Canadian high speed isn’t
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- In recent months, much of the discussion about high-speed Internet service in Canada has focused on two key issues – net neutrality and the need to bring broadband access to the remaining underserved areas in rural Canada.
Both of these issues are now squarely on the public agenda with the CRTC conducting hearings on net neutrality next month and the government committing millions toward rural broadband initiatives in this year`s budget.
Missing is a third, fast-growing concern, however. According to a new OECD report, Canada has one of the slowest and most expensive consumer broadband networks in the developed world. The OECD report, widely viewed as the leading global benchmark on broadband networks, compared Canada with 29 other countries on a range of metrics. These included broadband availability, pricing, speed, and bandwidth caps.
At first glance, the numbers do not seem that bad, with Canada ranking ninth out of 30 countries for broadband penetration. While that represents a sharp decline from years ago when Canada prided itself in standing second worldwide, its current position is unchanged from last year.
Yet the situation becomes far more troubling once the OECD delves deeper into Canadian broadband pricing and speed.
Canada is relatively expensive by OECD standards, ranking 14th for monthly subscription costs at US$45.65 per month. By comparison, Japanese consumers pay an average of US$30.46 per month and consumers in Britain spend an average of US$30.63. The relatively high prices may help to explain why there are still many Canadians with access to broadband networks that choose not to subscribe.
Not only is the Canadian Internet relatively expensive, it is also comparatively slow, ranking 24th out of the 30 OECD countries. Internet users in Japan, Korea, and France enjoy a genuinely different Internet experience, where the far-faster speeds allows for applications and services that have yet to make their mark in Canada.
Moreover, the speed gap between Canada and most of the OECD appears to be growing. The fastest consumer speeds often come from fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services that are commonplace in countries like Japan (48 percent of consumers) and Korea (43 percent of consumers), but virtually non-existent in Canada. In fact, the OECD placed Canada`s FTTH penetration at zero percent.
When price and speed are combined, Canada sinks toward the very bottom of the OECD rankings. As measured by price per megabyte – effectively the price for speed – Canada ranks 28th out of 30 countries, ahead of only Mexico and Poland. This may be the most telling metric, since it confirms that Canadians pay more for less.
Canadian consumers also face far less choice with respect to broadband options. Canada was one of only four countries (Australia, New Zealand, and Belgium were the others) where all broadband options included “bit caps” that limit consumer use each month.
Canadian ISPs are quick to claim that they regularly upgrade their networks and the services they provide. For example, Rogers announced new faster speeds for two of its broadband Internet services last week. Although the new speeds were promoted as a free upgrade, the company raised its prices just two months earlier by as much as ten percent.
Most Canadians recognize the critical importance of broadband networks for communication, commerce, education, and access to knowledge. Canada was once a global leader, yet today the marketplace suffers from high prices, slow speeds, and throttled services that have led to an unmistakable decline in comparison with peer countries around the world.
Michael Geist
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist[at]uottawa.ca and is on-line at www.michaelgeist.ca. ]
June, 2009
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June 2nd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
shame shame shame.
Canada – get in the game!
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:51 pm
I pay $64.95 a month with Videotron for a 30mb internet line…..talk about ripping off the consumer.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:17 am
I already posted my opinion on this subject on several websites as soon as the CRTC gave Bell Canada the green light that throttling was fine! I mentioned that Internet speeds all around the global keep increasing and that if Bell Canada continued it’s throttling practice that Canada’s technological future would be the equivalent to a third world status.
My solution was for Canadians to sue BCE, the monopoly that also owns the majority share of Bell Canada. Why? Because BCE is too big and is the 21st century equivalent of Standard Oil. If you’re not familiar with Standard Oil, research it yourself that’s the best way for you to learn about the dangers of a monopoly. But just as with Standard Oil, I want BCE to be forced to be broken up because as a whole, BCE has too much debt and as a result won’t invest in infrastructural changes in any of the companies they own. So for example, why should BCE allow Bell Canada to invest more money to expand its fiber optic network when it can just keep things the way they are by throttling Canadians while still charging high prices (that relate to prices based on non-throttled high speed access 24/7)!
