Greedy cable bastards

[groo]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03...p_tax_protest/

So now Shaw cable in Canada think's it's reasonable to charge a roughly 30-40% premium for VOIP traffic, compared to basic ISP rates.

I have a few issues with that:

1. The ISP is paid to reliably carry IP traffic. Their contracts do not identify specific IP blocks, port ranges, data types, or other categories of data. i.e. The ISP is trying to unilaterally rewrite existing contracts.
2. VOIP runs over compressed data packets. We're talking 24-32kbit/s giving pretty decent monaural compression, 64kbit/s if you go overboard on audio quality (it's not music MP3's, people, it's a specialized compression algorithm dealing with human vocal frequency ranges, not the full 20-20k audio spectrum.)
3. The only thing "special" about VOIP traffic is that QOS balancing is mandated to give time-dependent packets like VOIP and video feeds priority over regular data packets. There is no "added cost" to the ISP for doing this -- it's built into the hardware they've been using for half a decade or longer.
4. Patience -- next up will be Shaw announcing their phone package, a "special deal" where you only get screwed for an additional $5 ifyou get the Shaw+TheirPreferredVOIPSupplier instead of $10 for using the Vonage competitor. (Every ISP in north america is trying to jump onto the old telco cash cow, forgetting it stopped being a cash cow over a decade ago -- that's why Nortel et. al. are in so much trouble.)

So where the hell is the CRTC when they're supposed to be regulating the behavior of the ISPs?

[nuevogro]

Here's some bitrates for VoIP. G.729 is pretty popular as I understand it, but no matter which way you go most of these are dialup capable bandwidth. It's just greed, and hopefully that will pass.

VOIP BitRates

Codec / BR / NEB
G.711 / 64 Kbps / 87.2 Kbps
G.729 / 8 Kbps / 31.2 Kbps
G.723.1 / 6.4 Kbps / 21.9 Kbps
G.723.1 / 5.3 Kbps / 20.8 Kbps
G.726 / 32 Kbps / 55.2 Kbps
G.726 / 24 Kbps / 47.2 Kbps
G.728 / 16 Kbps / 31.5 Kbps
iLBC / 15 Kbps / 27.7 Kbps

BR = Bit rate
NEB = Nominal Ethernet Bandwidth (one direction)

[In The Wind]

Ahh, yes. All that free traffic.....
I agree groo, but it was only a matter of time before cable co's figured out that they were carrying billable traffic for free,

I love my Vonage, but I would expect Cox to block it at any time....

[hollowpoint]

just wait and watch for the new specials where you get to pick each channel you want to receive instead of having to accept packages, new concept? hardly, the cable co has figured out how to increase revenues by charging by the channel and believe me it will be lots more. the days of cruising 600 channels at your leisure on a cold jan afternoon are soon to be gone. we might wish for air tv to come back when these idiots are done with us.
of course , as a family, you could throw the tv in garbage can and not buy into this hype.

[GriM]

600 channels cost $? hmmmmmmm i hate cable i hate it hate it hate it i pulled the line right out of my apt ....you can get all the crappy tv you want via a sat dish and a dvb-s card or other meathods ........

[chief tatanka]

Grim, i have a dish needs hookin up "i'l supply the coffee"

[GriM]

/me is a cert.sat installer tv and 2way internet ....lol

[groo]

Ahh, yes. All that free traffic.....
I agree groo, but it was only a matter of time before cable co's figured out that they were carrying billable traffic for free,

Sorry, they don't carry it for "free". I pay for my link. I pay extra for a high capacity link.

To hell with the cablecos and other ISPs that don't like people using the capacity they buy -- stop trying to advertise it as high-speed internet service then.

i.e. If you sell a product/service, you damned well better be planning the capacity to deliver it, not try and screw the end-user because you have a monopoly or oligopoly in the area.

[sweetstik]

shaw and others are running scard and doing whatever they can to collect as mutch mony as they can befor telus and others:mad gets a crtc aproval when this happens BY BY shaw and others dont let the dore hit you on the way out

[In The Wind]

oligopoly....had to look that one up

I agree groo, but still you have to admit that using existing equipment (the web) to carry data that someone else is billing for is just not gonna last.

You're right of course, I (we) already pay for them to carry my web traffic, no matter the type, port, distance, whatever. They do exactly the same thing to other infrastucture owners/builders.

If they could just figure out how to bill for all that porn flying around, most of it billed..........

[groo]

Ahh, yes. All that free traffic.....
I agree groo, but it was only a matter of time before cable co's figured out that they were carrying billable traffic for free,

Incorrect.

I pay for my high speed connection, which is supposed to be the ISP's service revenue for providing general bandwidth availability. It is their responsibility to ensure that their basic pricing covers the costs of delivering the necessary capacity, infrastructure maintenance, support staff costs, etc.

In short, they're running a business, and they've billed the customers for their service. They're trying to double-dip, and I do believe that is blatantly illegal.

[Stray]

Write a letter to the CRTC & complain... It is the only way the illegal practices of double billing for a service you already paid for & such will stop...

Stray...