I’ve always said that ISPs should be able to charge (to a reasonable extent) based on usage, the same way that phone companies and cable providers already do. However, there are three big problems with the way this ruling is being handled :
1. The rate hikes in a lot of cases don’t resemble anything slightly reasonable. In a lot of cases, users will pay the same amount for 20% of the bandwidth per month that they had before. That’s a ludicrous ‘overnight’ price increase.
2. Your ISP can just tear up your existing contract and make you replace it with a new one that’s probably worse. If a user were to try to do that, they’d be either charged a cancellation fee or worse. Why should it be any different for the other side of the deal? The existing contracts should come to an end BEFORE any changes can be made.
3. Small Internet providers are basically screwed. Since the Big 4 (Telus, Shaw, Rogers & Bell) essentially have been handed control of the network, the small companies have no say in the matter. They’re handed new billing protocols and told to suck it up. That’s fine for network the big companies have put in place themselves, but a lot of that network was in fact paid for by the taxpayers…why the Hell do the big providers get to control something they didn’t pay for to begin with? Essentially, this whole ruling will probably kill off the small ISPs since there is no longer anything they can offer beyond the big boys, so why not just sign with one of the big boys?
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