Canadian ISP Rogers Throttling 'World of Warcraft'

reply to post by boncho


I'm not a fan of monopolization, but it is not concievable to have free market in regards to Canada and telecom.

If Canada was to rely on free market for telecom we would have three options:

a) No telecom accross the country, areas such as Vancouver, Southern Ontario, and Southern Quebec would be okay, but that is about it.

b) Exponentially higher telecom prices.

c) A relatively slow, lineless system.

We are a very large country with a very small population. Telecom profits like 12 billion (Rogers) seem like alot, but that wouldn't even come close to covering the cost of lines accross the country...not even just to major cities.

The sad fact of the matter is, that we just don't have enough people to justify an open market with success. If we had another 30 million souls or so, we might get close to being able to have a self sustaining free market on telecom. Until that time, get used to being bent over the barrel. The telecom companies, and the government, both know that the government can't do it alone, and the telecoms can't do it alone...

reply to post by peck420

Canada is woefully positioned for future internet usage and the quality of current broadband networks is barely enough to cope with current traffic because of a lack of investment by providers, according to a new study.

^^^^^^^^^^

...broadband networks in countries such as Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria scored better than Canada, which ranked 27th out of the 42 nations covered.

Somehow I think we should be doing better than Romania, considering they barely had electricity during the cold war...

Article


Romania > Canada

Seriously???

As an employee of a fairly large (+1million subs) ISP I can sympathize with them. The "special" person a few posts above complaining about infrastructure has zero clue about how much money it takes to run one. You have to constantly build circuits, lease POPs, upgrade routers and switches, pay exorbitant salaries to people like me to work on them , etc. You can only invest in infrastructure if you make a profit. And you can only make a profit if you don't oversubscribe the circuits that you lease from your peers.

Circuits are the single largest cost of an ISP, and they cost a boatload of money per month. Never forget that an ISP is a business first. They are there to make money for their shareholders. If you want free internet...well it doesn't exist.

All that being said, as an end user of internet services, this is a trend that I hate seeing being implemented by most ISPs. But it's a reality we are going to be forced to live with eventually, I think.

/TOA

reply to post by The Old American

Circuits are the single largest cost of an ISP, and they cost a boatload of money per month. Never forget that an ISP is a business first. They are there to make money for their shareholders. If you want free internet...well it doesn't exist

Rogers sample
MONTHLY SERVICE FEE

----------------------------------------------- $30/mo. $35/mo. $50/mo. $65/mo.
Data Included ------ ---------------------- 500 MB----1 GB-----2 GB------5 GB

Additional Data Rate 5¢/MB = $50/GB

$50 for an extra GB?


WIND Sample

Introductory rate: $25/Month for 12 months, $45/Month following.

Data Included: Unlimited - (Restrictions over 5GB)


Personally I am with WIND, and I have gone over the monthly restriction by 15GB. I noticed no real slowdown in service, but I am subject to caps if they choose. If I were with Rogers, that month would have cost me $750.


People can argue all they want how much it costs to run telecom and how certain things are unfeasible. But just take into account, the first real competition we have had in the market has offered and given me something for $25 that would have been $750 if I had been with Rogers.

They throttle peoples internet, they overcharge and they have a monopoly in the market. = Period. All the ISP's that are not part of the monopoly I have no problem with, they all try to offer fair packages for the most part.