Canada Splits Local Phone, DSL Services 445
s20451 writes "Running counter to the recent string of pro-consolidation FCC rulings in the United States, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that big Telcos like Bell and Telus must offer ADSL service even when local phone service is provided by another company. Effectively this ruling splits local phone and net services, opening both up for competition and lower prices. Press release here."
Oh I could only wish... (Score:5, Interesting)
In Phoenix, we have two different Cablemodem providers, with some fairly significant overlapping coverage, but all of the independent DSL line providers for residential closed except for Qwest, and Qwest still uses Pair Gain, which kills DSL.
Re:Oh I could only wish... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Oh I could only wish... (Score:2)
Re:Oh I could only wish... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh I could only wish... (Score:2)
You can already get broadband from a variety of different vendors here in Canada. If you can get high-speed from Bell, then you can also get it from other re-sellers also.
So this is more of a "freedom" from who you get your local phone service from.
Re:Oh I could only wish... (Score:2)
Covad is still open (they recovered from Chapter 11), and does service Phoenix. SpeakEasy uses Covad exclusively, and as far as I know Earthlink uses Covad in Phoenix. Of course, Covad's ADSL normally uses line sharing on top of Qwest's line, so if Qwest's line won'
Re:Oh I could only wish... (Score:2, Informative)
They won't. A friend of mine lived 7000 feet from the CO, and he tried asking, he tried three different phone lines, and they all were pair gain. His upstairs neighbour had DSL though, so that really made him mad that it was available there and yet they wouldn't do one little change that could have allowed them even
Re:Oh I could only wish... (Score:2)
Don't assume you can't get DSL through Qwest until you talk to Qwest and they tell you you can't. Your experience may differ from your friend's. I'm not saying it will, just saying it could.
hmm (Score:3, Funny)
I love living here
Re:Canada (Score:2, Insightful)
Although his logic is wrong, taken literally
(albeit incorrectly)
Canada==America++
would mean that Canada is 1 up on America.
Re:Canada (Score:2)
asbestos underwear time (Score:2)
They'll just bypass this edict... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They'll just bypass this edict... (Score:4, Insightful)
Anything else is price discrimination, which I'd bet is illegal in Canada.
Offering it at absurd prices will merely kill it outright and drive customers to alternate providers and/or services. This is the entire idea behind deregulation, and if it's implemented properly it can work.
When it's implemented improperly, however, it becomes a nightmare and causes far more problems than existed previously -- for examples on badly done public utility deregulation see California's electric power dereg or Georgia's natural gas dereg. Either one is a case study in how not to do it, and between the two they've frozen dereg pushes on power or natural gas across the US.
Re:They'll just bypass this edict... (Score:3, Informative)
through a competitor are likely. Telus already does something similar with
long distance and calling features. The idea is that you can get your call
waiting, callerid, and some other features at a discount as part of a
bundle. However, this bundle must include a long distance package. Switch
to Sprint for example for your long distance and your optional phone service
prices go up. They could offer similar DSL discounts for local-line
custo
Re:They'll just bypass this edict... (Score:3, Informative)
Still no adsl-only service (Score:5, Interesting)
Should happen soon, though - you can already order internet access from cable companies w/o subscribing to their TV services.
Re:Still no adsl-only service (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still no adsl-only service (Score:2)
So now i have basic channels on cable, the modem, and everything else on Direc(Just as big thieves as cable co's)TV...
Re:Still no adsl-only service (Score:2)
Re:Still no adsl-only service (Score:2)
The assclowns at Rogers charge you an extra $10 per month to get cable internet without cable TV. This was thoroughly covered by the Royal Canadian Air Farce.
Re:Not a good reason to do that (Score:3, Informative)
yay canadians! (Score:2, Insightful)
maybe next they'll force computer manufacturers to offer alternative OSses on computers, to open up competition and lower prices.
Re:yay canadians! (Score:2)
You mean like this one [apple.com]?
Alternatively, would you consider manufacturers offering PCs with NO operating system a viable substitute?
And I also wonder if anyone would take a free Linux CD from a free bin if places like Circuit City and Best Buy offered it.
