Letter to my MP regarding the new internet charges

Dear Mr Poilievre (http://www.facebook.com/pierre.poilievre),

You were with the conservative government when your government introduced the following legislation, http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/SOR-2006-355/page-1.html, "Order Issuing a Direction to the CRTC on Implementing the Canadian Telecommunications Policy Objectives". I voted for you in the federal elections, and I have voted conservative all of my life. However this legislation has finally come to implementation and I am sure that it is not achieving what your government wanted - what is the final result of this is the CRTC allowing Bell and other incumbents to implement Usage Based Billing (UBB) on not only its own customers but also to the customers of companies that lease DSL lines from Bell.

Bell Canada already gets a significant monthly fee for each customer that it is leasing a DSL line to for other companies - companies like TekSavvy Inc, Acanac, etc. - and these companies also are required to pay for internet transit for their customers. Bell does NOT incur internet charges for these other companies customers as the internet traffic for a DSL connection is paid by the company that the customer belongs to. What UBB is providing for Bell is a significant profit for zero cost as a result of the CRTC's decision.

I believe in paying for what I consume - I pay for gas in my car, I pay for electricity for my house, etc. But I pay for all of this at competitive rates. The UBB decision provides charges that Bell collects at a markup of hundreds to thousands of percent what the actual charges for internet traffic are. The CRTC even admits that the charges do not represent remotely close to the cost that is incurred for carrying internet traffic - so they are allowing Bell to collect a fee (I would call it a TAX to be honest) that is inflated and they do not need to incur any costs at all in order to collect it.

This is incredibly unreasonable and I believe that it is just allowing a large monopoly to control the market for services that can be accessed digitally - music (iTunes), telephone (VoIP), TV (Netflix, AppleTV) and any other digital media that they (BELL) have an interest in outside of delivery via the internet. Bell ExpressVu is worried about losing satellite customers, Bell Phone is worried, etc.

Thanks to proper competitive markets that were mandated by the CRTC, I was able to convert from a Bell phone customer paying over $50/mo for basic service and the "privilege" of having slightly lower long distance rate TO a customer of TekSavvy telephone (resold Bell Canada telephone lines) for just over $25/mo with a built in long distance rate of 2.9c/min. This has saved me hundreds of dollars over the years that I have been a customer of TekSavvy home phone!

Thanks to proper competitive markets (prior to the CRTC decision), I was able to convert from a Bell Sympatico High-Speed customer paying approximately $50/mo for DSL service (which offered few options, was capped at 60GB bandwidth - which I never exceeded - and required a long-term contract) to a TekSavvy DSL customer for approximately $30/mo where I could get advanced options (static internet address, link multiple DSL lines together to get faster speeds) at reasonable costs. Again this has saved me hundreds of dollars - right back into my pocket - and this was in a competitive environment.

Bell will be allowed to collect $1.70/GB of traffic that I consume over 25 GB per month (this has happened only 6 times over the last 24 months, and never over 60 GB) despite the fact that my DSL provider - TekSavvy Inc. - is already having to pay other internet transit providers for the internet traffic that I used. In addition, the cost to provide 1 GB of internet traffic is in the pennies - yet they (Bell) will collect dollars ($$) for that fee.

Usage Based Billing (UBB) is not about Bell recouping its costs associated with internet traffic, it is all about DISCOURAGING competition and DISCOURAGING customers (their own as well as other companies customers) from using digital resources that threaten their monopoly on TV, Telephone and media. Bell owns CTV - do you not think they are worried that people will watch TV shows on the internet directly from another source other than CTV media, where it is being broadcast on their satellite network or licensed to a cable operator? Bell ExpressVu is dropping digital content (HDNET) yet increasing prices (my Bell ExpressVu bill went up $5/month with no changes at all).

Please do something at the federal government level. This is an anti-competitive, monopolistic move that will serve only to pad the profits of a huge company that is acting only in its own best interests, not the interests of the consumers that the CRTC is supposed to be protecting.

Thank you.