Stop the Meter! Strombo explains it all

One Response to Stop the Meter! Strombo explains it all

1. Ben Gruagach says:

   February 1, 2011 at 12:17 PM

   One of the big reasons, in my mind, why Bell and the big cable companies are pushing for a metered internet is because they know this will discourage the next big internet boom: video. We’re already starting to see that with things like TV shows and movies being made available on things like the iTunes Music/Media Store or Netflix.

   And since Bell and the cable companies make huge amounts of money selling TV services (Bell’s ExpressVu being the big Canadian satellite TV provider) they are afraid they will lose customers. Because they WILL.

   As George pointed out in the video it costs very little for Bell and the cable companies to handle internet traffic — pennies a gigabyte. Inflating the price charged to customers and acting like they have to limit traffic to ridiculously low amounts is all about discouraging video downloads.

   The other thing to keep in mind about all this is that the reason Bell and the cable companies have the infrastructure (the land lines handling all the internet traffic linking us across the country and with the rest of the world) is because Canadian taxpayers funded its construction and upkeep. Bell and the cable companies have been allowed the enviable positions of acting as managers of that tax-paid infrastructure. And they are acting like THEY own it, not US.

   That internet infrastructure is like our roadway system. It’s tax funded and tax maintained. Are we going to let our electronic roads be turned into private property owned by Bell and the cable companies?

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