Re:yay canadians! (Score:2, Insightful)
what a wonderful place the world could be.
you think we can convince RedHat to press 3.000.000 cardboard-sleeved 1 CD editions of their flavour of linux? I'm sure at least SOME people would pay for support after installing that.
Re:yay canadians! (Score:2)
A shame too. I'd love to not have to spend a day downloading the latest distribution of Mandrake....
Re:yay canadians! (Score:2)
Why not just burn a few and slip them into Windows magazines at the magazine store?
Re:yay canadians! (Score:2)
This would be unlikely because the federal government would lose the 7% GST (goods and service tax) they make when someone buys a windows license.
I'm an American (Score:5, Funny)
I'm an American, you insensitive clod!
Re:I'm an American (Score:5, Funny)
I'm Sorry.
Re:I'm an American (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot the URL: Colin Mochrie as Reporter Anthony St. George offers a public apology to America. [22minutes.com]
Re:I'm an American (Score:3, Informative)
Will it work out much better than in the US? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes. (Score:2)
All dsl lines are owned by the major telcos... the CRTC forces them to let smaller ISPs resell the lines (bulk pricing allows for profit)... services (email etc) and the actual pipe to the internet are provided by the ISP... but the dsl line is owned and supported by the telco.
Re:Will it work out much better than in the US? (Score:3, Funny)
The US is definitely not the place to be for high speed internet. Canada, Sweden, Korea... they all have t
Ouch. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sell your Bell stock!
Re:Ouch. (Score:4, Informative)
What they do need to do is provide ADSL, in areas that they already serve, to customers who use local phone service from someone else.
Re:Ouch. (Score:2)
How much is their stock inflated by dragging in customers they normally wouldn't have? For example, my local telco wasn't "able" to provide me with ADSL unless I managed to change my phone service and my long-distance service. They won't make any money from the long distance service (1 call in 4 years), but I remeber what a fight it was (in the media) to even have a choice of local providers.
Mabye I could have fought it, and mabye I coul
Re:Ouch. (Score:2)
As for the Long distance service, I don't know about you, but I am a Bell customer, and I had to cancel my Long distance service with them, since they introduced a monthly surcharge of $5.95 just for the privelage... and I NEVER make long distance calls... I had no trouble getting ADSL service from them... mind you, I subscribe to one of their 'packages' for callerID and Call Answer, so I'm sure they're making their money fro
A word of caution: (Score:5, Insightful)
Some monopolies should be broken, but others are better off regulated. We got Unix out of AT&T, but I'm not even getting reliable Caller ID out of the local tel.
Re:A word of caution: (Score:5, Insightful)
We split up our ADSL providers in the UK, and service went up while costs went down with the exception of the services offered by the old monopolist.
They offer the worst service with the worst reliability at almost the highest cost - now imagine how bad it would be if they had no competition at all?
Two edged sword (Score:5, Insightful)
This also opens up the possibility of finger-pointing and blame assigning, instead of problem resolution. A couple of years ago, I had difficulty getting DSL from DirecTV DSL over BellSouth's phone lines - rather than solving my problem, the two companies used me as a message carrier in their blame war. I gave up, got a cable modem, and haven;t looked back.
Does this mean...? (Score:4, Interesting)
But, can they still compete with cable? (Score:2, Interesting)
From where I'm sitting, it costs about the same for Bell or
Re:But, can they still compete with cable? (Score:5, Informative)
I've been using smaller ISPs for DSL, and they're a lot better. Bell Nexxia owns the DSL network. Sympatico 'rents' the lines/bandwidth from Nexxia to provide high-speed internet. The problem with Sympatico is that they rent a certain amount of bandwidth for a geographical area (well, really, per-CO switchbox), and if they happen to have 300 subscribers in that area, they all have to share that limited amount of bandwidth, which is why it is often very slow.
The smaller ISPs will actually purchase 1.2mbit of bandwidth (or whatever plan you have) per customer. If they have 10 customers in that area, they get 12mbit of bandwidth (in reality, they probably maintain a ratio, but the effect is the same). As number of users increases, they get more bandwidth. As a result, my DSL is a lot faster than a friend of mine's who lives in the same building but is on Sympatico.
