The CRTC released its decision to reject Bell’s proposal to charge smaller wholesale providers by how much their customers can download. This was seen as a victory for the wholesalers and a defeat for Bell as they are the largest providers to the wholesalers with the most to lose.
This means that the ISP (Internet Service Providers) wholesalers will be able to continue to offer unlimited downloading to their customers and this was what made them popular and also a true alternative to the big three providers, Bell, Rogers, and Telus.
The CRTC is led by Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein who sided with the big three providers, but under the strong opposition from Openmedia.ca, an independent media watchdog and the TekSavvy, the poster boy for the stop the metering protest movement was forced to change their position to benefit the consumers. Because Openmedia.ca was able to gather over a 100,000 signatures in a relatively short amount of time and, at that time it was also the federal election too, that the Minister of Industry, Tony Clement told the CRTC to go back to come up with a better solution keeping in mind the needs of the public first.
There is such a big uproar because the consumers feel that they are being ripped off by the big three providers due to studies that have found that it cost less than a penny to deliver 1Gig of data and the big three providers want to charge up to $5 per gigabyte. And it should be noted that Canada has one of the highest Internet rates in the developed world.
This decision will count as a step forward for the regular consumer who with the help of the Internet has managed to make an impact on what was once beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. This is the power of the Internet and it being used for a force of change.
Links:
Youtube: Here’s a great video explaining UBB (usage-based billing)
