Why usage based billing is unfair

[Tony The Bot]

Why usage based billing is unfair
Posted via Canadian Content

I think for anyone to choose a side in this debate, they must understand why "data usage" is not the same as "bandwidth". Gigabytes have no cost/value in this context. The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) push that concept because it's the only measurable flow they can use against us in this scam.

Bandwidth is a speed, not a volume of data. No customer can exceed the speed of the connection they paid for. If Bell sells a 5mbps connection, Bell is accepting the responsibility of providing that 5mbps for the month. If Bell oversells, it is not the responsibility of the consumer. How dare they demonize those who make more than a few hours use of the connection.

Gigabytes should not be monetized! With a fixed rate infrastructure, the more gigabytes are transmitted, the lower the perceived "cost/gig". It collapses under its own logic, despite the spin put on it by ISPs.

The amount downloaded in a month does not relate to congestion. This is simply creating a revenue stream by unfairly and unjustifiably taxing people's growing internet habits, because it threatens their own content assets.

The utility comparison to water/electricity is flawed (for the simple reason that data is neither produced nor consumed).

I think the suitable analogy is Public Transit. Customers buy a monthly metropass. Some use it more frequently than others. Obviously some times of day are more congested (peak times). But the frequent riders would be using the service during uncongested times too. The frequent rider is riding an existing scheduled vehicle (not "hogging" or negatively impacting anyone else's ability to ride).

UBB is akin to the transit company deciding that halfway through the month, they would charge the more frequent riders per kilometre travelled.

If the transit company is concerned with congestion at peak times, why would the blame lie with frequent riders? Those riders simply provide a consistent baseline showing where support is needed.

It's time to nationalize the last mile, if Bell is only interested in exploiting its ownership at a ludicrous cost to Canadians.

Bell has recently publicly stated they will rethink their approach, but Bell's senior vice-president of government and regulatory affairs said “We're going to put our thinking caps on as well and see if there isn't a different way to address this, but we believe fundamentally that what is ultimately ruled on by the CRTC has got to accept the principle that those who use the most, pay the most.”


Original Article: http://www.canadiancontent.net/commtr/why-usage-based-billing-unfair_1062.html

 

[ttc]

Using your analogy, then the flaw is then in the price of the metropass. Anyone knows that a monthly metropass is expensive, and to get full value of it, the rider needs to use it nearly 40 times in that month (twice a day, 5 days a week, for 4 weeks).

Those riders in a way do negatively impact the system, as everyone complains about how crowded it is, how there isn't enough buses, whether they are metropass users or not. And because the metropass is a fixed income, unless the capacity of a bus can be completely paid for by the amount of metropass riders are on it, including the cost of the making the bus, the driver, the fuel and the management and maintenance of it, each trip, then it's not enough. The price of the metropass would be astronomical. Furthermore, metropasses are designed to be a "break" for the rider, and people will complain if it goes up even a little.

In this situation, the cost of the metropass in relation isn't close to a "token/ticket/cash rider". The ISP's are simply pricing their metropass close to what an occasional rider would pay, therefore, undermining and devaluing the cost. Once again, I see mismanagement on the part of the independent ISP and furthermore with recent actions, an immature gesture.

I still find it odd, that as UBB is approximately 4 years old, that the semantic theorists are only now speaking up because they believe their options are drying up.

 

[eh1eh]

You need to download and run scripts from third party providers. This is a dubious site.

 

[TenPenny]

Look at electricity. Your house has an entrance, rated for whatever, 100A, 200A, 400A. The utility provides a system that can deliver the power your entrance is rated for, but the bill you get reflects what you consume, not what you are capable of consuming.

 

[gerryh]

Look at electricity. Your house has an entrance, rated for whatever, 100A, 200A, 400A. The utility provides a system that can deliver the power your entrance is rated for, but the bill you get reflects what you consume, not what you are capable of consuming.

Unlike electricity, when you DL a file you have not "consumed" anything. That file is still available for anyone else.

 

[TenPenny]

Unlike electricity, when you DL a file you have not "consumed" anything. That file is still available for anyone else.

Oh, okay. I didn't realize that downloading files required no resources or infrastructure. Sorry that my understanding of how IP works is incorrect.

 

[DaSleeper]

I would have to guess that if you compare it to hydro you also have a delivery fee which the basic (in my case in the summer time when I'm away is about $20 dollars with only about $5 of actual hydro used)
I don't know what the formula is but my last bill I have a $40 delivery and $40 for energy used + hst..
(numbers approximate)
If you compare that to internet usage????..............

