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Yet even with the NN, Canadians still pay the highest Internet and mobile charges in the world! [0] They are more taxed than anyone and they still have severe b

• thomastjeffery 9y ago
  Do you think that Net Neutrality is about cost? If so, you are misunderstanding what Net Neutrality is. Go read about it, as there is more than plenty, readily available on the subject.
  • ekianjo 9y ago
    Its not about cost but if internet access is expensive or constrained in bandwidth it severly limits its utility.
    • tjoff 9y ago
      It doesn't. At all. If anything it makes it even worse, where prioritizing one type of data has an even bigger impact and can quickly cement the presence of companies such as facebook and obliterate any competitors.
      • ekianjo 9y ago
        > It doesn't. At all. Not At all? Are you sure? Ever tried to use video streaming services when your bandwidth is capped at 10 Gb per month?
        • tjoff 9y ago
          Yes, I'm positive. > Ever tried to use video streaming services when your bandwidth is capped at 10 Gb per month? That's the whole point. You can't. But hey, lucky for you your ISP has partnered up with netflix, and thus netflix streaming doesn't count towards that data cap. Awesome huh? Most customers will think so. But in reality it's nothing but a death blow to all of netflix competitors.
  • lloeki 9y ago
    The argument is that Net Neutrality is a regulatory device, thus hampers proper free market competition, hence prevents prices from properly going down. To me Net Neutrality is a needed regulation that forces telco ops to compete on telco stuff. In that framework it's a free market competition and it does bring prices down as well as allows additional players to enter the game on ground unbiased by deep pocketed content production, which is a venue in direct conflict of interest with the telco (i.e be a pipe) side of things.
    • TheRealPomax 9y ago
      That's a false chain of reasoning. It's a regulatory device that prevents discrimination of service based on content and origin. It does not hamper free market competition, it protects human beings from monopolies and cartels and sets up the legal framework within which the free market is allowed to operate. Pretty much every industry has these regulations, and the market's doing just fine. You can't have an actually working free market without a regulatory oversight to act as feedback coupling. You need a dampening force, it just needs to be appropriate to the times, and net neutrality is appropriate to the now.
      • lloeki 9y ago
        > That's a false chain of reasoning. Agreed, I was merely outlining the opposite side argument in a very concise way so that it's immediately obvious how much broken it is. > It does not hamper free market competition, it protects human beings from monopolies and cartels and sets up the legal framework within which the free market is allowed to operate. This is precisely my opinion, as stated in my second paragraph.
    • thomastjeffery 9y ago
      The flaw in that argument is the idea that all regulation always significantly hampers free market competition. That is so clearly not the case with this specific regulation, that your conclusion is total nonsense. Net Neutrality is a term describing a necessary quality for the internet to have in order to be a free market. Net Neutrality regulation is necessary because ISPs do not have competition to prevent them from breaking that. Net Neutrality regulation requires ISPs to keep a few records, costing them a tiny amount, which is totally reasonable, and will not hamper the free market in any way.
  • dingo_bat 9y ago
    Net neutrality is 100% about cost. If you don't think so, you are misunderstanding what Net Neutrality is. Go read about it, as there is more than plenty, readily available on the subject.
    • tempestn 9y ago
      Saying, "X is true; if you disagree, you're misinformed and should go inform yourself," isn't particularly productive. Obviously the parent is basing their opinion on different information than you, so to refute that opinion it would be helpful to prevent some evidence or reasoning.
      • dingo_bat 9y ago
        I don't think you noticed that I was trying to make the same point.
        • tempestn 9y ago
          You're right; your comment ended up below a couple other siblings and I lost the thread. My reply should have been to your parent.
    • thomastjeffery 9y ago
      I assure you I have read about it. The only cost associated with net neutrality regulation is a minimal bookkeeping one. The only cost associated with net neutrality itself is the potential cost for consumers without it.
