My Open Letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

As a concerned citizen of Canada, I would like to bring your attention to the recent ruling by the CRTC approving and requiring Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to charge consumers based on their Internet usage. This is a step in the wrong direction. Corporations have absolutely no place in deciding what a reasonable level of internet usage is. At a time when more and more Canadians are spending an increasing amount of time online, they are bound to see their internet data usage go up.

The City of Vancouver has come out in support of its residents against Usage Based Billing (UBB) by the carriers (http://goo.gl/Hkpr9). More than a 100000 Canadians and counting have signed the online petition at http://openmedia.ca/meter coming out against UBB. I would urge you to show your support and come out against this ruling by the CRTC. This ruling is detrimental to the future of Canada and will stifle innovation and competition. The internet has empowered people by giving them access to tremendous amounts of information and the world is seeing a major shift as more and more devices in our homes become connected to the internet. This dramatic growth in internet connected devices in our homes is bound to result in increasing data usage and the caps being imposed currently by the carriers are completely arbitrary and ludicrous. The punitive charges that corporations like Bell and Shaw are about to impose on Canadians is nothing but a cash grab as their business models are facing major setbacks from services like Netflix that are offering entertainment options over the internet rather than through ordinary cable / satellite channels like Shaw and Bell currently do. These corporations are refusing to change with the changing times and Canadians are getting penalized as a result.

We have had a similar situation with wireless/cell phone plans for a long time in Canada. Canada has some of the highest cell phone costs in the world. Letting this ruling by the CRTC stand as is will certainly result in Canadians facing much higher internet costs.

I once again urge your office to come out against this ruling and show your support for the tens of thousands of Canadians who have come out against this policy.

Thank You,

Sincerely,

Mahesh

Stop Canada from being left behind, Spread the word and Stop the metering of the internet

Sign the Petition @ http://openmedia.ca/meter and let us make our voices heard. Spread the word

The CRTC recently approved requests from the big companies that provide our internet services and given them permission to metering the internet with data caps on our plans, with overage charges and usage based billing. This is a major step backwards for Canada and we should make our voices heard. The  official briefings by the CRTC suggest that massive opposition from individuals to this shift in policy has fallen on deaf years. We need to make our government representatives know that we are opposed to this change and that it is detrimental to the future of Canadians. Sign the petition form to be sent to Industry Minister Tony Clement and opposition party members at http://openmedia.ca/meter. Write to the representatives of your districts about your opposition.

As more and more of the media content becomes available online, we have seen a dramatic shift in the way we get our entertainment fix. We spend an increasing amount of time online watching our favourite shows and movies. We also get most of our news and keep in touch with our friends and family through the internet. With services like Netflix coming to Canada, we will likely spend more of our time online than ever before with increasing data consumptions. This shift in behaviour is most profound among the younger generations including my own. 

For those that argue that they would never go above their caps and that the people who are the heavy users are right to get penalized, I would say that this policy is not about yours or my own usage and how you or I may not be affected by the change in policy to usage based billing. This is a broader question about where the world will be moving over the next few years and beyond. We have witnessed tremendous growth in the amount of content (media and otherwise) that is available online and as we embark on another revolution in the form of almost every siingle device in our houses being connected to the internet, we will see our internet usage go up dramatically over the next few years.These data caps and usage based billing are detrimental to Canadians taking part in this dramatic shift.

We, Canadians, have already witnessed what similar policies have done to our cell phone costs. We have some of the most expensive cell phone plans in the world in a market with relatively little or no competition and one that is dominated by the big three players: Bell, Telus, and Rogers. We now have data caps on all our cell phone plans and get exorbitant charges for text messages and data overage charges if they are not part of the plan. The carriers have squeezed out every single way they can get away with charging us and we have not done much to get them to stop doing so. We cannot let what happened with our cell phone plans become the case with our internet costs. The change in policy may have little effect now, but, in the near future, we will see our costs go up as internet usage grows further and we spend more of our time online than ever before.

This is nothing but a cash grab by the big companies like bell and rogers that are also providers of our cable (television) and satellite services. As we spend more of our time online, their business models are experiencing setbacks and they are reluctant to change with the changing times. We need to speak up as a nation and let these companies know that we will not stand for being exploited and that these charges and the change in policy are unacceptable.

CRTC Public Documents:

Usage Based Billing

Usage Based Billing for third party ISPs

EDIT: Strombo Talks About The Impending Metered Internet