The Tyee | Mediacheck: Canadians Just Became World's Biggest Internet Losers

Only here, big telecoms get to say you use 'too much' internet and whack on more charges, the CRTC affirmed yesterday.

By David Beers for The Tyee

YouTube, Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, iPad. . . and whatever else is about to take the world by storm, making all of those digital breakthroughs seem old news. Surely it's obvious by now that Canadians are going to be better off if we foster digital media creativity, rather than leaving it to people in other countries.

But tell that to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the body supposedly responsible for regulating electronic media for our well-being. The CRTC has decided to allow Bell and other big telecom companies to change the way Canadians are billed for Internet access. Metering, or usage-based billing (UBB), will mean that service providers can charge per byte in addition to their basic access charges.

The move is sure to stifle digital creativity in Canada while the rest of the world looks on and snickers.

This is not what a lot of small Internet providers who use Bell Canada's infrastructure wanted. But they are now subject to Bell Canada's requirements, and will be forced to usage-bill their own customers. That's how it's already rippling out to create an entirely different economy of Internet use in Canada. That's what the big telecoms wanted and the CRTC is in the process of giving it to them. Read more »

--
Read more at thetyee.ca