Another coalition of competitive ISPs has written [pdf, 266KB] to the CRTC to block interim approval of a Bell / Bell Aliant proposal [Tariff Notice 7181, zip, 148 KB]to implement usage based billing on wholesale internet access services.
This closely follows a coalition filing that we described on Tuesday.
Today’s filing comes from a broader group of 8 ISPs plus CAIP: Accelerated Communications, AOL Canada, Cybersurf, Execulink Telecom, EGATE Networks, MNSi, Telnet Communications, Yak.
The coalition says Bell’s filings anti-competitive, are not accompanied by proper cost studies and may be based on erroneous data:
In one case Bell has provided data indicating a residential end user consumed 1 TB (terabyte) of data over 20 hours of use.
I think that would imply better than 100Mbps sustained for 20 hours – not bad for a DSL service!
Two preliminary observations.
Are we beginning to see a more united ISP industry coalescing that provide better quality regulatory participation than we have typically seen in the past?
Can usage based billing at a wholesale level be accompanied by removal of the application of traffic shaping from these lines?