Heap Overrun

The current debate surrounding the CRTC's usage-based billing decision has led to a polarized debate the likes of which are rarely seen outside of political or religious debates. Maclean's has come out in favour of usage-based billing along with many other industry players, while those against usage-based billing seem to be actual consumers, although not necessarily consumers who are currently affected. It has been stated that Canadians who signed the Stop The Meter petition didn't understand what they were signing, along with the other valid issues of online petitions. The problem is, this allegation is most likely both true by a technicality but boldly and obviously false if you look at the overall impression.

For whatever reason, likely to draw attention to an existing problem and incite greater wrath than may have otherwise been shown, the Stop The Meter campaign has not made obvious that the usage-based billing decision was not actually about forcing usage-based billing on consumers. That was certainly an end result, but given that the majority of Canadians with an Internet connection are already on a connection plan that uses "economic measures" to control the bandwidth used (in addition to the Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and throttling some ISPs are using) the most far-reaching effects of the usage-based billing decision was actually to force a specific business model on a group of competing ISPs. A number of ISPs don't actually own the so-called "last mile" connections, which is what actually connects each and every individual home to the ISP's network. Instead, they rent space on an incumbent ISP's network and take advantage of existing infrastructure. Provided that the incumbent ISP continues to properly invest in their network and add capacity to meet anticipated demand, this works quite well and promotes competition in the areas where smaller ISPs actually operate. This is exactly what was observed in Canada, as smaller ISPs (such as Teksavvy) rent space from the large incumbent ISPs (like Bell Canada) and offer their own unique Internet packages. One thing that has made the smaller ISPs an attractive alternative has been the lack of bandwidth caps. Companies such as Teksavvy built their business model without a desire to charge their customers based on the amount of bandwidth they consume. Bell (and others) had decided to go a different route and charge based on the amount of bandwidth used by a consumer. In other words, usage-based billing has already been in place from the larger incumbent ISPs for quite some time. It is this last bit of choice in the market that the usage-based billing decision affects. Incumbent ISPs are now permitted to apply the same usage-based billing to their wholesale customers (the smaller ISPs like Teksavvy who rent space on Bell's network) as they apply to their retail customers. This has the direct effect of forcing a single business model on the entire market and forcibly removing the only real way smaller ISPs have had to noticably and effectively differentiate their services from their larger competitors. Regardless of how it was portrayed, this is the result of the CRTC's usage-based billing decision. Some people surely didn't (possibly still don't) understand this, but others have definitely understood and have a much bigger problem because of the market effects. The CRTC is normally supposed to rely on market forces as much as possible, but here they have unfairly and directly influenced what those market forces are.

Those in favour of allowing usage-based billing to be forced upon everyone generally fall back to the idea (or strictly argue) that it's not fair for "light" Internet users to subsidize "heavy" Internet users this Globe and Mail article arguing the same point). The linked Maclean's article scoffs at the idea that this usage-based billing fiasco will hold Canada back in the dark ages of the Internet, saying that it's a failing of the current Conservative leadership to allow popular opinion to dictate policy. And they're both right. Any government that expects to get re-elected must listen to popular opinion — not the vocal minority — and move the country in the direction the people want it to go. Perhaps this is what the Maclean's editors intended, but it certainly did not come across that way and I haven't found a poll that claims to put those against usage-based billing in the "vocal minority" category. Quite the opposite. On the other hand, the Macleans editors are right; usage-based billing won't "condemn Canada to backwater Internet status". We were already there. Usage-based billing can't condemn us when we've been condemned already. If Maclean's is right in saying that Canada has "one of the fastest and most modern Internet networks in the world", the proverbial pipes are carrying a mere trickle compared to the 1Gbps symmetric plan offered in Hong Kong. It is also somewhat difficult to believe that the large ISPs will actually invest in network upgrades to increase the amount of data they dole out when Rogers reduced the bandwidth cap on one of its lower plans shortly before Netflix came to Canada. Did it honestly become more expensive for Rogers to deliver data for just Rogers Lite customers conveniently right before a competitor enters the Canadian market? Bell Canada is no better; they likely stand to profit more from network upgrades to better sell you one of their IPTV plans than network upgrades to deliver you your data faster or to increase their bandwidth caps. Yes, Internet Protocol Television, as in television delivered over the same Internet as the content you access via web browser. There's surely a good corporate explanation, but it all seems rather too convenient. Normally we could argue that consumers can vote with their wallets, but with Internet, telephone, mobile phone, television and mobile data, your vote ends up being for "really expensive bad service", "expensive really bad service" or "really expensive really bad service". No, those don't necessarily correspond to Rogers or Bell, it depends on your plan. My Internet with Rogers falls into the "really expensive bad service" category on a good day, my mobile phone is squarely in the "really expensive really bad service" area and my television is typically in the "really expensive bad service" category. Most of Bell Aliant's offers appear to fall in the same areas. Although to be fair to Bell Canada, I've never spoken to anyone from Bell who couldn't speak English.

Another thing that proponents of usage-based billing point to is the limited network space available and the congestion caused by "heavy" Internet users. This still ties in to the argument that "light" Internet users shouldn't be expected to subsidize "heavy" Internet users. It's very hard to argue on either side of this without seeing some real numbers on network utilization and available bandwidth. Those, of course, are closely guarded competitive secrets that we are never allowed to know. If the Internet is becoming ever more important to not only our national economy but to individuals, should we be penalized for using the Internet? The labels "light" user and "heavy" user are little more than convenient terms. "Light" users are better thought of as those who are still using the Internet as it was used yesterday, while "heavy" users are simply those who are using the Internet the way "light" users will be using it tomorrow.

Think about this for a minute: you're already being charged to download a movie from Netflix. Why should you be charged twice for downloading the same content just once?