Shaw and Telus expected to implement UBB later this year
In February of this year, Shaw Communications said it would delay the implementation of Usage Based Billing (UBB) on its Internet Service offerings until after the company conducted a series of customer consultations.
Now after five weeks of consultations with it customers in February and March, it appears that Canada’s largest internet service provider will go ahead with its original plan of charging additional fees to consumers who exceed their bandwidth cap.
The revelation was embedded in an April 13th conference call with Shaw executives and financial analysts. In that call, it was revealed that Shaw had completed its customers consultations and would be announcing new pricing packages in late May or early June. Pricing packages which would contain penalties for customers exceeding their cap.
No details were provided, however in emails sent to customers in January, Shaw had told customers they could expect to pay $1 to $2 per GB for internet usage above their bandwidth cap.
Shaw customers thinking of switching to Telus Internet Service later this year in order to avoid usage-based-billing will be disappointed to learn that Telus is also planning on introducing usage based fees later this year.
After the Shaw news got out, Shawn Hall, a spokesperson for Telus, told CTV News that his company would also be implementing such fees later this year.
“It’s only fair that people pay for how much Internet capacity they use,” Hall reportedly said to CTV.
While the news that Telus and Shaw were going to implement UBB shouldn’t surprise consumers, the decision to go ahead with UBB before upcoming CRTC hearings looking into the matter is surprising.
In March, the federal regulator said it would hold public hearings into UBB and into wholesale residential high-speed Internet access services this July. That review came after Industry Trade Minister Tony Clement announced that Federal Cabinet would not accept the CRTC’s October 2010 decision regarding Usage Based Billing ruling.
In deference to the Federal Cabinet and the CRTC, most analysts expected the major internet providers to hold off with any UBB announcement until after the July proceedings.
Discuss UBB Digital Home’s General Internet and Landline Phone discussion forum.
Soread the words guys.
It costs the ISP’s like Telus and Shaw ONE CENTS per GB transferred!
So at a cap of 100 GB it costs them $1 to transfer that data!
Yet Shaw wants to charge $40 a month for internet access that caps at 100 GB?
They could cap it to 1000 GB a month and still make 400% profit!
But instead, they prefer 4000% profit …. now that’s greed runamuck and our government needs to get involved.
Don’t like your outrageous profit margins right now Shaw and Telus?
Maybe the government should publically run the ISP’s since they are so cheap to run in the first place and bumb up our taxes a bit to take care of that (and run fiber to everyone’s homes while they are at it).
Most Canadians would save LOTS of money yearly if they did this.
So what’s the choice Shaw and Telus, do you choose extreme greed? Then push out UBB…
What a load of garbage.
Yes, it is fair to charge a person acording to what they use, but that’s not what they’re talking about doing. They are implementing tiered metering with limited package options. The discussion involves tiering at 15gb and 60gb. If you have the 15gb package and you use 25gb, then you’re charged an extra $2 per minute (an extra $20 +tax). If you use 5gb, you get charged for 15gb. So, why not get a 5gb or 25gb package?… because they don’t exist. If you want 25gb then you pay for 60gb. If you want 5gb, you pay for 15. How is that fair?
Make no mistakes about why they are doing this. The only reason to change the rates is to make more money – why do it if it isn’t profitable? What this amounts to is another drop in the bucket of feeding the rich and eliminating the middle class. We all work just as hard as we did before, but we are forced to sacrifice more of our livelyhood and luxuries on a daily basis ato hand it over to the few that have more than they will ever need. Greed Greed Greed. Its like watching sharks fight for the last of the kill. Its like the captain taking off on the last lifeboat while there are women and children left behind. Its really quite disgusting.
I think I just talked myself into voting NDP.
Competition doesn’t exist anymore between the big ISPs, it’s a joint monopoly now. In this situation I would prefer to see the ISPs eliminated altogether and instead have data infrastructure become a government service. There’s no way the tax would be as high as the ISPs cost a month.
People keep talking about how much it costs to transfer certain amounts of data. What you have to realize is that it doesn’t cost anything to transfer data. When you send a file over your LAN from one computer to another does it cost you anything? The costs are in building the network, maintaining it, and keeping it running (power, rent, etc.). It doesn’t matter how much data is flowing through it unless you don’t have enough bandwidth. If that is the case you either have to slow everyone down to make it fair or upgrade the network.
The issue is competition. I certainly don’t want the government to step in and run ISPs but why not run fibre to all new communities and have communal POPs where you can then lease that out to whichever startup or established ISP would pay you? It would encourage competition so we don’t get collaberation between the two big ISP’s in this province which causes the customer to get the shaft, honestly, I hate to say it but I actually think the the government has to step in here.
Exaclty!!!!!!!!! So many people don’t understand this!
ISP’s provide a “service”, not the “data” that goes through that service. Imagine a phone company charging you for how many syllables you speak during a phone call. Ridiculous!
Canadian ISP’s even ADMITTED to the CRTC recently that UBB has nothing to do with the actual COST of transferring data. It’s only purpose was to discourage people from using the internet at the same time – in an effort to reduce network congestion. Why do they need to do that?? Because they’ve OVERSOLD their networks.
We’re getting charged for NOTHING!
Companies want monopolies.
The CRTC — tasked with helping to prevent monopolies in actuality encourages and support them in most cases.
What we need is government people who aren’t beholden to special interest groups and will do what is right for consumers.
The internet is no longer merely a luxury item — it’s a consumer good and if private industry can’t provide it at reasonable rates time for the government to step in and do it.