  • hackeraccount 9y ago
    That's the question isn't it. Ask someone what Net Neutrality is and they'll say "ISP's can't discriminate on data by source". Ask them what it will do and it turns out that it will fix every problem you don't like about your ISP. They charge too much? Fixed. They throttle bittorrent? Fixed. Poor service? Fixed. Too slow? Too much latency? And beauty of it is that when it's been effect for 20 years and I look around and all those things still happen ... well, imagine how bad it would have been without Net Neutrality. Frankly I think for most people this is just a political chip. We want this because the other guys don't and vice versa. When we get this win we hurt the people who support so many other things that we don't like. The weird thing is that the logic of thought is perfectly reasonable.
    • thomastjeffery 9y ago
      > Frankly I think for most people this is just a political chip. The only bandwagon I see is the one in opposition to net neutrality regulation. It's a bandwagon against any and all regulation, as if the word "regulation" suddenly makes something malicious. The rest of us actually considered the details and implications, or trusted someone else who did.
• elchief 9y ago
  Eh. I live in vancouver and pay $34/mo for fibre and $40/mo for unlimited LTE + calling. I lived in Florida and my net taxes, incl health insurance was the same
  • parthdesai 9y ago
    $40/mo for unlimited LTE + calling is absolutely not the norm here in Ontario at least. I pay $40/mo with freedom for "unlimited" LTE but signal is iffy if you go to suburbs (works for me since i live and work in DT). Check all the deals today, and every provider is giving $50/$60 per month for 10 gb data + unlimited calling.
    • tempestn 9y ago
      Note that only Koodo and Freedom are offering this indefinitely. The other carriers' plans expire after 2 years. If trends continue it will be possible to find something at least as good by then, but no guarantees. I just switched to Koodo from Fido, since Freedom isn't available on Vancouver Island.
  • zeep 9y ago
    In Florida, I pay $20/mo for 10mbps cable and it includes 5 cellphone lines w/ unlimited voice+text and 100mb mobile data... $12/month for each additional gb or $45 for unlimited data, shared among the 5 cellphones. https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/plan https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/plan To keep the $20/mo, I will have to call them after 1 year of service. In Canada, isn't there a data cap on your fiber internet? I think I have 1tb/mo here for my cable internet.
    • ukyrgf 9y ago
      "I will have to call them" ends after a few years. I got brickwalleded trying to renew my starter fees last time; they've raised rates so many times and don't care (and added data caps).
    • freeone3000 9y ago
      Depends on the carrier. I've always been able to add "unlimited usage" as an add-on (usually about $15). I'm currently on Videotron's 1Gbps package which is unlimited.
• Reason077 9y ago
  "Given how their market is ruled by very few large companies, NN is a moot point" Exactly the opposite is true. NN is most important when you have a market dominated by a few large companies! In Europe, we don't have net neutrality. It's common to see plans marketed with free/unlimited data favouring specific services, such as Netflix. But neutrality just isn't a big issue so long as there is plenty of competition among providers. If one company is giving slow speeds (or high charges) to your favourite services, you just switch. There's plenty of choices. Surely the real issue in the US & Canada is the limited competition among monopolistic carriers and service providers. Net neutrality is just a smokescreen!
  • everhardt 9y ago
    In Europe, we don't have net neutrality. In Europe, we do have net neutrality. The EU wide legal framework has some big loopholes though, like allowing countries to decide whether they want to allow zero rating. And indeed, some countries did so. See for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_law#European_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_law#European_... and https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/27/eu-net-neutrality-laws-fatally-undermined-by-loopholes-critics-say https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/27/eu-net-ne...
    • Reason077 9y ago
      I wouldn't call it a loophole. The EU framework does not try to include pricing at all. And indeed the practice of "zero rating" seems increasingly widespread. It's not a case of opting out: member states would have to make their own, stricter rules if they wanted to ban zero rating. Surely non-discriminatory pricing of services is a fundamental principle of net neutrality? Without it, you can't really say Europe has net neutrality at all.
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• ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
  Their politicians always like to pat themselves on the back and are trying to present Canadian situation as better than the US all the time. But the reality is not so clear cut. It’s a shame so many people in Canada fall for it and let them get away with it meaning nothing changes.
  • refurb 9y ago
    This is a common ploy of Canadian politicians. Talk about how much better we have it than the US, but ignore all the things that are worse.
