800**

There has been a huge uproar here in Canada regarding the UBB (usage-based billing) for internet use. In a nutshell, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can now charge between $1 and $4 for usage beyond very small caps on internet use. Now, that number doesn't sound like a lot until you factor in that they are charging you a dollar to four dollars for something that costs them less than a penny to provide. That is a markup of 100 to 400 percent!

The other problem is that they are making the caps very small, which all but guarantees the average user will go over their cap every month. The average seems to be around 25 gig a month cap on usage. That sounds like a lot until you start doing the math. Remember that this cap is on both uploads and downloads, so you have to account for what your PC sends as well as what you receive/download.

Now, let's think about this a moment, especially for those who claim "well, I don't download much, this won't affect me":

• Do you have or use an OS, utility, and/or productivity software/suite you use? These programs all need regular maintenance/updating to keep your machine safe, to fix errors, and to improve existing or provide new functionality. Microsoft OS (any), Microsoft Office, Internet browsers, and personal programs on your machine all have this capability now. Those add up, especially if you use online games (which typically patch every week).
• Do you IM, Tweet, or use a social networking site regularly? Each time you send or receive a message, you are adding to your usage total. While the amounts of data sent and received by the average person are small, they add up quickly especially in light of the other uses.
• Do you send emails with attachments? Do you receive emails with attachments? Again, most emails by themselves are small usage amounts toward the cap. However, you add in those pictures from/to your Aunt Mildred, those PDFs you sent for work, etc., and suddenly you are taking megabyte chunks out of your usage. And, remember, usage is bidirectional, so sending and receiving both hit your usage cap!
• Are you any sort of online game player? Whether it be an MMORPG, a cooperative/competitive first-person shooter, that game you like on Facebook, or even online gambling, those sites have to send packets to and receive packets from your PC. Again, they are small amounts, but they are nearly continuous and add up fast toward a usage cap. However, if your game needs to do an update-- all bets are off. A new release MMORPG-style game can frequently have multiple megabyte downloads. I've seen downloads for some of my games in the hundreds of megabytes to even a gig. When some recent games converted from paid to Free To Play, they had huge downloads.
• Are you starting or have you been using "the cloud"? For example, do you use an online site to backup your machine or save your photos? Do you like and use those nifty online Tools, like Google Docs or Yahoo Calendar? Do you use features of an online site, like the Character Builder from Wizard.com to make and print your Dungeons & Dragons characters? Do you do online banking, bill paying, or similar? All of these are, again, small usage hits to your overall cap.
• Do you work from home, even occasionally? Think of all the IMs, emails, PDFs, time spent on your work VPN, etc. that  you do while you're home. Each one of those is now another ding toward your cap limit.
• Do you have TVs, printers, a TiVo (or other DVRs), a Blu-ray player, use VOIP phones, that are connected to the internet? Guess what, each of them is going through your ISP to upload and download information, and all counts toward your usage cap.
• Lastly, do you like to stream video from online sites, or via the web to your internet-compatible devices? If you use Netflix (or similar) to stream movies, you enjoy trolling YouTube for the latest thing, or simply go to a TV network's site to catch that episode of that show you like that you missed last week, all of these are huge hits on your usage. The average movie from Netflix is in the 1 to 4 gig range, depending on quality (Standard versus HD) and length. Hour long TV shows can be up to around 1 gig.

Now, of course, most people don't fall into one of those areas above. Most people do online banking, enjoy IMing and emailing, maybe do a little gaming of some sort. Everyone knows/has that one person who sends pictures and videos to everyone in their email list on a weekly basis. And, all of a sudden, 25 gig doesn't seem so large any more. And you notice that in these examples I didn't even mention illegal downloading of movies or TV shows from peer-to-peer sites. That is because, even without doing something like that, you can easily and quickly surpass usage caps. These UBB laws do NOT target the "highest users" (i.e., the illegal downloaders) as the lawmakers are always trying to convince people.

Let me show you how easy it is to go over your use limits just performing legitimate internet use:

On an average day, between my work use and home use (IMing, email, some game playing, online banking, cloud use, etc.), I am using about 500 meg. This is on the average day. A few days ago, Windows 7 wanted to update (usage was just over 1 gig). Last week, on the same day, two of my online games and my browser updated (total of 2.5 gig of usage). I've started using an online, secure backup site for documents and photos after my wife and I experienced a hectic and expensive situation where a hard drive failed. Nearly all of my banking is done online. I IM with friends and family on a daily basis. I have a FaceBook account. All of this adds up: in the space of the last two weeks, I've hit approximately 30 gig of total internet usage. Which means that I would be paying between $1 and $4 per gig until the start of the next billing cycle with our current ISP. And all of this doesn't even take into consideration my wife's internet use.

Image a family of four, with two teens (the son loves online gaming, the daughter loves tweeting/FaceBooking and sharing photos/videos), one of the two parents works from home at least a few days a week, and the family as a whole likes to stream a Netflix movie on Friday nights and have a family movie night. There are at least three PCs of various sorts in the house, and all of them need updating regularly. A family like this could easily go beyond 25 gig each week! Let's say they average 30 gig per week and don't realize they need to make a change when that first bill arrives. That means that they went over their 25 gig limit the first week, and for the next four weeks racked up a staggering 95 gig of additional usage. At $1-$4 dollars, their bill will be a whopping $95 to $380 more than they are used to and on top of their standard ISP monthly amount (probably around $50+). And all of this is pure profit to the ISP, as it cost them <$0.95 to provide that 95 gig of extra use.

The other side to all of this is that the owners of the internet backbone/network (Bell and Rogers, predominantly) also get to charge those smaller ISPs who are "piggybacking" on their network more for the privilege. This means that those smaller ISPs now have to charge more for the same service as well as instituting UBB. This effectively stifles any competition the big two have, and expands how much the big two can charge their own customers as well.

Canada is already near the bottom of all industrialized nations for internet charges compared to use. Canadians will become Oliver Twist, going up to their big, bad ISP and asking, "Can I have some more, please?" And, if we back up the money truck to their doorstep, they might allow it.

At a time when other countries are laying the foundation for a totally fiber optic internet network (Australia, among others) and other nations are passing laws that internet is a right (Denmark, et al), Canada is taking a huge step backward that will limit competition, limit creativity and job creation, limit growth, and further anger its citizens. It doesn't make a lot of sense.


**In case you're wondering, the title refers to the number of posts on this blog.