I live in Canada which I like, but when it comes down to communications like internet, tv or cellphone we Canadians don’t have a lot of choice. Since I travel abroad a lot I went with Rogers as they use GSM standart, so after unlocking my personal phone I can talk abroad and not pay $5 per minute.
Anyways I digress, I signed for Maclean’s Magazine owned by Rogers which was supposed to be $1, but right after you subscribe they send you a letter that it is higher now, but my obvious frustration with Rogers’ bait and switch tactics is not the point of this post.
I wanted to discuss the latest editorial feature by Maclean’s “The Internet should be fair – not free – to everyone”. I think the whole article is so ridiculous that Maclean’s Editors can’t believe themselves that their “corporate” made them publish it. So let’s start with the ridiculous things in the article:
- The title, “Free Internet” so when we pay $60 bucks per month plus modem rental, plus taxes is called “Free” these days?
- “providing heavy users with a competitive marketplace and small internet firms with 15 per cent wholesale advantage” This sentence is so out of whack, that I don’t even know where to start. I would suggest the author of this sentence to take Grade 1 math. Let’s see 15% wholesale discount in order to stay competitive smaller firms need to offer discount over bigger companies, so for the argument’s sake let’s pretend that 5% discount will entice people to switch from big 3 to smaller company. That leaves us with 10%, now smaller companies believe or not need to make profit as well. So again let’s assume that for some crazy reason people decided to go into business and earn a profit of only 5%. So where does it leave us? A small internet company will have 5% for running their whole business (marketing, sales, accounting, equity etc.). I am sure this 5% keeps it really competitive and “Fair” as Maclean’s magazine would say
I am personally not against usage based billing, I agree that people who spend more should pay more – but this is not what is happening in reality. In reality even people who don’t use a lot still pay a flat fee that is one of the highest from all of the countries in the world (i am not even adding to this system access fee and cell phone rates) and people who use a lot are forced to be in quota plan and then overpay for each gigabyte so much that is easier just to buy two packages.
We live in an age of Netflix, television on Demand, millions watched Olympics online – so the average user already is not the one who uses 16 gigs a month, the average user is a busy Mom who watches her shows online. So Rogers if you want usage based billing – why don’t you make really fair:
- people who spend less will actually pay less
- people who spend more will have some reasonable packages, or price per gigabyte available for them?
Oh and stop insulting Canadians that you been torturing for years with your rates and system access fees, by “Oh that is not Fair” give me a break!
