Canadian ISP Co-Op Shows Upside of Line Sharing 85
Golden Gael writes "The FCC got rid of mandatory line sharing in the US a few years ago, but it's alive and kicking in Canada, and an interesting article at Ars Technica looks at what can happen when there's vibrant broadband competition. 'Wireless Nomad does things a little differently. The company is subscriber-owned, volunteer-run, and open-source friendly. It offers a neutral Internet connection with no bandwidth caps or throttling, and it makes a point of creating wireless access points at the end of each DSL connection that can be used, for free, by the public. Bell Canada this is not.' The ISP has some ambitious plans for the future, including getting involved in WiMAX."
Re:Must Be Great.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Must Be Great.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Is Canada the new America?
Well, y'all went first: You were the prototype, an alpha, if you will.
(Hmm, North American democracy, about 100 years between releases... ...makes Debian look good!)
Re: (Score:2)
Frustrated with options in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Frustrated with options in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
"sick of everybody pretending the free market is at work so everything is great. It isn't."
The problem in this case is not the free market itself, but rather that the average person has no idea what most of the stuff means. It's getting better, and we're seeing the beginning of the end for the market-speak in the internet area (the recent unlimited capped internet being the big thing now), but for the most part the average consumer has no idea what the applicable difference is between a 100 mb/s and 300 mb/s line is (they do know that one is 3x faster, but not how that will affect them and whether it's worth it). Because of that ignorance the providers are able to keep all the important information secret, because the majority cares more about whether they'll have the internet and be able to send e-mails rather than what they can expect their upload and download rates to be and what the caps are on their internet use. Once those are seen as important by the majority (read: once the majority is at least technologically sufficient, if not proficient) they'll start being advertised.
Just thought I'd point that out. Internet here is quite pathetic, but it's not strictly a free market problem. It's more a general population problem which is amplified by having a free market environment.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
that *is* a free market problem (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's not a "general population problem"; ignorance is economically rational because obtaining information has costs associated with it. Furthermore, it's part of a free market that sellers take advantage of this to charge more than they would if people had complete information.
When you balance out all these effects, it means that a regulated market can sometimes operate more efficiently than a free market. That's why regulating cell phone and cable markets may make sense.
The only "problem" with any of this is that laissez-faire free market proponents don't know their economics and propose bad economic policies.
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
It seems like it's going to take eating dog food to convince some of these people that current economic theory is either wrong or a direct attack on humanity.
I will try and focus on the topic related aspect of this.
I can not compete fairly with Bell Canada because they pay lobbiests to make sure I can't.
I've shaken hands with these people, nice suits.
They also went through the boom times using MY mone
Re: (Score:2)
So exactly how bad will your economy have to tank before you admit the current system is counter productive?
It's not about how bad the economy will tank. It is about when the American media will spoon feed this point of view to the public so they can start considering it. Now that is closer to flamebait. The parent poster asks some very legitimate and challenging questions so I am not surprised that some people would rather try and censor them (moderation is kind of censorship since most people do not browse at -1)
Re:Frustrated with options in the US (Score:4, Insightful)
Cheers.
You are more than welcome to run your own cable (Score:5, Funny)
The whole point of the free market is, if you do not like the way companies provide a good or a service, you are more than welcome to secure your own investors, get your own right of way, run your own cable, and sell your own broadband.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:You are more than welcome to run your own cable (Score:4, Interesting)
however, the market is heavily regulated to enhance competition, with mandatory local loop unbundling, regulated data backhaul prices for areas not yet unbundled, and regulated prices and availability for CO to CO fiber links for unbundler companies
all this competition is imposed on France Telecom as they were the incumbent that inherited the entire original PSTN.
Now that the 3 major ISPs are starting to set up FTTx, they are already regulated for fiber sharing at several locations along the path, notably at the building and Optical CO level
and we get to pay 30 eur a month for uncapped service, including voip and tv over DSL
That's right, the "free market" needs rules (Score:3, Interesting)
Neo-liberals (to you merkins that is conservatives, neo or not) worship Adam Smith but it's like they've never read him. A working free market needs choice, information and rational, free actors. When megacorporations are allowed to abuse their monopoly to remove choice and carpet bomb the media with BS advertising, you've got a non free market right here.
That said, even the free m
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't "capitalism", this is "corruption". And that's true wherever it's happening.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think these problems are more in your head than they are anything else. Your whole argument is so much fear mongering to mask a political agenda... "we can't compete, so therefor, let's get the government to do everything for us." That's as silly as it is not true, because, people have competed, and, if you do have the government steal the lines that a company laid down, you'll only be creating a si
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Verizon was founded in 1983 as the Bell Atlantic Corporation. An AT&T spinoff.
Yes, there are lots of competitive newcomers in the market.
Re: (Score:1)
Would you invest in such a company?
We should choose the most efficient tool for the job, and it isn't always (although it is frequently) the free market. Proper regulation is a good thing.
