In Canada 50Mbps internet now considered a basic service | Hacker News Reader

In Canada 50Mbps internet now considered a basic service

cbc.ca

100 pointsdgudkov52 comments

Let's not get too excited here:

1 The CRTC (our version of the US FCC) chairman said (in the linked article): "The commission's approach to affordability has always been through market forces". Market forces like competition?

2 Three companies control ~90+ % of the Canadian internet market (Rogers, Bell and Telus).

3 Canada has the highest mobile ARPU numbers in the world because of the 'market forces' here [1].

4 It's well known in Canada that the Liberal Party (recently federally elected) is very 'cozy' (not my word) with the big 3 telcos[0].

Merry xmas, Canada's telco oligopoly. Don't spend that 750million all in one place!!! Yours always, PM Trudeau

[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/03/24/liberal-party-cozy-r... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/203642/forecast-for-the-...

I moved to Toronto from the EU a while back and can confirm that the ISPs and mobile carriers are all awful.

Horrific service, decades old technology (I'm still on 3G in Toronto), traffic quotas (low ones at that) and all options are rather expensive.

I had a quick look around, and in .SE you get about 40GB of mobile traffic for 90CAD. The same amount of money will get you 10GB of traffic at Bell in Canada.

The story is identical for residential broadband. It is truly an embarrassment.

As a life-long Canadian, Toronto has always been a bit regressive. As a current resident of rural Ontario, LTE is widely available and even the local farms have residential (uncapped!) fibre. Granted, I don't think there is much improvement on the cost.

I don't think this is a new story either. I remember as a child in the mid-90s, the rural public schools had high speed (for the time, at least) internet connections even back then. I have recollections of the same time period that Toronto schools were still trying to figure out how to get online at all, and were experimenting with dialup.

You even see this manifest in other areas. Like, it was only a year ago that it was big news that Toronto was soon going to be able to buy beer in grocery stores, which I found a bit funny. Rural Ontario has been able to buy a wide range of alcohol products in grocery stores since the 1960s.

>Horrific service, decades old technology (I'm still on 3G in Toronto), traffic quotas (low ones at that) and all options are rather expensive.

I agree that the service it horrific and expensive compared to Europe. But why are you still on 3G when every major carrier offers LTE in Toronto? The technology isn't decades old -- in most public places LTE is just a bit slower than wifi.

Wind (Freedom Mobile) started offering LTE very recently.

That too, on just 2 phones that you HAVE to purchase from them and on newer sim cards that you have to pay for (over the monthly $40/6 GB cost).

They did, but on band 62 which is not supported by any mainstream phone.

AWS-3 is B66, NOT 62. They also still have 'legacy' AWS-1 which MANY "mainstream" devices support.

I live in small-town BC and get 150/150 for $85 a month with no caps. Surely you, in the Centre of the Universe[0], can do better than what you have now.

[0] How non-Torontonians sarcastically refer to Toronto

I live in the GTA area, and pay ~$40 for just 12/1 (on Acanac).

I honestly can't wait for gigabit fiber to expand to outskirts like Ajax and Oshawa.

150/50 via Bell is ~ $100/mth in TO

There are plenty of third party ISPs that offer plans without data caps.

I've used Start.ca for a few years now and I've been very happy with the service.

Mobile is indeed quite awful, though.

The challenge a lot of people face, particularly in the downtown of cities, is that Bell, Telus and Rogers are locking up entire condo buildings with "exclusive provider" access by wiring the building at construction..

So if you move in, you have to sign up with whoever signed that deal. And it's not like you get a discount or some kind of special service, you just lose the choice.

I found this out the hard way when I moved into my current place last fall. I was with Teksavvy (a relatively good 3rd party independent ISP) and when I called to schedule my move, they told me they couldn't service me in my new building, and I was forced to sign up with Rogers (who provide good service, but it's more expensive).

Now I know this is a thing (and I found out it's quite common), so I'll be more careful next time, but I bet a lot of people don't know (or care), so this is yet another way that the big telcos are doing everything they can to undermine customer choice in Canada.

> locking up entire condo buildings with "exclusive provider" access by wiring the building at construction..

These days, that sort of thing has got to affect sale/resale value to a small, but still noticeable extent. If it doesn't, it should. That should help to discourage those arrangements in the long run.

My previous apartment building (condos, although I rented) in downtown San Francisco had such a wiring deal with AT&T U-verse from its 2008 construction up until around a year ago. Apparently enough of the condo owners got fed up and got the homeowner association to rewire everything and bring in a new ISP (the mostly excellent Webpass).

