INTERNET UBB
The usage-based billing controversy is more about politics than anything else.
When you turn up the heat in your home, when you flip on a light or turn on a tap, you are accessing a network of pipes and wires that are constantly maintained and upgraded to provide you with service. And you are expected to pay for not just the commodity you are using, but for the utility system that distributes and delivers it.
Because it doesn't make practical or economic sense for different players to duplicate the same, expensive infrastructure, the cost of the commodity and its delivery are typically regulated to make sure the monopoly isn't abusive for those who rely upon it.
Strip out the political consideration. Discount the fact that its users are a very communicative and organized cohort. Set aside your aversion to the dominant power of a couple of big players in a relatively small domestic market. Then, ask yourself how the Internet is different from any other utility.
Essentially, telephone and cable companies have invested billions of dollars to meet the booming demand for Internet access. The more businesses and individuals have come to rely on the Internet for communication, entertainment and data transmission, the more it has cost service providers to pay for the technology to make it more reliable, more secure and, above all, faster.
The obvious question — one that's currently at the centre of an emotional public debate in Canada — is why consumers shouldn't have to pay for the capacity they use. After all, if you leave the lights on or the tap running, your usage is metered and your monthly bill will reflect that.
For some reason, however, usage-based billing (UBB) for the Internet is considered an outrage. It's a concept that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently decided to introduce after much deliberation.
The decision means that the small Internet service providers, who have been granted access to the networks developed by the big telecom companies (Bell, Telus, Rogers and Shaw) in a government-mandated attempt to create artificial "competition," will no longer be able to offer the flat-rate Internet access they have used to get a toe-hold in the market.
That means that the relatively small number of people — about 20 per cent of users create 80 per cent of traffic — who use the Internet to download movies and games and other big-byte items, will have to pay more if they use more.
This apparently is a violation of some inalienable right to cheap Internet access. And in the face of tremendous public clatter, the Prime Minister has now personally weighed in, demanding a review of the CRTC decision.
It's an overtly political response to the fact that this government likes to portray itself as the champion of "the little guy," especially with the possibility of an election looming this spring. The fact that UBB charges are higher in Quebec than in other jurisdictions doesn't make the concept attractive to a government that really, really wants to gain some seats in that province.
Individuals and small businesses have organized a collective bleat about the CRTC's initiative. The fact that they are taking aim at massive companies - like Bell, Telus, Shaw and Rogers - doesn't hurt.
Those prone to see plots and schemes are quick to point out one of two potential, if conflicting, conspiracies in all this: the big players now own television networks and are jacking up Internet pricing to drive viewers away from computer screens and back to television screens and/or they are trying to pump up the cost of Internet access so that they can capitalize on the download of all the content they now control.
There may or may not be something to that, but for their many (and often deserved) critics, the whole David and Goliath dynamic may make it easier to package and sell their outrage. However, the fact is that the small ISPs which are providing the flat-rate Internet service are an artificial construct.
Although they exist because the government said so, they perpetually claim that they can't be quite as competitive as they were supposed to be because they're charged too much by their competitors for access to networks.
It's a rather twisted turn in the federal government's aggressive push to let free market forces rather than intrusive regulation determine prices on the menu of telecom options. Now that the CRTC has complied by giving the nod to UBB, there's all sorts of complaining and second-guessing going on. And the chairman of the CRTC has been summoned to explain himself to the Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.
Chances are, however well he explains the approval of UBB, it's going to get overturned. There are certainly some reasons why that should happen, but those aren't the reasons that will prevail.
As with copyright and as with two previous reversals of CRTC decrees, short-term political objectives will trump a meaningful debate on an important topic.
My thanks to Deirdre McMurdy for her insight and article.
Ahh Sah
Walk Good
Showing posts with label Canadian Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canadian Politics. Show all posts
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
This is Madness
Political scientists will stagger gibbering witless to their graves trying to figure out why the Prime Minister decided to kick off a brand new session of a civil parliament, in the middle of a world economic crisis, by the most lethal partisan jab at the opposition in the history of Confederation.
He's either dumb or arrogant. Those are the only options to explain why he pitched a live grenade into the underwear of the opposition parties last Thursday, within, as it were, five seconds of the new Session starting. Either too dumb to know the furies he was releasing, or too arrogant to care.
A federal government enabled by a separatist party is a contradiction in terms, in logic, and in national honour.
I am aghast and mortified by the recent political squabbling which has taken centre stage in our house of parliament. It seems that the opposition parties have let the cat out of the bag and exposed themselves for what they actually are (a bunch of power hungry self serving indignants who would rather put their personal interest ahead of that of their countries economic stability).
The Bloc Quebecois with their 50 seats in Quebec hold the balance of power which will allow this treasonous party to once again seal the fate of the rest of Canada by undermining the Government elect. This is no mistake! and don’t for a second believe that this is not by design. Our sometimes Canadian friends in the province of Quebec are quite a politically astute bunch.
Ironic isn’t it, that a party who’s (Claimed) single purpose for existence is the removal of Quebec from the Canadian union, is the very party who has the power to decide the fate of the rest of Canada in this ridiculous attempt to undermine the democratic process.