Re:But, can they still compete with cable? (Score:2)
Re:But, can they still compete with cable? (Score:3, Interesting)
Bell removed their bandwidth cap a few months ago. See This page [sympatico.ca] for details. My guess is that they were getting killed by Rogers.
Ironically, Rogers was thinking of implementing a bandwidth cap, but In response to Bell eliminating their cap [custhelp.com], they backed down [custhelp.com].
In some cases, capitalist competition really works!
As for the speed, I've used both and found the two comparable, with Rogers a little faster. Bell (as all DSLs) varies depending on where you are in relation to the phone switching station. Rogers (as
Discrimination against competitors? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for more competition. But "unjustly discriminating against their competitors"? And "undue preference"? Since when is it bad to give your own company "preference", and who are they to say it is "undue"?
This looks to me like socialism at work
Re:Discrimination against competitors? (Score:2)
If I *were* to use sprint instead of Bell, I would not be able to have ADSL, I would need to have a bell local line.
That seems unfair does it not?
And their not deciding how they will compete, their forcing them to do so.
Re:Discrimination against competitors? (Score:2)
Socialist State ? (Score:3, Interesting)
The truth is that the Canadian government is happy to infringe upon the freedom of corporations in order to enhance the lives of the individual. (e.g. decrimilize pot smoking, legal gay marriage and broadband for the people).
The US government, on the other hand, is too happy to curtail the freedom of the individual and let
Re:Socialist State ? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right, I equated freedom from interference with a kind of protection. In fact, that is what Chapter 11 of NAFTA [citizen.org] is all about -- expansive new rights [canadians.org] for investors [corps, really] wildly beyond the rights of individuals, neighbourhoods, municipalities, regions, civil powers, and even nation states. A lot of people are freaked out [google.com] by this trend of non-interference.
On the one hand, they regulate (er, interfere), on the other they protect from interference (er, award radical new freedoms).
Re:Discrimination against competitors? (Score:3, Insightful)
The rules are different when you're a monopoly, and the government is the only one who can enforce that. I don't see how this is socialism while crying foul about Microsoft's actions isn't.
Re:Discrimination against competitors? (Score:3)
In every topic about Canada I always look to see how quickly there are posts about nasty old socialism up here in Canada.
I don't know why but it always makes me laugh.
Re:Discrimination against competitors? (Score:2)
"...they take away the rights of businessmen to decide how they compete." -- More like 'limit' than 'take away' -- it's called regulation and it's the norm for all industry, practically everywhere, again in [hugely] vary
Re:Discrimination against competitors? (Score:2)
Re:Discrimination against competitors? (Score:3, Informative)
Under telecommunications law in Canada, telcos must offer services without discrimination. When the telcos were mostly monopolies, this provision was interpreted to mean that the telcos had to offer services to each individual customer who wanted them, without preferential service or pricing. Now that the telcos are facing competition, and deal amongst themselves, the provision has been reinterpreted t
Re:Discrimination against competitors? (Score:3, Informative)
land line telephone services = days are numbered (Score:5, Insightful)
However, we'll all be wireless before too long, and there will be no place for DSL - unless this market competition drives the overall costs down. Who wants to pay for local phone service (if you're already paying for it with your wireless plan) if you just want DSL, which would then be an additional cost to the local line?
$30 local phone
+$60 DSL service
-----------------
($50) Digital Cable + ($45) Cable Internet
Assumption: You already pay $35 for a cellphone.
Sure, I'll take 125 channels as a perk for my decision making skills.
I hope this will make it harder for my decision making skills, it's amazing how quickly you learn that you have 125 channels and nothing is ever on!
Re:land line telephone services = days are numbere (Score:3, Informative)
You must not live in Canada. (Score:5, Informative)
Guess what happens when you ASSume... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, I'll take 125 channels as a perk for my decision making skills."
One. Phone providers offer a 3-10 (I forget what it was after tax) dollar a month dial tone, which is fine for DSL. If your wonderful "decision making skills" can do the math on that one, you'll realize that if you DONT need actually need the land line, its cheaper to get that instead of paying for a 30 month "DSL connector" (so to speak).