They do the same stunt in the US. Most apartment complexes can only get Comcast or AT&T (typically not both, or only DSL at highly reduced speeds (768kbps vs 100-200mbit for cable).

Thanks for the heads up. I'll definitely watch for this next time I move.

This is my situation with Comcast in Boston.

My Dad lives in a tiny town about 90 minutes outside of Toronto. They have a municipal telephone company owned by the town residents and his internet service is very good. They started doing FTTH years ago.

I live in Mississauga and commute every day to downtown Toronto and I am always on LTE. Which carrier are you using? Wind?

What's worse is how many Canadians seem to defend these awful companies and the lack of competition.

Still on 3G in Toronto?? Weird considering almost every carrier has Southern Ontario blanketed with LTE..

Not Wind. Or rather Freedom as they're now called.

They just launched LTE. But mostly in Hamilton and only on the utterly useless frequency band 62, which is not supported be any mainstream phone.

Customers of a larger provider had their rates go up. While those of a smaller reseller went down. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/crtc-teksavvy-1.3906730

We've seen how well other basic services have been handled and priced. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/07/21/ontario-hydro-rates_...

Tip for Vancouver people:

Urban Fibre gives home gigabit ethernet service for less than I was paying Shaw for 3Mb/s via cable. So nice to not feel ripped off.

I'm not affiliated with them.

Now if only my cell data wasn't so crazy expensive...

I have Urban Fibre, but are they available everywhere? They're up on Burnaby Mountain, but where else? I was under the impression that they were formed to sell access to a fibre link to downtown from a defunct government project?

Re 2: I know they dominate the cell phone market, but that can't be accurate. Shaw, Eastlink and Videotron have massive marketshare in their respective regions.

Shaws "region" is everywhere west of Hamilton (Toronto). Eastern Canada is Rogers (cable) and Bell (adsl) and Western Canada is Shaw (cable) and Telus (adsl)

Right, Shaw, Telus, SaskTel, MTS (soon to be Bell), and TBayTel are the players west of Sault St Marie. Cogeco, Rogers, Bell, and Videotron get the majority of Ontario and Quebec. Eastlink, Rogers, and Bell Aliant get the Atlantic provinces. My point more generally is that while Telus, Bell and Rogers (rightly) get a lot of grief for their actions in the cellular market, home ISPs are a different thing. Because Bell and Rogers dominate the golden horseshoe, they get most of the media coverage, but we shouldn't forget the influence the other players have.

Very nice. In switzerland we only have 4 mbits basic coverage but everbody has by law to get it anywhere he lives. The internet is too essential for all knowledge driven economies and therefore should be guaranteed for every citizen like water and power.

I have 4Mbits and I very rarely feel the need for more. Even for large isos. But I don't use it for TV and phone at the same time.

If you're really motivated you can make a tiny proxy too, too improve DNS and HTTP response times, caching stuff and filtering ads at the network level.

Easy for such a small country to say. Canada's population is much more spread out, over a much larger space.

Canada's population is highly urbanized and concentrated in cities near our southern border. More urbanized than Switzerland (GP comment). Not an explanation for our uncompetitive mobile and broadband data markets.

Canada urban population: 81.8% of total population (2015)

Switzerland urban population: 73.9% of total population (2015)

[0] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

This a common argument I encounter, and it is a bit of a straw man.

The offerings in densely populated areas are not better.

Find this funny. Where 1GB LTE data only costs $75/month. That would be about £5/8CAD in the UK.

PS: population density isn't that important for cell service, before people start saying that. In fact higher population density is actually really expensive for cell coverage. A 700MHz LTE site can probably do 50km range these days.

With Fido in Quebec, I pay 15$/month for 3GB on a data-only plan. I run my phone (voice calls) over SIP (using VoIP.ms) for less than 5$/month. VoIP.ms also does SMS.

I wouldn't recommend it to someone who uses voice calls a lot, but in my case most people text (signal/WhatsApp), even my clients. I have a desk VoIP phone for important calls (I do a lot of sales and support).

I was thinking of doing the same thing. What voip app do you use?

csipsimple on Android

>Where 1GB LTE data only costs $75/month.

This price includes phone subsidy and talks. In Ontario Fido offers 1GB LTE for as low as $15 [1] (some limitations apply), which is not as cheap as in Europe, but not as expensive as you claim.