Liars, all *(&^%$# liars.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Walk Good
Friday, September 5, 2008
Upcoming Canadian Election
Politicians are a strange bunch.
It's everything but official.
Stephen Harper says we have to have an election. It's because Parliament is dysfunctional. Hard to argue with him on that.
But if dysfunctional is the test - they'd drop the writ every single day after Question Period and twice a day during any session of the superbly entertaining Ethics Committee hearings.
I think what dysfunctional really means here, in Prime Minister Harper's private dictionary, is: "I don't think our chances are going to get any better going on, so we may as well get this thing over with now." Dysfunctional then, is less a hot psychological state than a response to a cold reading of the polls.
But before we get to the actual election there is one burden Mr. Harper and his Conservatives have to clear. It's this matter of a law, put on the books by the Prime Minister, fixing, in statute, the date of the election for October 19th -- next year.
The Prime Minster, early in his term - when, we presume, Parliament was roaringly functional - changed was he regarded as one of the most retrograde features of Canadian politics: the power of a Prime Minister to call snap elections when the opposition was most off guard. His own words: "Fixed election dates would prevent governments from calling snap elections for short-term political advantage."
And he knew what he was doing. Jean Chretien, most wily of partisans, used that power to devastating effect, on Stockwell Day. Stockwell, as I recall, was hardly off the Okanagan lake, wet suit glistening in the afternoon sun, when Chretien pulled the plug. Opportunistic? You bet. Unfair to the then opposition - absolutely.
So Mr. Harper when he promised in his last campaign to fix this 'weighting of the scales' wasn't operating blindly. And when after, as Prime Minister, he did something that politicians so often fail to do - translate a promise into a law - he was setting a golden example. He changed the system, and he transmuted a campaign pledge into a statutory obligation.
But here we are and suddenly, all that doesn't count. The fixed election date collapses in a partisan breeze. The statute has no more force than an ad lib wish in some town hall candidates' free for all.
What are we to make of this? If statutes can disappear on a whim, what hope can we have for mere campaign promises? If the fixed date law came into existence on the back of a pledge to take opportunism out of the electoral process, what can we say of the opportunism that kills the very law that was to rid us of …. opportunism?
It's one thing to take politicians promises with a grain of salt. Mr. Harper is proposing a much sturdier challenge: how to believe them when they take a promise and make it the law of the land, and then ignore it, nullify it, bury that law, just because it suits them.
Canadian politics. I'd call it dysfunctional - but that word is already taken.
My thanks to Rex
It's everything but official.
Stephen Harper says we have to have an election. It's because Parliament is dysfunctional. Hard to argue with him on that.
But if dysfunctional is the test - they'd drop the writ every single day after Question Period and twice a day during any session of the superbly entertaining Ethics Committee hearings.
I think what dysfunctional really means here, in Prime Minister Harper's private dictionary, is: "I don't think our chances are going to get any better going on, so we may as well get this thing over with now." Dysfunctional then, is less a hot psychological state than a response to a cold reading of the polls.
But before we get to the actual election there is one burden Mr. Harper and his Conservatives have to clear. It's this matter of a law, put on the books by the Prime Minister, fixing, in statute, the date of the election for October 19th -- next year.
The Prime Minster, early in his term - when, we presume, Parliament was roaringly functional - changed was he regarded as one of the most retrograde features of Canadian politics: the power of a Prime Minister to call snap elections when the opposition was most off guard. His own words: "Fixed election dates would prevent governments from calling snap elections for short-term political advantage."
And he knew what he was doing. Jean Chretien, most wily of partisans, used that power to devastating effect, on Stockwell Day. Stockwell, as I recall, was hardly off the Okanagan lake, wet suit glistening in the afternoon sun, when Chretien pulled the plug. Opportunistic? You bet. Unfair to the then opposition - absolutely.
So Mr. Harper when he promised in his last campaign to fix this 'weighting of the scales' wasn't operating blindly. And when after, as Prime Minister, he did something that politicians so often fail to do - translate a promise into a law - he was setting a golden example. He changed the system, and he transmuted a campaign pledge into a statutory obligation.
But here we are and suddenly, all that doesn't count. The fixed election date collapses in a partisan breeze. The statute has no more force than an ad lib wish in some town hall candidates' free for all.
What are we to make of this? If statutes can disappear on a whim, what hope can we have for mere campaign promises? If the fixed date law came into existence on the back of a pledge to take opportunism out of the electoral process, what can we say of the opportunism that kills the very law that was to rid us of …. opportunism?
It's one thing to take politicians promises with a grain of salt. Mr. Harper is proposing a much sturdier challenge: how to believe them when they take a promise and make it the law of the land, and then ignore it, nullify it, bury that law, just because it suits them.
Canadian politics. I'd call it dysfunctional - but that word is already taken.
My thanks to Rex
Friday, February 22, 2008
Canadian Politics and Astrology
Strange signs are in the air.
Recebtly we had a total eclipse of the moon. One minute a full bright moon, the next in the centre of the sky an ominous red disk.
