Download Limits
Another article on how the big ISP's in Canada are holding back development.
Legitimate online video services have already been slow in coming to Canada, but because of download limits being imposed by the country's major internet service providers, they may never really get here.
Many of the country's largest ISPs recently did away with unlimited download offerings in favour of consumption-based models, where users are billed extra if they exceed a given cap. The move, they say, is being made in order to cope with ever-growing internet usage and capacity problems, which are requiring continual reinvestment in their networks.
Industry observers, however, say the change is a potential threat to downloadable video services, such as those offered by Microsoft Corp. over Xbox Live and Apple Inc. through iTunes, which are still in their infancies both in the United States and Canada. The market's growth will depend on users buying and downloading plenty of content from these providers — something they won't do if they're constrained by caps because they will effectively end up paying twice for the same product, according to analysts.
It's shouldn't be a surprise to anyone in Canada that we are far, far behind the US in this area. This is in part thanks to the same companies since the broadcast networks they control hold the internet rights to the shows, and have been slow in allowing Apple, Microsoft, and others the ability to sell the shows on-line.
The download limits place another barrier in the way of those who would like to use their computer as the centre of their entertainment network, and it is here that the anti-competitive charge stems from.
Internet experts say the caps in Canada are anti-competitive because the ISPs offer services themselves that rival those from the likes of Microsoft and Apple. While Rogers and Bell both offer video-on-demand services that allow customers to purchase as many movies as they want through their television connection, their internet users are constrained in how much they can buy from third parties by the companies' caps.
And that is before we get into the "data-shaping" Bell and Rogers have been partaking in, that slows down the internet speed of users actually trying to use the bandwidth they're paying for, for anything beyond e-mail and basic web-surfing.
"The issue that many of them are starting to confront from an increasingly angry public is that they are charging a certain amount for bandwidth and then making it very difficult for people to use that bandwidth," says Michael Geist an internet and e-commerce law professor at University of Ottawa. "They're trying to have their cake and eat it, too."
As for the argument that the ISP's are only charging for those few users that are sucking up all the bandwidth, a pay-per-use type metered system, Geist has the answer too.
Geist says that if ISPs truly wanted a metered service, they would lose money because most people don't use that much bandwidth.
"A truly metered system would see many peoples' bills go down," he says. "Of course, that's not what the [ISPs] want to do."
Download limits are another way of saying that the ISP's are charging you for downloading 60GB or whatever your particular limit happens to be whether or not you actually use it. If I were one of their customers that generally didn't use anywhere near that kind of bandwidth, I'd either start complaining that they were charging me too much for what I was using or start looking for free video podcasts and the like so I could make up the slack in all that empty download space I was being charged for anyway.
In any case, another example of why proper Net Neutrality legislation in Canada is so important.
