CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**Curt Palme**

So my reliable satellite guy calls me yesterday and informs me that Bell, Shaw and other cable internet providers are putting caps on the download capabilities of their internet service, and this is a recent ruling made by the CRTC.. the Canadian equivalent of the FCC.

This is to prevent people from signing up for companies like Netflix, as that will take business away from the cable internet providers. If you download or stream a movie from the cable companies, that won't count as part of your download, since you're buying the movie from the cable company, but download/stream one from NEtflix or similar, and chances are you'll get a surcharge from your cable company.

f*cking bastards! Evil or Very Mad

Google this so you're aware of what's going on, but here's one link:

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/article/928850--netflix-worried-by-canadian-internet-download-caps

dturco · Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:58 pm Post subject:

Damn that sucks. Evil or Very Mad

Is cable in partnership with the Canadian Government?

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:59 pm Post subject:

Of course, it's liars teaming up with cheaters.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321

Net neutrality for the win!

Please people...help us make the internet a free marketplace!

ecrabb · Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 8:38 pm Post subject:

If only it were that simple, Greg.

Mark my words. Every regulation has unintended consequences. Call it action/reaction. If the ISP's are getting hammered with a new bandwidth-intensive application, and they can't charge anything for that traffic, then they'll simply recover their costs (and profit margin), either with bandwidth-tiered pricing, or just higher prices in general.

I read a stat a few months ago that on any given Friday or Saturday night, that something over 25% of the entire US-based internet's aggregate bandwidth is going to support Netflix streaming. If that continues to grow, I don't see how that's sustainable - either for the internet's infrastructure, or for ISP's business models.

Net neutrality or not, we're going to end up paying - one way or the other.

SC

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12026 Location: Fort Collins, CO

If Netflix is eating up 25% of the entire national bandwidth, why aren't THEY getting charged for the load THEY'RE imposing on the net? The actual cost of their delivery should be wrapped into THEIR cost of business.

ecrabb · Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 9:19 pm Post subject:

That's precisely the essence of the Comcast/Level 3/Netflix brouhaha, Gary... Read these articles and see if it doesn't make your head spin:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/top-stocks/blog.aspx?post=e99e0043-e315-4721-8476-4f9206bb7e56

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-12-01-comcast01_ST_N.htm

Regardless, it doesn't matter who is "forced" to pay for the bandwidth; whether it's the backbone provider, the ISP, or the company serving up the content. Ultimately, it will be us who pays. It's exactly the same as taxes... You can tax corporations all you want, but corporations don't pay taxes (or increased costs for services)... Ultimately, the people who buy companies' goods and services pay the additional costs. Period. End of story.

I think the sun is setting on the days of free unlimited bandwidth, and Netflix will be what really spurred the transition. It was only a matter of time, because bandwidth is not an unlimited resource. It costs big bucks in terms of infrastructure, and somebody has to pay for it all.

Enjoy your $50-ish/mo broadband and $8.95/mo Netflix streaming because I'll bet money that neither will be anywhere near that cheap in a few years. We'll either be paying a lot more to our ISP's, a lot more to Netflix, or both.

Mark my words. In the end, we'll all pay.

SC

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321

Who gives a crap if we pay?!

If I pay for internet service it damn well better be access to the entire freakin internet!

If that price starts to increase I will investigate other ways to connect.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 12:18 am Post subject:

It's a simple strategy to avoid competition. Netflix will take away business from pay per view movies that the cable companies offer, so they jack up the price if you download lots. It sucks.

Sparky015 · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 1:23 am Post subject:

Interesting thread. It seems so many people are dropping cable in favor of a netflix subscription too.

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10273

The whole thing is like a page out of Glenn Beck. Its about as asinine as anything can get. But then again, the past three years have been full of asinine things going on in business (and politics is business).

But, since the people of most nations that are abuse will simply sit there and take it, I expect Canadians to be no different.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 8:44 pm Post subject:

Just FYI, I just called my internet provider, Shaw. I have their business package, at $79 a month. (Yeah, Canadian internet is insanely expensive compared to the US). My cap is 110gigs a month. I was a bit concerned, since I stream internet radio almost 24/7, unless Mediaplayer crashes.

they told me that I'm sitting at about 30 gigs a month, and an HD movie is about 1 gig per hour of watching said movie.

So.. for me, it's feasible that I could get Netflix and watch 1-2 movies a week, and not get any surcharge. I don't typically watch even one movie a week, so right now I'm sitting fine.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321

ecrabb · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 10:22 pm Post subject:

OK, I'm confused Greg. Curt posted about how providers are going to put a caps on bandwidth (and presumably charge for overages) to hurt services like Netflix. You then say:

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321

Thanks for the conversation recap. Laughing

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 10:28 pm Post subject:

....meanwhile back at the ranch....

ecrabb · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 10:29 pm Post subject:

ecrabb · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 10:32 pm Post subject:

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 10:35 pm Post subject:

You gotta remember that Canada has 1/10 the population with more area to cover than the US. Up here there are basically 3 internet providers, Rogers, Bell and Shaw. Telus locally offers it as well, but they are not nationwide, neither is Shaw I believe.

The smaller companies buy bandwidth off the bigger providers, but apparently only at a 15% discount. So we can't switch to the smaller guys hoping for a big drop in price.

They were talking about this on XM this morning, as the hosts were completely ignorant about Canada, and once the Canadians started calling in, it really opened the eyes of the NY hosts. Gas is 25% more expensive, milk is about$5 a gallon, you USers have it good. Smile

The big thing is that people like Netflix are taking pay per views or movies on demand away from the internet providers, who are also the cable providers. These caps (and apparently the ruling is now being reviewed by the gov't, as golly gee, the internet costs to the gov't would then also go up, and sh*t, we can't have that, can we?) are put in place to ensure that someone like NEtflix does not become a big success here in Canada, and the current internet providers maintain their monopoly.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321