[1] https://www.fido.ca/consumer/mobile/data

Ok, fair enough, Fido does seem a lot cheaper than Rogers. But a 'normal' phone plan including minutes and SMS seems to start at $55/month for 3GB, which is eye wateringly expensive. That would be £10/month in the UK.

I pay £20/month for 20GB data, unlimited sms/calls, and there's actually better deals available than that now (30GB for £18/month with unlimited roaming, sms and calls).

On fido that would be $300+.

Also, let's not forget how awesome the similar US National Broadband Plan [0] worked out...

[0] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150728/08375931774/shock...

I live in Romania, where 100/100 is the cheapest and worst service you can get for $6.45, while the most expensive option is 1000/300 at $9, without any data caps.

It always strikes me as really weird and potentially bad that providers not only don't invest in infrastructure, but actively try and limit the use of their current one in every western country. I'd love to see a study on how much profit the economy's losing out on thanks to this.

Somewhat unrelated, but I'm home for Christmas at my mom's house, and she has a nice and fast 50Mbps fiber connection. However, the Wi-Fi is able to sustain about 1Mbps. I don't have a specific point about this but Wi-Fi can drive you crazy.

Heh, reminds me of a 100 Mbps fiber connection I had... with the slowest router in existence, which could only push 45 Mbps before literally dying (simply stopped responding). I wonder if the ISP used those on purpose...

As somebody that lives quite literally half way between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa the closest town (one I also live in) still doesn't have fiber and barely proper Cable/DSL. They have the TO-MTL Bell fiber backbone going along the Heritage Highway (the St. Lawrence River) Everything is over Cable here. 250/20 Mbps and Unlimited data is over $130 a month, but not everybody in the city can get that. Most of the city is still on old Bell copper which is just DSL speeds. 6/.5 Mbps "maybe" and if you want to use your phone at the same time the line being so old and congested you will probably get dropped.

The second house I live at is 15 KM north of this city. I have no Bell (copper of any kind), no Cable... Just Hydro. Meaning my next bet is to installed a 80'-100' tower and do Wireless Internet (2.4 GHz and 5.6 GHz technology). 6/.85 with a soft cap of 200 GB at $66 a month or 10/1 with a soft cap of 200 GB for $100 (this is only for certain Sectors which are suitable, luckily I am one of them).

This is on top of paying monthly for the equipment rental or buying it out right. The towers alone can cost $1,000+ (it was $250 just to have it anchored with guide wires). Let's not even get started on Ping Speeds I'm thankfully between 30 ms to 150 ms on average. But I've hit over 1500 ms on days, and Rain Effect (especially being in Canada where it snows A LOT) makes connections almost impossible.

Though I would love the CRTC to do something of this, I'm sure I don't qualify as "Remote" or "Rural" enough. It's a scam really (3ish major providers with 1% or so it seems of actual coverage) and if you work from home you are literally out of luck. Especially when within a 25 KM radius there are only TWO cell phone towers. The one that is closest that provides the best signal and speeds is slightly off on its pointed degree and angle so I can't pick it up so I receive the farthest cell tower away which gives me about 1 bar of 3G, I'm often on 2G (which will be shut off soon) and rarely LTE. Then if I do use my cellular data that's $52 per ONE GB over your plan. Its a pointless battle.

I understand most of the population lives within a few hours of the border, and "remote and rural" are priorities but even people 20 minutes away from big cities have it rougher than most think. Something needs to be done.

And here I am paying $23.60 for just 10Mbps [1] ಠ_ಠ

[1] http://www.une.com.co/internet

$90 for 28 Mbps. However, I only get 10 Mb/s, the speed we had paid for previously. Every time I try to get back to 10 Mb/s prices AT&T attempts to repair it, sends a person for diagnostics, acknowledges there is a problem, sends someone who replaces the modem, and then claims the problem is fixed. This has happened three times.

How about $40/month for 12, but capped? [0]

[0] https://www.exetel.com.au/broadband/nbn

$55/mo for unlimited though. That's pretty acceptable.

I used to pay about $90USD for 12-15mbps in Oman, horrible ping (300ms) and censored (voip blocking, 'hacking sites', pornography, political content)

Mods: I submitted this article (link to the exact same article, exact same url), before dgudkov. How did this submission get accepted as being unique?

I'm lucky to get 1.5mbit out here in the sticks with centurylink for $45/mo, without any upgrade plans. Internet in rural America leaves something to be desired.

I'm on CenturyLink's newer fiber offering (symmetrical 100Mbps) and am happy as a clam. Until I have to call them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com