The Internet Billing Debate Little to Late?

Bell Canada took a step back from its aggressive and much-derided stance on usage-based billing (UBB) recently when it announced it would drop efforts to impose an exorbitantly priced UBB model on independent Internet service providers (IISPs) such as TekSavvy Solutions Inc.

Instead, purportedly acceding to IISPs’ requests, it would supply bandwidth to IISPs through an aggregated volume pricing (AVP) model, allowing IISPs to allocate bandwidth as they wished among their customers. Bell would still price bandwidth based on usage; the cost would be 19.5¢ per gigabyte when purchased in a package of one terabyte (1,000 GB), and 29.5¢ per GB for any overage.

On the surface this appears to be a generous concession by Bell, an improvement on a severely restrictive supply model and otherworldly pricing far beyond that seen anywhere else in the industrialized world (its previous UBB plan sought up to $2.50/GB).

See: Internet Billing Debate: Too little, too late by Rocky Gaudrault

***

Comment by Bill Hillier:

The poor state of all Telecom Services AND its high prices was spurred by the Conservative governments 2006 policy direction. The major telecoms have been in a profitering feeding frenzy ever since. While prices in the rest of the world or telecom services have been dropping, The prices in Canada have only increased.
It is time for Canadians to stand together and put a stop to this!
What TRUE competition and "Market Forces" brings to the consumer.
UK, Orange, 20Mbps , Unlimited, $23.48 CAD.
France, Orange, 8Mbps, Unlimited, 28.42 CAD.
France, SFR, 20Mbps, Unlimited, 21.68 CAD.
Romania, Adnet telecom, 10Mbps, Unlimited, 29.13 CAD.
Italy, Libero, 7 MMbps, unlimited, 26.99 CAD.
Japan, OCN, 12Mbs, Unlimited, 25.22 CAD.
Russia, AKADO-Stolitsa JSC), 20Mbps, Unlimited, 25.00 CAD.
Netherlands, Online, 4Mbps, Unlimited, $24,04 CAD.
Netherlands, Online, 20Mbps, Unlimited, $30.88 CAD.
Netherlands, KPN, 8Mbps, Unlimited, $34.33 CAD.
Netherlands, XS4ALL, 8Mbps, Unlimited, $41.13 CAD.
Romania 50 Mbps, Unlimited, $9.56 100 Mbps, Unlimited, $12.86 (incl. VAT) CAD