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Why I am happy with my Independent ISP
Posted by Laurel L. Russwurm on February 11, 2011
“Effective March 1st we are going to move forward and make changes to
the Usage, but we’re going to make it a positive one!We are reinstating the Unlimited package but the 200GB package will be
changed… to 300GB! UBB is about Internet Costs, and as a result of
lower costs with our providers (Peer1, Lime Light, etc…), costs
outside our relationship with companies like Bell, we are extending
the savings on to you, the clients… Enjoy!”— excerpt from TekSavvy email received February 11th, 2011
Wow.
Thank you TekSavvy.
It’s not over yet.
Usage Based Billing has NOT been cancelled, only postponed.
The CRTC is not doing their job, but rather doing a disservice to Canada.
If you haven’t already, sign the petition. There are only 14689 signatures.
If you have already signed, who else should you be asking to sign?
That’s easy: anyone who uses the Internet.
Because Usage Based Billing will harm not only Canadians, but our Economy.
http://dissolvethecrtc.ca/
You can also call or write your MP, MP postal code look-up
Heritage Minister James Moore – email: Moore.J@parl.gc.ca
Industry Minister Tony Clement – email: Clemet1@parl.gc.ca
Prime Minister Stephen Harper – email: Harper.S@parl.gc.ca
After all, they work for us, don’t they?
STOP Usage Based Billing
interweb freedom 
Tyciol said
Reading that made me feel warm inside… I’m not sure I understood it though. Does this mean that TekSavvy is buying up last mile service from people besides Rogers?
Laurel L. Russwurm said
Me too. It’s not often that the customer doesn’t get it in the neck. Of course, that is probably the biggest reason why the Independent ISPs have such a loyal customer base. For myself, even if Bell’s UBB is implemented, I would continue to be a TekSavvy customer in spite of rising costs because of the quality of their customer service.
I know that TekSavvy leases last mile from Bell in my area, I wasn’t aware that they dealt with Rogers as well, but I am by no means an expert. merely a customer.
The thing to remember about last mile, is that neither Tek Savvy or any other Independent will ever run physical infrastructure over the last mile, because the last mile is already overburdened with both phone wire and television cable. Citizens supported government initiative to protect the telephone/cable duopoly to make it possible only because Canadians supported connectivity, not because we wanted to be gouged.
Bob Jonkman said
The last mile is the connection that comes into your home from the nearby Bell exchange office (for phones), or, for cable TV, from the cable headend amplifiers. Cable and Phone last miles are completely separate from each other.
For telephony, the last mile is also called the “Local Loop”. Since Bell is required to provide access to third-party providers, it is also called the “Unbundled Local Loop”. But that has nothing to do with UBB.
In the Bell exchange building the local loop connects to a box called a DSLAM or Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer. That connects to the GAS or Gateway Access Service, which could be a fibre or copper line that runs many tens or even hundreds of kilometres to an Internet peering point, where finally the third-party ISPs get to connect their own equipment.
UBB applies to the GAS or Gateway Access Service. Bell is also required to provide third-party access to their GAS, and it’s on the GAS that they do Deep Packet Inspection for throttling and UBB.
Because the local loop only carries a signal for one home or business there is no danger of over-burdening it. The local loop can easily sustain 50 Mbps (Megabits per second, or a million bits per second) of traffic, but Bell typically provides only 3 to 5 Mbps.
On the other hand, the DSLAM and GAS are shared by many subscribers. But one strand of single-mode fibre can handle a Gigabit per second (Gbps), and a typical fibre installation is six or more strands of multi-mode fibre. A fibre line under lab conditions can handle Petabits per second. A Gigabit is a thousand Megabits, a Terabit is a million Megabits and a Petabit is a thousand million Megabits.
I don’t believe there is any chance of congestion until Bell gets millions of subscribers on a single GAS.
And yes, Teksavvy uses GAS for their DSL service, and the local loops for both telephone and Cable (in Ontario, anyway). I think they buy GAS as a chunk of bandwidth, eg. for $10,000 per month they get about 500,000 Gigabits of data transfer (based on Rocky Gaudreau’s statement that bandwidth costs about 2 cents per Gigabit).
–Bob.
Laurel L. Russwurm said
That’s really good information, but I’m pretty sure it indicates, that I wasn’t very clear that when talking about ‘the last mile’, what I was referring to was the right of way or easement that exists which allows government sanctioned utilities to lay pipe and run wire across private property for the public good. Even though I don’t have cable TV, but the cable runs across my property just the same. My thinking is that if we had twenty Internet service providers in our neighborhood, we wouldn’t want to have our yards and streets dug up twenty times so they can each run wire to our houses.
Links 12/2/2011: Intel Backs MeeGo, Java Doing OK | Techrights said
[…] Why I am happy with my Independent ISP We are reinstating the Unlimited package but the 200GB package will be changed… to 300GB! UBB is about Internet Costs, and as a result of lower costs with our providers (Peer1, Lime Light, etc…), costs outside our relationship with companies like Bell, we are extending the savings on to you, the clients… Enjoy!” […]