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Save Canada's Internet - All Canadians NEED to visit this site

If you are a Canadian and you use the Internet you need to visit this site www.openmedia.ca

I strongly suggest you also sign the petition on the site www.openmedia.ca/meter

Basically the days of reasonable internet prices (if they were ever reasonable to start with) are coming to an end as the big ISPs start to charge customers on a per gig usage model. Rogers started doing so a while ago, but now even the Bell ISP resellers are going to be forced to do so also (so cable customers can't even switch to ADSL, no matter where you go this is how you will be billed now).

I blogged about how we were heading down this path way back in September.  As I predicted in my blog PR folks working for ISPs are facing one heck of a bumpy ride ahead of them.

Beyond the PR though, Canadians need to react to what is happening. The internet is the lifeblood of our economy and the essential medium through which information is shared.  If Canadians accept that the billing model moving forward should be metered, then it will only be a matter of time until your internet costs go through the roof.

To me, it's equivalent to Bell Canada telling you that instead of charging you a set amount for your home telephone, they were going to charge you a set amount for say the first 50 calls made or received and then every call you make or receive after that would be charged (basically how they do things for cell phones).  And to add insult to injury, at any time they can adjust the amount of calls that are part of your set monthly fee ... so after a year instead of 50 it goes down to 40 (or instead of lowering the calls, they increase the cost of the set amount from say $25 to $30).

If they did this to your home landline would Canadians stand for it?

That's what they want to do with the internet.

It's pretty scary to me that this is happening in Canada (and for those who know me, very little ever scares me).

I understand the capitalistic need to maximize profits for shareholders and believe that free market forces and competition keep product / service prices in check, but neither of those things are in play here, and that's what is really scary.  This is a monopoly / oligopoly scenario in which the regulatory body (CRTC) has (de) regulated an industry in such a way as to ensure that Canadian citizen end up paying the most possible for internet access.

It reminds me of the financial crisis we witnessed in the US when banks were deregulated and at the time no one really thought it was a big deal. Except in this scenario, instead of soaring housing prices (which eventually crashed) the ramifications will end up being insanely high costs to the customer to access the internet (when in reality those costs should be going lower, not higher). And unlike housing prices (which self corrected), they won't crash, they will simply remain extremely high.

As I say, there aren't many issues that I feel truly require the attention of every Canadian, but this is definitely one of them as it will shape Canada's future for years to come.


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