I'm afraid not. (Score:3, Informative)
The free market only applies when the barriers to entry are assumed zero, or at
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's actually not really true. Fiber, coax and phone cabling are all communications services, and they do compete against each other. The local governments provide a spot where these cables can go, but its up to the carrier to actually m
Re: (Score:2)
Hasn't at least ONE person here ever read Lessig's book The future of ideas?
Re: (Score:2)
The "just do it yourself" mentality left me with a fiberoptic connection limited to 100Mbps up and down for the incredible high price of 39EUR per month.
This happened after the former telecom monopolist and other established broadband companies failed to show any interest to create such a network (and why would they, since the already have some sort of intrastructure?).
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I'll make a business plan where people buy into me and I get subsidies from the government to provide a service... I'll get paid at both ends!
I'll use clever buy in prices and lies to get people to get my service! But who will I get to help me keep people buying this inferior service when they find out? My competition! And they can buy me out and get even bigger!
Thanks Free market! You gave me EXACTLY what I was
Re: (Score:2)
So what's your stupid alternative. Hey, let's get a bunch of preachers to go and talk about civic action and community and the need for collective action to solve some problem, rile everybody up, and then, what will you get? A government agency stuffed with a bunch of incompetent buddies of all these preachers, and when absolutely nothing works, you'll wind up with everyone in that organization saying, "geez, we need
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Another neat thing about them is that SaskTel is working with Alcatel to develop them, we're the first company to use them. Sort of like the Luc
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Here's what I get when I go to dslreports.com and click "Broadband prequalification process (what can I get?)"
Re:Frustrated with options in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sick of everyone pretending there is a free market. There isn't
Re: (Score:2)
So don't blame this one on that market, please.
Thx
A free market believer
Getting results (Score:5, Interesting)
Before anyone comes in screaming that this isn't how the "free" market is supposed to work, how bad governement intervention is, etc. etc., let me point out the following:
In Canada, the biggest telco, by far, Bell Canada, was for a very long time a state sanctioned monopoly and thus recieved tons of public funds to help build its infrastructure (not unlike the situation in the US). Due to this fact, the CRTC (the Canadian equivalent of the FCC, but usually with a clue), forces Bell to allow access to its lines to competitors, as mentionned in the article.
Results? While the particular company Ars focused on isn't a resounding success (even if it has cool ideas), there's tons of others that are. Example: unlimited, uncapped DSL, which would cost me 45$ with Bell, cost me 28$ with one of its competitors because Bell has to lease them the line for 22$/month (a price point at which they still make a profit, I feel it must be pointed out).
And it's not just competition on prices and service level, it's customer service too. Anyone that had to deal with a telco before, at one point or another, pretty certainly wanted to go on a shooting spree. The company I deal with? Pick up the phone and someone (in Canada!) will answer, straight away, 24h a day... none of that "please press 1-3-2-6... please wait... we're receiving an unusual volume of call... waiting time is 17 minutes... your call is important to us" bullshit.
So, basically, go mandatory line-sharing! Anyone wanna bet that it's never going to happen in the States? ;P
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I think it's a combination of several factors:
1- Many people still have no clue how computers and the internet work.
2- Therefore they don't really shop around and go for the safe bet.
3- Bell is having truly massive publicity campaigns.
4- Bell is also heavily promoting similarly priced offerings, but with much lower value (slow connection, small bandwich cap, etc.), which they obviously don't go
Re: (Score:2)
You have a selection of small ISPs offering a varying range of services, some cheap, some with value-add extras, different quality of support etc.
But most people stick to the large "one size fits all" isps who advertise day in day out on tv, their services are usually fairly cheap and cater to the average user (runs windows, downloads less than 2gb per month, doesnt use voip, doesnt play online games, doesnt know what a static ip is and certainly has no need
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
We've had about the same thing in France. State owned telco monopoly. Opened up to competition a few year ago.
Today ? An ISP named free pioneered the "triple play" offers with a 30 EUR DSL offer (up to 25 Mb/s if you actually happen to dwell in the DSLAM), and all others are following.
The same ISP is now beginning to roll out fiber in some cities for the same exact price.
It's not all perfect (hot lines have been less than stellar, to stay the least), but it's pretty nice.
That IS
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Note: I do not work for these guys, nor do I get any benefit from pimping like this, I'm just a very satisfied customer.
I'm not sure which ISP the parent post was referring to - there are a few of them. Actually, there are MANY 3rd party DSL providers in Canada, it's just that few of them are worth a damn (much like the big-boy telcos). I'm with TekSavvy [teksavvy.com] and they have been awesome for the last 8 months or so I've been with them. Fast speeds, cheap prices, 24h phone support that always gets answered by the
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Last I heard, they were hoping to have service go into testing in late October, but it's still a bit up in the air. You should check out TekSavvy's official forum on DSLReports for the latest.
Re: (Score:2)
Nevertheless, if TekSavvy will be operating in Vancouver, sounds great to me! I happen to be planning to move there soon.
Re: (Score:2)
The AT&T of 1878 was and would remain privately financed.
New York Sate financed construction of the Erie Canal on its own because it couldn't persuade the federal government to share in the costs of building and maintaining infrastructure.