 

[taxslave]

Look on it as a fee for more content delivered. Since we don't use that much computer time we should get a discount by your logic.

 

[gerryh]

I would have to guess that if you compare it to hydro you also have a delivery fee which the basic (in my case in the summer time when I'm away is about $20 dollars with only about $5 of actual hydro used)
I don't know what the formula is but my last bill I have a $40 delivery and $40 for energy used + hst..
(numbers approximate)
If you compare that to internet usage????..............

The delivery charge is for the infrastructure. THAT could be compared to present Internet charges. We pay for the infrastructure and delivery. Other than that there are no "consumables" with internet usage.

 

[DaSleeper]

The delivery charge is for the infrastructure. THAT could be compared to present Internet charges. We pay for the infrastructure and delivery. Other than that there are no "consumables" with internet usage.

I understand that...There must also be a minimum fee whether I use any or not.
And possibly since I don't buy directly from Ontario Hydro I pay a lot less than people out of town who pay Ontario hydro directly.. But the line usage fee does go up if I use more.
So if I use more internet I should pay more.

 

[petros]

Oh yeah? Go right ahead and raise your rates. Who will buy when it's free?

PROVINCE TO PROVIDE FREE WIRELESS INTERNET ACCESS

Residents and visitors to the downtown business districts and post-secondary institutions of Saskatchewan’s four largest centres will soon be able to access the country’s largest wireless Internet network, free-of-charge. Premier Lorne Calvert and Minister responsible for Information Technology Andrew Thomson made the announcement today in Saskatoon.

The Saskatchewan! Connected initiative will offer users basic Internet service in Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Regina, and Moose Jaw via a wireless Wi-Fi network to be operated by the government Information Technology Office, SaskTel and other partners. The service will also be available in select business districts in close proximity to downtown Saskatoon and Regina.

“Expanding the province’s information technology infrastructure was one of the many ideas presented by Saskatchewan youth at the recent Youth Summit in Saskatoon,” Calvert said. “This exciting initiative is just one more way of enhancing the progressive image of Saskatchewan’s communities as the best place for young people to work, live and build strong futures.”

Saskatchewan! Connected means users will no longer have to switch from service to service as they roam around the coverage area. It will also help to bridge the ‘digital divide’ by providing no-cost Internet access to residents of the areas who may be unable to afford monthly rates for Internet access. Any existing desktop or laptop computer can be configured with a Wi-Fi adaptor for under $100 and then connected quickly and conveniently to the free service.

Work on the project will begin shortly, with the service expected to be available to users this spring. As a publicly-accessible network, special provisions will be made to prevent access to inappropriate materials.

“The service will help businesses attract customers, while also benefiting business people visiting our province, youth and others,” Thomson said. “Saskatchewan! Connected will be the largest free Wi Fi network in Canada, demonstrating once again that Saskatchewan is a leader in innovation and technology advancement.”

 

[Retired_Can_Soldier]

This is about putting ther boots on the neck of the small providers who would not otherwise be able to compete.

 

[Andem]

Internet access for city dwellers across the country from Victoria to St. John's are hugely profitable for inbumbent Internet providers. The networks that exist were paid for by a monopoly charging exorbitant prices, originally funded and by taxpayers. Coverage for rural providers are funded by government [2] [3] [4]. (I can't believe I'm actually including 4 sources, 2 from the government direct to actually provide evidence). FURTHERMORE, since the early 2000s, the Canadian government has ALSO been funding the hardware and Internet access to people who otherwise wouldn't be able to get it.

 

[mklthrkngl]

Oh, okay. I didn't realize that downloading files required no resources or infrastructure. Sorry that my understanding of how IP works is incorrect.

