (in the US, anyhow) it's not legally possible to do so.
If these ISPs go away, there will never (outside of wireless) be any alternative to the Telco or the Cable company. Ever.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>Companies should be allowed to sell their services at a price they want
Yes except those companies are government-granted monopolies, like the power company, the piped natural gas company, or the Internet service company. Then the government, since it granted the monopoly, also has the right to control its pricing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me put it another way. If a government pays a company to build a bridge
Re:Goverment (Score:5, Insightful)
Market forces? Is this some kind a a euphemism for monopolies, anti-competitive practices and union busting? Because that's the only context I ever hear it used in.
Wake up. Wake up you and all the other "free market" drones around here. The "Free market" does not, has not and will not ever exist. Period. It is a pipe dream concocted from the ramblings of economists, most of whom were in the employ of powerful groups who would like nothing better than a free hand to do as they please in any sector of the economy or society in general. It is, at best and idealised theoretical utopia, worthy only of consideration as a thought experiment. If that.
In reality, you cannot separate economics from the general deviousness, manipulation, underhandedness and skullduggary that goes on in almost every walk of human life. People game system and companies, especially big companies, will game the system up to and quite often past the point where they can get away with it. In this reality, on this planet Earth, your free market theories are about as applicable as theories of anti-matter.
The big telco's are going to degrade service, cripple and destroy all competition, punitively raise prices and in general wreck the whole internet unless there is strong government regulation in place to prevent them from doing so. Platitudes about the efficiency of private industry and the prices "the market" will bear are just that. Platitudes, carrying no more weight than a dry tissue. History, and indeed recent events, have demonstrated quite conclusively that no major industry can be left to its own devices, ever . It simply does not work. The prime, prime, prime example was the recent financial crash. But there are many other examples across all industries.
The internet is now one of the foundations of our society and we cannot allow it to be held to ransom by a handful of individuals hiding behind corporate veils and pandering economics.
Parent
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The issue here (as it is in the States) is that the taxpayer basically underwrote and at least partially funded much of the communications infrastructure out there. These companies keep acting as if they and their shareholders were ultimately responsible for this, but they're not.
If I were the CRTC, I'd say "Either you give smaller ISPs breathing room, or we'll rule your way, but now you will have to pay for every inch of right-of-way that the taxpayer basically gave to you. You will also have to pay back
Re:Letting it die? (Score:5, Informative)
But they do. Check out the reviews of TekSavvy on DSLreports [dslreports.com]. Vastly superior service to Bell that can't exist without government defended peering agreements.
Disclaimer: I am not employed, contracted, or a family member of anyone connected to TekSavvy.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Teksavvy is a linux friendly provider that lets me run my own servers. I get a 200G bandwidth cap, 5M/800K DSL line for $29.95/month. Static IP address for an extra $4/month. Bell's service is a 25G cap 6M/800K DSL on which I cannot run servers, cannot get static IP addresses, and their customer service is notoriously bad! (Die Emily, Die!)
Rogers is almost twice the cost (however, twice the speed): 95G cap,