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Heavy web downloaders face broadband fees

How does Acanac work? I must admit the prices sound very competitive but their site has no FAQ or mention of how the process works.

Do they use your cable? Your phone line? Install their own wiring?

I've read their website further and I have to say, they've designed a poor website indeed. Things like this are troubling:

* If your service is down after hours please e-mail our emergency department.
Click to expand...

Ok.. yes... now where the hell is that emergency e-mail?? No link. No indication where to find that emergency dept.
 
^^^

I visited the website myself and wasn't impressed.

The rates are much cheaper, but I fear that you will get what you pay for. That is why I am hesistent to switch to another provider. Then again, there really are not many alternatives out there.

450GB transfer a month is pretty crazy, I must admit. But then again, how can Rogers cap people at such ridiculous rates, especially during a time when video online is king. A lot of videos online now are in HD, which means they are larger in size. If they imposed these new download restrictions say 4 years ago or so when video wasn't so popular online, it would be ok. But now? Makes no sense to me.

====OFF TOPIC====
A Tim Hortons Xtra Large double double now costs 10 cents more.
 
Running with that off-topic ...uh topic, Starbucks gave me a free drink, the barista claims she forgot to ask me what kind of milk I wanted... lol :) I'll take it.
 
Most independent ISPs rely on 5MB DSL (this is covered under tarrif) connection through Bell phone lines, for which they are required to pay Bell around $21 under tarrifs set down by the CRTC. The connection is the connection through the local loop which was government subsidized originally anyways. ISPs receive the aggregated traffic at a defined location from which they are responsible for connections etc (big pipes, routing, billing, customer service, etc). The pipe is to receive a 5MB connection (not necessarily internet - could be VOIP, or business LAN connections etc.). The maintenance has to be done by Bell employees (they cannot do their own maintenance). So tech support has to identify the problem and then open up a ticket with Bell. The CRTC set it up this way since having 100+ companies running their own wires just did not make sense.

Reviews of different ISPs are available at CanadianISP.com and dslreports.com
 
As much as anything, this sounds to me like a Bell/Rogers plan to kill VOIP, which was cannibalizing their local phone business.
 
Well, I now have my new services all running great through Teksavvy (except television). Had a little config problem on my computer that I had to track down. It had good reports, and IT at work seemed to like them.

I chose the "Premium" (not unlimited) package going through Peer1 (lower latency with 200GB cap). I moved my phone service over as well (not really saving money since it is Bell underneath anyways). Just hope the CRTC steps in and takes care of that last nagging issue.

I now have a /29 static subnet (1 main static IP $4, /29 static subnet with 6 more addresses for another $10, and a base price of $29.95 = $44). So I have more for less money than I had with Rogers. Customer/Technical service was available on DSLReports.com, and over the phone (real people IN Canada) - and their accountant seemed more technically competent than Rogers Tech Support.... I am now very happy that I Rogers Tech support could not help me :eek:

Now if CRTC does their job and tells Bell to cease and desist - I will be happy!
 
OK, so I don't really know much about the internets so take my opinion for what it's worth (not much) but frankly I don't really understand the argument against traffic shaping. Most people who use the system are saved time by shaping of the minority of heavy users no? Heavy users are being subsidized by all other users from the true costs of their heavy use of the infrastructure no? So is it really then just a minority of user who want to both pay less and be free to use as much as they want who are pushing for unlimited access? If we really wanted the system to be dynamic and money spent to upgrade should we be pushing for the costs to be charged per Mb download? So hypothetically if I download 10 GB and it cost me 10 dollars a month, shouldn't it cost someone who downloads 450 GB 45 times as much as me?
 
Firstly, the costs are not fully variable as you suggest. Secondly, these ISPs sell unlimited service, and then interfere with legitimate uses of the service they are supposed to be providing.
 
TrickyRicky said:
OK, so I don't really know much about the internets so take my opinion for what it's worth (not much) but frankly I don't really understand the argument against traffic shaping. Most people who use the system are saved time by shaping of the minority of heavy users no? Heavy users are being subsidized by all other users from the true costs of their heavy use of the infrastructure no? So is it really then just a minority of user who want to both pay less and be free to use as much as they want who are pushing for unlimited access? If we really wanted the system to be dynamic and money spent to upgrade should we be pushing for the costs to be charged per Mb download? So hypothetically if I download 10 GB and it cost me 10 dollars a month, shouldn't it cost someone who downloads 450 GB 45 times as much as me?
Click to expand...

