Even though the federal government appears poised to repeal a CRTC decision that could cause Canadians to lose their unlimited access Internet plans, North Coast residents could be losing theirs even if it is repealed.
CityWest says that it plans to introduce usage billing in March, unless the federal government expressly forbids ISPs from doing so. Under the new system, an average CityWest subscriber would get a cap of about 75 gigabytes of data per month, any more data used above that would cost extra; about $2 per gigabyte. To that in perspective, 75 gigabytes would allow you to download about 50 average quality movies, less if they were HD.
The CRTC decision that is currently under review in Ottawa allowed the telecommunication corporations like Bell, Rogers and Shaw to charge small regional ISPs like CityWest, who rent space on their networks, extra once their data consumption went over a certain limit. The effect of this would that the smaller ISPs would have to drop their unlimited –access plans for their subscribers so they could cover the extra cost of going over the limit.
The prospect of losing unlimited access Internet lead to public anger, an internet petition that went up by 100,000 people a day and eventually to a promise from the Harper government to repeal the decision if the CRTC would not change its mind.
Citics of usage billing have said that the major telecommunications companies have been trying to move away from unlimited access plans. By forcing the small ISPs to drop unlimited access, they eliminate the competition that forces them have to keep their own unlimited access plans. CityWest, however, has no competition.
CityWest points out that getting bandwidth in the north is difficult and expensive as it is, and that it needs a tool get heavy-usage subscribers to cut back so that there is enough to go around.
“When you have customers who download a terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) in a month, it’s hard to sustain that and still have available bandwidth for regular customers who go through about 35 to 70 gigabytes because they’re eating up all the bandwidth. We have to have a way to curb that so we can have it even across the board,” says CityWest’s Internet manager, Greg Nancekivell.
Currently, CityWest subscribers pay more money per month based on how fast they want their connection speed to be. Nancekivell says that most likely scenario is a usage cap worked into the existing packages, with a higher cap for higher speeds. Or they may make all connections the same speed and determine rates based on how high the cap is.
- by Alan Hale, The Northern View