Two. I wouldnt trade my land line for a cell phone
Re:Guess what happens when you ASSume... (Score:2)
Well, I know I'm not the only one who's done it. One of the other guys here bought 2 of them, and cancelled Bell's landline to his house, because he lives just outside the local calling area, so most of his calls were long distance. He now pays less, has the convenience of 2 cell phones, and with rogers' unlimited w/e and eves, and 350 min/day package for $40.00 Cdn,, + $15 for the second phone and number, he's way ahead.
We're all using Motorola V60s,
Derr, of COURSE they dont "OFFER" it... (Score:2)
A CSR Manager is NEVER going to offer that, because its bad for their bottom line... but they DO offer it, I know for fact.
Re:land line telephone services = days are numbere (Score:2)
Yes, it WAS +$60, but prices keep dropping every day.
Re:land line telephone services = days are numbere (Score:2)
Some changes to your math:
$24.95 local phone
+$24.95 DSL service [telus.com]
-----------------
$49.90
Re:land line telephone services = days are numbere (Score:2)
I have it even better here in the US:
$50/mo Cable Modem with admins too stupid to catch me running a web server
+$60/mo cell phone with Unlimited SMS, nights&weekends, & free long distance within continental US
=================
Watch TV over a friends house since nothing is on that makes it worth buying cable.
Way to go! (Score:2, Interesting)
It's really true... (Score:4, Interesting)
And it's more evident with the recent news that we keep hearing how Canada is moving forward while the States are slipping into regress by way of draconian laws and regulations a la DMCA, Super-DMCA, Media Consolidation, etc.
So... (Score:2)
As background, let's say that I'm a moderate with a bit of a leftward bent (Kucinich is looking surprisingly good for a Democrat), and I don't think national healthcare is such a bad idea at all. What might I find to be worse
Re:It's really true... (Score:2)
Re:It's really true... (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Socialism is socialism, and communism is communism. Equating socialism with communism is typical American ignorance.
Re:It's really true... (Score:2)
Re:"Good riddance" I say! (Score:5, Informative)
Taxes aren't that bad here, especially when you factor in the cost of medical insurance. (I make ~$60k/yr CDN and pay about 28% taxes without loopholes, so duh!) For some, they're better than having an equivalent position in the USA, as they discover when they move down and experience user-pays-for-everything, and they move back to Canada for economic reasons. It all depends on cost-of-living in various regions, and even the region of Canada or US one moves to, as well as the income bracket you're in. I've found that the moderately wealthy complain about taxes consistently, if they're from a somewhat socialized industrial nation.
If I get cancer, I can still change jobs or provinces without losing my medical benefits or paying disproportionately. That's not commie, that's humane, you twit!
One other thing... gross disparity of income leads to other extremely expensive social ills, like massive prisons, health problems, badly educated populace, violence and insecurity, drug use, despair, riots, and extreme cultural stress. It's a hidden cost, and we canucks have our share of these problems. I think it's hilarious that 'Americans' consider us socialized pinkos!
Besides, isn't Robin Hood a hero? You presume that the rich never steal from the poor.
Re:"Good riddance" I say! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to test that theory, but don't have the time right now to do the literature search. My experience (hanging and working with millionaires and entrepeneurs, hanging and working with ne'er-do-well artists and slackers, living and working with the homeless/street kids/multi-generation impoverished) suggests to me that there are many educated loafers, and that many of the wealthiest are no
Sweet! (Score:5, Informative)
Of course... 3 years later, I find myself paying more for less. Speed hasn't increased at all (why would it?), the price has gone up a few dollars, and they've introduced monthly transfer limits - 10GB combined upload/download, with absurd prices for extra bandwidth. What ticks me off is that they still advertise it as "unlimited".
There are other, smaller, local DSL providers - but the speed and prices are comparable.
Maybe this will finally help advance an industry that's been stagnant - from the consumer's point of view - for over 4 years now!
Hehehe... oh I kill myself... I really do...