In 1938 there was - 1 - US public airport with a runway that could take the weight of a tran
Re: (Score:2)
i used to work at one of Sasktel's call centres.
we did have a fairly minimal phone menu (basically, "is the problem phone, internet, IPTV, or VOIP?" and "are you a business customer?") and the wait time is usually pretty good (less than 5 min, if not 0), aside from the occasional "shit hit the fan" moments, like a massive storm frying half the
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Government is inefficient not because there is something inherently wrong with government per-se, but because it's not held to account and because our electorate is lazy, apathetic, uneducated, and manipulated . TANSTAAFL is a good principle as a personal ethic, but it
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Yup
and there is no such thing as a free internet connection.
My neighbours WiFi disagrees with you.
Economies of scale apply as well, and I doubt this model is easily scalable.
Well, if the government sanctions it...
Less regulation and more privatization is the way to go, not socialized internet.
Is it this easy to piss of a Republican?
Re:free lunch (Score:5, Interesting)
Utilities are classic examples of natural monopolies. To be pedantic, this sometimes takes the form of oligarchies rather than pure monopolies, but the drawbacks are the same: the suppression of competition leads to high prices, poor service, and stagnation (lack of innovation). The oligarchs may divide the business by geography, like the railroads, or by type of service. Cable and telcos do both. Cable companies divide the country into exclusive territories, sometimes trade territories, but never battle over the same region. Telcos do the same. You local telco and cable may appear to compete with each other, but it is a very limited competition. They unite against any third party entering the market. They unite to lobby against any requirement to lease lines to real competitors. They unite to throw obstacles in the path of anyone foolish enough to try to run new lines.
If you look at true free markets, there are usually at least three strong players and several smaller ones. For example, US auto market share 2007 YTD: GM 22%, Toyota 16%, DaimlerChrysler 16%, Ford 15%, Honda 9%, and so forth. Real competition. The same picture emerges for fast food, supermarkets, gasoline, clothing, you name it.
Where I live, the phone company and the cable company combined have more than 90% of the Internet access market. Third place is down in the statistical noise. People ask whether I use cable or DSL, as if there were only two choices. They can't comprehend that there could be a third choice.
If there isn't a third choice, there isn't true competition. If the third largest market share isn't at least half the size of the largest, there isn't true competition. We don't have true competition for Internet access in the US. We have an oligarchy which restricts competition.
Privatization often increases competition. Privatization sometimes replaces one monopoly with another. Privatization is neither good nor bad. Competition is good, and when private enterprise is suppressing competition, then *anything* which increases competition is better. Including regulation, or even government ownership. As bad as government can be, sometimes private business is worse. Government lacks the feedback that competition provides, but provides feedback from voters that businesses lack. Even the DMV is easier to deal with than AT&T.
Re: (Score:2)
That is why free market fundamentalists are a pain in the ass to deal with. They point to all the examples where the free market succeeded and use that to claim that the free market always is superior. Religious faith in a system can't be argued with.
Free market has its flaws. A well known one is that of natural monopolies. It is wasteful and costly to have each competitor draw lines to each house
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Bell/Rogers doing WiMax (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
They worked together on a joint venture to bring a 'WiMAX'-like wireless technology to their cell towers, but it is not WiMAX, not by far, not even in the same family of radio technologies. Sorry.
Go to rogers.com, or bell, lookup wireless internet offering, read...
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not too surprised they lie though, it IS bell canada after all.
Questionable business skills (Score:3, Interesting)
These guys are clearly Like Us, and it's to be commended that they rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in. But from reading the article I got the impression they need to sharpen up their business skills a lot. For all the bitching you see about how evil ISPs are on Slashdot, this article demonstrates nicely why they are that way. Some good quotes:
No shit they used a lot of data. A small, new ISP run by a couple of guys that's offering unlimited data access for a flat rate? That must have attracted torrent users like bees to honey. They blame video traffic later, but everytime I talk to an ISP employee about where their bandwidth goes, the answer is always "p2p, everything else" in that order. How did they not see this coming? Did they really think existing ISPs impose caps and throttles because they were told to last time they communed with Beazulbub? I won't even comment on using credit cards to pay business costs ....
Stories like this indicate why people might think that way.I like their courage in trying to shake up the ISP market like this, but a cold, realistic assessment of why existing ISPs are the way they are would probably have helped.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I think, then, that it's a bit much to suggest that WN attracted P2P users like bees to honey. Certainly, you had to be a bit more tech-savvy than most to know about WN, but I doubt its typical user is a 21 year old fileswapping gamer.
Perhaps Wireless Nomad is better seen as a co-operative apartment building than as a typical ISP. There is a sense of community (honestly) that may help keep people in
Wippies (Score:1)
How Do They Make Money? (Score:2)
Sounds great for the consumers, but how does the company generate revenue? They will still have to pay the bills.
Slimserver? (Score:2)
Clueless americans... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Not Profitable (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
What if they don't want to turn a profit? Isn't that worth talking about? And, FWIW, they do make enough to cover their costs. Check their FAQ.