Canadians getting ripped off on internet rates (NDP)

[Drew Wilson]

Ottawa – Canada has gone from world leader to world laggard in terms of digital access and its citizens are paying the price, says New Democrat MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay).

According to a recent report by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Canada has fallen, under the Conservative government, to 20th place in terms of speed and 25th out of 26th terms of affordability among industrialized countries.

“Canadians are paying some of the highest costs for some of the lowest speeds. A small cabal of cable giants have been allowed to squeeze out competition and slow down innovation while dinging the consumer for third-rate service.”

Angus says Canada is being left behind because a hands-off policy towards a small group of cable giants who control the Canadian market.

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Is it bad to applaud a politician for stating the obvious?

[mountain_rage]

We are also the world second largest country, leading to us having some of the lowest population density numbers. More lines per customer means higher cost of installation and higher maintenance fee's. Increase competition won't change the prices much, although some markets that are getting raped would see a drop in prices. That is about the only thing competition will bring, is a stabilization of prices across the country. In order to improve the infrastructure the government would either have to build and license the network themselves, which I have no faith in the governments handling of IT infrastructure, they can't even run a simple gun registry properly. The other option would be to encourage the development of new technology designed to speed up and increase the efficiency of the internet, such as what I will call the pseudo p2p model, where data in transmission can branch off and be sent to a second user. Personally I would love to see better prices and faster internet, but the debate being forged is being led by people with no real knowledge of the scenario, its the blind leading the blind.