your understanding is wrong. the whole comparison to electricity or any other utilility is wrong as well. electricity is weighable and quantafiable comodity. data is not. data is media. you pay the people who create it, you pay to have it delivered, you don't pay the the people who are delivering your media a second time for the media you've alrdy paid the creator for. that's stupid. why is this so hard to grasp? i pay the same a mnth for basic cable as my neighbor. my neighbor is an outdoorsy type and hardly watches it. me, i'm a couch potato and watch 10 hrs a day. should i pay more because i watch it more? nope. the media on the tv is paid for by advertising, all i pay my cable company for is the infrastructure and delivery charges. the internet is no different. isps do not creat the data on the internet. they do not have a right to charge us for something they have no hand in creating. another myth is that some mysterious mega users are slowing down everybodies internet. here the transit analogy does apply but not the way you think. a transit bus runs it's route wether there's riders or not. the internet is the same, it's there wether your browsing or not. lets say theirs 2 old gents who love riding the buss and they have a metro pass. so they get on in the morning and ride all day till late in the evening. for most of the day they travel at whatever speed the bus is going taking in the sites. the bus only has 80 seats. they take up 2 of them. at peak rush hour there are now 1000 people tryingto get on a bus that has 80 seats, only 78 can get on this bus, 922 people wait for other buses. in the scheme of things do you really think that those 2 elderly gents are slowing the system down? they travel at exactly the same speed as everybody else and still take up only the 2 seats. the transit system doesn't even take them into consideration in any statistical way. they just know that at peek hrs they need more capacity and therfore they have more busses on duty increasing there capacity at that time to decrease the congestion. now isps are not working like this. for one they don't guarantee any speeds, all isps have some form of the upto and including clause in there T&C's (terms and conditions). it means if you have 5 mgbs service you actually have only the potential of getting that fast a speed not that you will get that speed. they build so much capacity into the system and that's it. could you imagine if transit was like that? your 80 individuals on the bus would get to there destination, the bus would turn around and then come back and pick up the next 80 and so on until all got home. that's why during peek hrs on the internet it gets slow. the so called power users make no difference. they travel on the same bus at the same speed taking up the same amount space on a seat as the next person. the only issue here is that the isp doesn't have the capacity for everybody to ride the bus in a timely fashion, they also don't guarantee it so you cann't hold them to it legally either. as far as i can see the main problem here is that our major isps are also content deliverers. does no one see the conflict of interest here? they provide content thru there normal cable and satellite systems while also giving people acccess to the internet which has it's own content providers. as long as it was nothing but webcontent all was ok, but it's no longer that way is it. now we can get the same content as there cable and satellite provides thru the internet as well. in other words the internet service they provide us has now also become there largest competitor for providing consumers with content!! if they want to compete with the online providers then do so, but to start charging people for something they've alrdy paid for has a name. it's called a racket. criminal organizations have been doing it forever and now they are doing it as well. the way they look at it, if they cann't get the money upfront from cable subscriptions then they'll get it by scamming you into paying for it online twice.

 

[taxslave]

Why should those of us that only use the internet 1 or 2 hrs a day pay the same price as someone that streams several movies a day and plays online games for hours at a time? Seems to me that we should get a price break.

 

[lorenzstransky]

You guys are missing the point. The fight really isn't about data usage, it's about content. The big telecoms isn't going to admit it, naturally, but it's true nonetheless. The analogy with consumables like electricity or water is a false one. You need to compare it to something that is essentially the same thing: television services.

Cable TV, VoIP and other digital services all use the same network infrastructure. For cable television, you pay a fixed amount per month for a certain amount of content (channels) and you can watch (download) as much as you want. Some people watch a few hours of television a week, others are TV addicts who are essentially glued to their sets. I don't see anybody advocating we charge the TV addict more money because he watches more TV.

Internet users are essentially equivalent to one TV channel, and they pay a premium for it too. Some people download only a small amount of data for their e-mail and web surfing and others download as much as they can get. Yet, we have people saying that those who download more should pay more.

This makes no sense at all, especially when you consider that the big telecoms are using the very same networks and infrastructure to deliver their content. There is never any congestion and nobody complains about people watching too much TV (well, the telecoms don't anyway). As I said above, Internet service is essentially just one channel of an equivalent digital television service. If I were to buy that channel as television, there would be no caps. If I buy it as Internet, they want to put a cap on what I use.

Get the idea yet?

 

[Dexter Sinister]

YouTube - The UBB Deception

 

[lorenzstransky]

YouTube - The UBB Deception

I saw this film just this morning. It's great! They put the lie to the big telecom's lies.

 

[PoliticalNick]

Why should those of us that only use the internet 1 or 2 hrs a day pay the same price as someone that streams several movies a day and plays online games for hours at a time? Seems to me that we should get a price break.

How about because just like you I pay for internet access. Mine happens to be 'unlimited' access which means 24/7/365. How much of that access I use and what I do with that access should have no bearing on the price.

 

[taxslave]

AH but I only use mine a few hours a day at most and don't care if is available 24/7 therefore I shouldn't have to pay for access when I am sleeping or at work or at any rate I should not have to subsidize your vastly larger usage, correct?