I have a local phone as well (which I rarely use), using your arguments should not those that talk on it pay more the more they use it? BTW, it is not based on cost -- especially since now they are throttling third party ISPs. - which provide their own infrastructure. The tarrif based lines are that bell is required to provide to get the traffic from the local loop to the ISP at the CO - ARE NOT TCP/IP based (what is carried on that line is not just internet traffic), but are used for TCP/IP in the case of ISPs. The tarrif lines are bandwidth based (determined by the max speed of your data traffic from your premises).

Bell (without any consultation or notice) decided to throttle the connection that they are suppose to provide (at a cost) to these ISPs (which they said they would NOT do when they were asked by the CRTC at the time they took over Sympatico and became a competitor to these ISPs). Teksavvy has it's own infrastructure that they lease from third parties to provide connections to the internet -- these long term leased lines now sit 75% empty.

If Bell is allowed act in an uncompetitive manner to kill off competitors - then maybe next time they will "throttle" the long distance providers and degrade those competitors voice lines?
 
On a side note, if you are far from the CO and your "profile" is limited to lets say 1 Mbs and you subscribe to an "Up to 5Mbs" internet connection from Sympatico (Bell).... Bell will still try to upsell you to "7Mps" or "10Mbps" connection anyways - of which - you pay more but get the same as the "5Mbs" package..... to me that is fraud.... but no action has ever been taken...
 
I pay for the "5Mbs" which in my case works out to almost "5Mps" based that I am close to the CO. I use that connection to remote into the office using an encrypted protocol. It gets throttled down to the level of a dial-up line -- and yet - that is not what I paid for.
 
ISPs (UK, US) are starting to use this technology that is used to throttle (DPI - Deep Packet Inspection) to spy on your usage habits (marketting profiles etc.).

Rogers is now starting to use it to insert their own advertising that you have reached 75% of your bandwidth usage - and by upgrading to the our x package that costs x dollars more - you will be "protected". (in DigitalHome.ca's case it took up 1/3 of their web page).

How long if left unchallenged will it be before your web pages are taken over and altered by these companies for their own commercial uses?

Forget the fact that what travels on the tarrif lines are suppose to be of NO BUSINESS to Bell since I have NO CONTRACT with Bell (which no contract terms related to privacy - or waiving of the privacy)
 
My ISP's financials. For the privelege of connecting to me through my local loop my ISP pays Bell $21/month (+ $10 more if I don't have a phone). That pays for the local line and an aggregated line to a point that my ISP is responsible for.

I am charged $30/month with a 200 GB cap or $40 for unlimited (I chose the $30)

So my ISP takes that $9 difference, leases several high bandwidth lines which are (were until Bell choked me off) available for me to send the "FULL" bandwidth onto the internet through peers (leased lines that take the traffic international and negotiate with other peers so that all these leased lines interconnect - creating the internet). They provide technical support, customer support, internet support, billing, etc. -- and yet still manage to make a small profit.

Now Bell comes along with it's Sympatico (which it bought out a while ago) and wants to generate more revenue by charging on a byte by byte basis (someone on another forum received his last months bill with these types of charges -- it came out to $280). But Bell cannot continue to charge these prices unless the competitors to them are restricted or driven out of business. This is what the throttling and "deregulation" requests are for. They want to only compete with Rogers - who magically make the same changes to their billing structure at the same time....

I mean if we don't want to have competition - we can always go back to the "Ma Bell" approach that would charge me $6.00+/minute to talk to someone in Japan :p (it was $3.00 when I was a kid - or $1.10/min to California). My current long distance carrier charges me $0.05/minute to Japan.
 
cacruden said:
How long if left unchallenged will it be before your web pages are taken over and altered by these companies for their own commercial uses?
Click to expand...

That's already happening. For years (and until recently) we could not access USA's "Showtime" cable channel from Canada. A message would appear to the user stating the site is unavailable outside of the USA and it nicely refused entrance. A similar example, if you try to access USA's "Comedy Central" from within Canada you are redirected to Canada's "Comedy Network". That is new in the past half year or so.
 
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