It could be a signal that global warming is going cosmic and that the great apocalypse some of its more excited partisans have propounded is dawning.
More likely it's a kind of Shakespearean signal, an astrological cue, that the House of Clinton, once ascendant is now in decline, and that planet Obama has emerged from the cusp of Platitude and entered constellation Oprah.
And if that doesn't make you shiver, well up here we have a Budget next week. The budget may not portend a new age, but it may be a crossroads moment in Canadian politics.
Stephane Dion is facing a really big choice.
Mr. Dion has not had a happy run of it since he became Liberal leader. His leadership has been in a long spluttering stall since a few days after he won it.
The Tories have dive-bombed him with attack commercials, he's sometimes outperformed in the House both by Mr. Harper and his own lieutenant and chief rival, Mr. Ignatieff, and the NDP have taken to tagging him as enabling a Harper majority. The Harper-Dion coalition.
This is a tag he can't afford to wear. He cannot keep decrying the harsh, secretive, bullying, misguided "little America" Harper government, and remain, effectively, its prop in the House of Commons.
On Afghanistan, because it is so sensitive and complex an issue, some compromise is not only expected. It's wise. Maybe on the Crime Bill, something less than a vote to bring down the government may be explained as well.
But there does come a point when an Opposition opposes, when the rhetoric of its critics and its leader has to be substantiated in an actual vote. Last fall when the Tories brought in what we were pleased to call their Mini-budget - with its GST cut - the Liberals decried it, said it was a misguided policy, in effect condemned it, and then abstained.
Battles are not won with abstentions. Stirring speeches followed by a courageous sitting on one's hand when the vote is called will not inspire either his party or the country. So, next week when the Budget comes down what is Mr. Dion to do? I do not think he can continue to bridge the Harper minority's hold on power, and simultaneously warn the country of its many mischiefs and deficiencies.
The old saying "fish or cut bait" and some others that are less elegant come to mind.
Mr. Dion has variously warned that he will bring down the Harper government if he thinks that it is in the interests of the Canadian people to do so. Those warnings dwindle in force every time a fresh one is uttered. I expect the Liberals and Mr. Dion are only too keenly aware of that consideration.
Hence, even if the most recent poll offers no great comfort to the Liberals, next week's budget - whatever the order of the heavens or the state of the moon - will be a critical moment in deciding whether, to the frosts of this bleak February, we will add the glooms of a winter election.
And they said astrology was a decayed science.
My thanks to Rex Murphy, CBC
Recebtly we had a total eclipse of the moon. One minute a full bright moon, the next in the centre of the sky an ominous red disk.
It could be a signal that global warming is going cosmic and that the great apocalypse some of its more excited partisans have propounded is dawning.
More likely it's a kind of Shakespearean signal, an astrological cue, that the House of Clinton, once ascendant is now in decline, and that planet Obama has emerged from the cusp of Platitude and entered constellation Oprah.
And if that doesn't make you shiver, well up here we have a Budget next week. The budget may not portend a new age, but it may be a crossroads moment in Canadian politics.
Stephane Dion is facing a really big choice.
Mr. Dion has not had a happy run of it since he became Liberal leader. His leadership has been in a long spluttering stall since a few days after he won it.
The Tories have dive-bombed him with attack commercials, he's sometimes outperformed in the House both by Mr. Harper and his own lieutenant and chief rival, Mr. Ignatieff, and the NDP have taken to tagging him as enabling a Harper majority. The Harper-Dion coalition.
This is a tag he can't afford to wear. He cannot keep decrying the harsh, secretive, bullying, misguided "little America" Harper government, and remain, effectively, its prop in the House of Commons.
On Afghanistan, because it is so sensitive and complex an issue, some compromise is not only expected. It's wise. Maybe on the Crime Bill, something less than a vote to bring down the government may be explained as well.
But there does come a point when an Opposition opposes, when the rhetoric of its critics and its leader has to be substantiated in an actual vote. Last fall when the Tories brought in what we were pleased to call their Mini-budget - with its GST cut - the Liberals decried it, said it was a misguided policy, in effect condemned it, and then abstained.
Battles are not won with abstentions. Stirring speeches followed by a courageous sitting on one's hand when the vote is called will not inspire either his party or the country. So, next week when the Budget comes down what is Mr. Dion to do? I do not think he can continue to bridge the Harper minority's hold on power, and simultaneously warn the country of its many mischiefs and deficiencies.
The old saying "fish or cut bait" and some others that are less elegant come to mind.
Mr. Dion has variously warned that he will bring down the Harper government if he thinks that it is in the interests of the Canadian people to do so. Those warnings dwindle in force every time a fresh one is uttered. I expect the Liberals and Mr. Dion are only too keenly aware of that consideration.
Hence, even if the most recent poll offers no great comfort to the Liberals, next week's budget - whatever the order of the heavens or the state of the moon - will be a critical moment in deciding whether, to the frosts of this bleak February, we will add the glooms of a winter election.
And they said astrology was a decayed science.
My thanks to Rex Murphy, CBC
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