So our friendly neighbourhood CRTC has yet again shown it exists not to serve the needs of the good people of this country, but rather big corporations. They've decided to give the big guys the green light to charge WHATEVER they want for overage fees. What's the problem with paying what you use, you ask? In principal, I have no issue with that, if that was the case but:

1 - It's not paying for what you use. They're going to charge a flat fee for a certain amount of internet usage (i.e. $59.99 for 80GB) and then however much they want to charge extra per GB used. No credit for under-usage.

2- 80GB is great, right? Well, 80GB roughly equates to replacing cable with an online movie/tv streamer (apprx 1Gb/hr) and not using internet for anything else (i.e. internet radio (1.4Gb/day), videos, downloading, etc).

3 - Digital cable uses a hell of a lot more bandwidth than anything you would do on the internet and comes over the same line. So not really a hardware problem that justifies the additional expense as the big guys would have us believe.

I'm ok with charging for what you use, if this were the case. But the problem is it's anti-competitive behaviour because most of Canada has no choice but to pay the same companies for cable TV, telephones & cellphones, and internet.

The internet is poised to kill off both the cable tv businesses (via things like streaming media content) and old-fashioned phones (wired and cellular) and these guys don't like it.

So this is one way for the companies who are clearly grasping at straws to not only get a piece of the action but to control the game.

CLEARLY anti-competitive behaviour.

So even if you've decided, like me, to get rid of cable TV and perhaps subscribe to an online streamer; well, they're determined to get my $ one way or another.

And I'm PISSED OFF that it's not big news. WTF?!?! —Sick of this bullshit