• AYBABTME 9y ago
  Canadians end up paying the same in taxes if you add healthcare coverage costs in the US, and in the end you get a lot more bang for your tax bucks in Canada than in the US. On NN, it’s even more important up there precisely since there’s little competition.
  • dd36 9y ago
    I’ve always wondered about this: does this include military spending? If half of our taxes go to military and many countries have little or no military, are Americans doing more with even less? Or are we just getting relatively more screwed?
    • adventured 9y ago
      There's no way around it: US healthcare realistically costs about twice as much as what comparable developed nations pay per capita. That's a combination of a few things: 1) US wages are far higher than most developed nations (50% higher than Japan for example). People often want to blame eg big pharma for costs, or big insurance; in reality, those are only about 1/4 of the $1 trillion over-cost problem, the rest is over-consumption of services and very high wages in the health system (eg radiologists will make three to five times in the US what they do in France; nurses in the US make ~60% more than nurses in Germany). 2) US healthcare consumers consume far more healthcare services than in other developed nations. Americans are used to heavily abusing their healthcare. One of the biggest ways socialized systems bring down costs is by aggressively rationing care. 3) US health is quite poor at the median, thanks to diet and lifestyle in general. Some other nations like Britain have partially caught up to the US in obesity, but the US still leads. Combine mediocre health with a system in which the consumers over-consume healthcare services, and you get an explosion of cost. That cost spike happens to coincide almost perfectly with the ramp up in obesity in the US during the 1990s (the aging boomers also accelerated it). 4) US healthcare consumers have a big layer of separation between them and their healthcare costs. The majority never actually touch the real cost of their healthcare. They're getting their health coverage either through government programs, or through their employer. That has been a big cause of the healthcare cost inflation. The US has a badly structured government-market healthcare system today, that has few mechanisms to restrain costs well (either on the market side or the government side).
• dade_ 9y ago
  There is competition in most markets, but people are lazy and stick with the incombent telcos and cable companies which slows the expansion of competitive players. I live in probably the most competitive market and I am paying 100 CAD/month for unlimited gigabit, unrestricted Internet. Net neutrality has been critical because the incumbent players have usage caps, and have tried to offer bundled services that aren't metered. This was stopped by the CRTC, but it is exactly how regulation restricts anti-competitive activities.
  • exhilaration 9y ago
    Where do you live?
    • RedCrowbar 9y ago
      I'm not the gp, but at least in downtown Toronto there are several providers offering uncapped fiber connections at reasonable prices: https://www.beanfield.com/residential/ https://www.beanfield.com/residential/ https://www.coextro.com/ https://www.coextro.com/
    • 131012 9y ago
      It's all about the cables in rural Canada. We have decent offer in urban centers, but in Podunk, New Brunswick or whichever the snowbank you're stuck in you often have to rely on the only telco covering the area.
  • StavrosK 9y ago
    > I live in probably the most competitive market Well, that's why. Competition drives prices down.
  • kdbg 9y ago
    And for comparison, I live in one of the less competitive markets (Saskatchewan [SK]) Currently paying $90CAD for 25mbps down 2mbps up which is the fastest available plan from the only ISP with unlimited data Ignoring satellite options there is one other ISP that can serve my house. The best plan from them is around $60CAD a month for 10mbps down and 1mbps up with 120gb of data. For some context, I don't live in one of the two big cities of SK, but I'm not out on a farm or anything either so I think my experience is similar to most in SK that are not farmers or in Regina/Saskatoon (the two biggest cities in SK)
• suryacom 9y ago
  > Their politicians always like to pat themselves on the back and are trying to present Canadian situation as better than the US all the time. Lol. This reminds me of their highly publicized welcoming of undocumented immigrants after Trump was elected. But, once that count crossed thousand, they just shut their border.
• concatime 9y ago
  The high prices may be explained (but not entirely) by 1) little market (36 millions) 2) wide area to cover. Only Quebec is like France x 5.
• lurr 9y ago
  > NN is a moot point for them NN has never guaranteed you cheap internet, fast internet, or choice in internet.