*keeps looking for a way to afford SDSL*
Re:Sweet! (Score:2)
They're actually in the process of upgrading the 1 Meg service, free of charge. I think the new rates are 1.5Mbs/320Kbs, or something like that. I saw it discussed in can.internet.highspeed, but didn't pay attention to the details as I'm on the 3.5Mbs/800Kbs service (for only slight more using IStop rather than Sympatico).
"the price has gone up a few dollars, and they've introduced monthly transfer limits - 10GB combined upload/download, with absurd prices for extra
Re:Sweet! (Score:2)
I don't know what thats necessary.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I don't know what thats necessary.... (Score:2)
Telus DSL (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think this announcement will have nearly the impact in the west that it will have in the central and eastern parts of Canada. Out here, there really aren't any viable competing telcos, and Telus allows other companies to resell DSL under other brand names (for the same
Re:Telus DSL (Score:2)
Look here.
http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings.lasso
Re:Telus DSL _SUCKS_ (Score:2)
While the D stands for Dynamic, just because you get your IP via DHCP doesn't mean you don't get a static IP. You often configure DHCP servers to give our the same static IP to hosts. Why? Because it makes it much easier to reip the host/n
Bell and Telus (Score:2)
get Slashdotted!
(I am joking because hopefully these guys have the
capacity to handle it.)
Brain drain from US? (Score:2)
better and better (Score:2)
Now if they would just do something about the GST...
Re:Not pro-consolidation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not pro-consolidation (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people would consider it a good thing to have more than two media companies in a country as large as the US.
Mass media equals power. Concentration of power is bad.
Don't forget that a diverse and critical media is one of the pilars of modern democracy.
Pay attention (Score:5, Interesting)
If you had to regulate one or the other, which would you have picked? The one that requires the telcos to allow competitors to use their entire network to sell phone service? Or the one that allows companies with their own nationwide backbone infrastructure (like Covad) to use JUST the last-mile portion of the lines?
I REALLY don't understand why they picked what they did. It's not pro-consolidation OR anti-regulation. It's the worst possible combination of choices. It's no wonder there is widespread objection. Although most of the "nerd news" reporting painted the decision as one that was bad for nerds (no more DSL competition)-- mainstream press widely reported it as a terrible loss for the telcos (because they have to basically do all the infrastructure for their POTS competitors). Now, if a decision screws everybody (dsl users, dsl competitors, AND the telcos)-- it can't possibly be doing any of us any good. What the hell was the FCC thinking?
Re:It's aboot time! (Score:2)
Molson would be a better choice. It's only 20% owned by Miller and another 20% by Phillip Morris.
Re:so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:so... (Score:4, Insightful)
That DSL is a sweet package, but cable is not quite so 'horrible' as you describe. Rogers cable is 1.5M/256K for $45 and it works just fine. (The intro rate for the first 4 months is $25.) In the short intervals when I lived in Toronto for business purposes (about 7 months) I *never* had a problem with it except ones that were related to my own cable box. (Some assclown tampered with it.) It worked up to the advertised speeds and my bittorrent client was very happy compared to the ultra-lame 28.8 dialup at home. (There is no broadband or even 56K available at home from any provider. Stupid rural areas.)
Clearly rogers cable is less cost effective than your DSL, but I DSL's hidden cost is that you have to pay for a phone line as well. I just rely on my cell and forego the landline. I only needed rogers long enough to scrap it at the end of getting the intro rate and then move out of TO again, but I can say for sure that it was not 'horrible.'
Re:so... (Score:3, Interesting)
The stories I have heard from my friends that had it back then concur with that. But basically the one time they did get an IP they just recorded it and told the computer that it was a static address. After entering the DNS of the local university, all was good.
"I found huge amounts of latency that increased at
Re:so... (Score:2)
Re:so... (Score:2, Informative)
I'm also a webdesigner and I am constantly uploading files to webservers, I like to be able to do this quickly and not have to wait around killing productivity. When I need to VNC to a server I wouldn't mind a decent response, rather than an extremely choppy connection.
There ARE legitimate uses for bandwidth by
Re:so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:so... (Score:3, Insightful)
Latency, not bandwidth affects VNC the most.
Re:so... (Score:2)
Re:too bad for the bells (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Damn Canada, you've almost convinced me (Score:3, Insightful)