The proof that BCE has too much debt is that last year when the Ontario Teachersâ Pension Plan (OTPP) was looking into buying controlling shares of BCE as an investment (what a joke!), the OTPP dropped out from this plan–why? Because if the OTPF bought controlling shares of BCE, their debt load would be larger than the total worth of BCEâs assets! So since BCE has so much debt, it doesn’t make economic sense for them to spend money on expanding Bell Canada’s fiber optic network in order to met consumer demand. What makes more sense is to make backroom deals (and I know about how real business works, it runs on kickbacks and other forms of bribery) with members of the CRTC to give Bell Canada carte blanche to continue to throttling all third party ISP’s who are renters of Bell’s fiber optic network. There had to be some form of bribery by BCE or by Bell itself to members of the CRTC committee deciding this throttling case because it was a huge group of independent companies that formed the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) against Bell. The CAIP made a reasonable case against Bell and yet the morons at the CRTC sided with the huge monopoly!
I’ve already stated since the CRTC decision that BCE needs to be legally broken up–that’s the first thing. Then regarding telephone and telecommunications, I suggested that one company can no longer be allowed to have the same single entity run both of these functions. The reason being is that Bell Canada was originally given the mandate to provide telephone service to Canadians and that license made them accountable to expanding the infrastructure in order to meet the demands of consumers. Bell Canada did a good job of that until the advent of the Internet, then nobody expected this niche novelty to ever expand to such a state where Internet data transmissions would increase beyond telephone data. That’s why it was never suggested to transmit the two separate signals by two separate transmissions media (be it wire, fiber optics, etc). So Bell Canada never spent money to increase its fiber optic system, it just piggybacked Internet traffic on the same fiber optic wire as telephone transmissions.
However, as time grew, the amount of telephone data being transmitted was being dwarfed by Internet data traffic. So instead of spending money to expand its fiber optic system, Bell just chose to throttle all Canadians whether Bell’s own Internet users or third party ISP’s who rented out excess capacity from Bell. But throttling is just a stopgap measure because unlike telephone data, Internet transmissions are growing exponentially! If Bell continues to throttle, Canadian business will be unable to compete in the business world. The future will be based on more and more data traveling faster and faster around the globe. If business worldwide becomes more standardize, many business opportunities will be lost because of Bell’s intentional hindrance of Internet data! If the business highway becomes more standardizes, it’s the equivalent of cars being able to travel as fast as they can crossing country after country but if Canada restricts the flow of traffic to let’s say 25 km/hour for 12 hours out of everyday, people will just eventually bypass Canada.
And that’s exactly my point, through Bell’s throttling, it’s already preventing Canadian companies to communicate to the rest of the world as more and more Internet speeds become standardized. If throttling continues as is, more and more high-tech companies (at first) will begin to leave Canada and then the rest of Canadian companies will leave as well! My suggestion is to first force the break-up of BCE, then break-up Bell Canada’s monopoly of telephone and telecommunications with regard to its fiber optic network. Then finally legislate that a single business entity cannot be allowed to run telephone and Internet transmissions on the same network (for example via fiber optic or through a cable). Separate licenses must be granted for the ability for business to transmit data, each license must be tied to the legal accountability that licensees must expand their network’s capacity in order to meet consumers’ demand. If at any time a licensee is unable or unwilling to expand their infrastructure to meet the demands of consumers, the license will be revoked! So for example, if ABC Inc. is given the ability to transmit telephone transmissions and let’s demand is beginning to outstrip capacity; ABC Inc. then deliberately rations consumers’ phone calls and the amount of time a phone call can last. If ABC Inc. is doing this deliberately, not investing to expand their network capacity and still charges its customers telephone rates that are the equivalent of non-rationed telephone prices then ABC’s license should be revoked!
And essentially that what’s happening today, BCE is too big and is in too much debt to allow Bell Canada to spend money to increase its fiber optic network. Bell has a fiber optic network which it transmits both telephone and Internet data on the same fiber optic system. Them amount of Internet transmissions are much larger than telephone data and Internet data is becoming so large that its outstripping Bell’s fiber optic system. So rather than spend money on increasing it’s capacity (i.e. lay down more fiber optic wiring), Bell is throttling or rationing Internet transmissions while still charging (third party ISP’s as well are charging) its customers Internet prices that are the equivalent of non-throttled access being available 24/7!
If BCE was broken up as well as Bell’s monopoly to transmit both telephone and Internet transmissions on the same fiber optic system than the system would be fixed!
And that has been my suggestion ever since the CRTC allowed Bell Canada the right to continue its unrestricted throttling!