Companies consider extra charges for high-traffic Internet users
Charles Mandel
Sun
The free ride may be over for consumers who download movies and music files and play video games, as Internet service providers consider a move toward a “two-tier Internet.”
Companies that carry the data are talking about charging Canadians extra for everything from streaming audio and video to Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone calls and online gaming. Anything that uses bandwidth is under examination.
“This is all about finding new ways to charge the consumer,” says Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa. “Ultimately, they’re going to receive less service and have to pay more for it, and the response that they will receive is if you want some of these additional services, you’re going to have to pay.”
The added charges being discussed are the result of too much traffic riding on the networks for free, says Lawrence Surtees, director of Canadian telecom and Internet research with Toronto-based technology analysis company, IDC Canada.
“If it’s just a blip, they don’t care. But if it’s big, then all of a sudden I’m an ISP with infrastructure. I’m on the hook for carrying that stuff and equipping the network to handle it and I’m not getting paid for it.”
Tom Copeland knows first-hand about the additional costs. Copeland is the chairman of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, and owns Eagle.ca, an ISP in Cobourg, Ont. Copeland purchases his high-speed services from a third party that charges him a per-customer rate as well as a per-gigabyte rate for what his customers download. Copeland says he has one customer who uses $250 of bandwidth monthly.
The problem isn’t that Copeland has to deal with that one customer, it’s that he has to maintain the bandwidth to deal with that high volume — regardless of whether it’s being used.
“Certainly the bandwidth costs do have an impact on our bottom line,” he says.
The same issues impact carriers large and small. Telus spokesman Shawn Hall says three factors come into play: the size of the Internet pipe and access speed, amount of data being downloaded in a month and priority access during high-demand periods.
“The industry has to move toward different charges for Internet customers with diverse needs,” he says.
Currently, ISPs and telcos are creating a new network, says Hall. Telus is laying down new fibre at a cost of several million dollars in an attempt to smooth out the transmission of applications such as VoIP and video streaming.
Hall says the Internet was originally created for low-bandwidth applications such as e-mail and web surfing. Today’s more bandwidth-intensive applications don’t tolerate delays in data transmission or dropped data packets that result in choppy streaming or poor voice quality.
Building the new network isn’t cheap, says Hall, and those who use it most should bear some of the costs. “It’s simply not fair to charge someone who’s using the Internet for a simple e-mail the same as someone who’s streaming their TV or phone calls.”
NET GAINS:
– The Internet was originally created for low-bandwidth applications such as e-mail and Web surfing. Today’s applications are more bandwidth-intensive.
– The added charges being discussed are the result of too much traffic riding on the networks for free.
– Three factors come into play: The size of the Internet pipe and access speed, amount of data being downloaded in a month and priority access during high-demand periods.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006