Monday, April 20, 2009

Canadian ISPs begin to shake down their users during economic downturn

After reading Steve Arnold’s article concerning Cogeco’s new fees [Hamilton Spectator, April 2009], I cannot help but come to the conclusion that Mr. Arnold is either naive in his research or was hoodwinked by Cogeco’s PR efforts. Not only are several factual problems evident, but the tone of Mr. Arnold’s article suggests a degree of contempt for any Cogeco customer who voices dissent over the new fees.

First, some corrections are in order. Movie downloads are not 4GB each (except for some pirated DVDs). Standard definition films are typically 700MB. He is correct that many hi-def films are around 10GB in size. Importantly, I have to challenge Mr. Arnold’s suggestion that the only “heavy” internet users are those who download films for two reasons. There are many other net usage profiles that use similar bandwidth. I cannot help but wonder whether movies were singled out as the media continues to debate film “piracy”.

As an instructor at Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, I have a degree of access to digital trends and usage profiles. Mr. Arnold claims that most customers are using less than the 60GB cap contingent with Cogeco’s average data plan, as it is sufficient to view “1.25 million web pages or ... 6 million emails.” There are indeed some users who use the internet of 2009 just as they did in 2000, when video hosting and telephony were relatively non-existent and file sizes were smaller. Yet, many webpages in 2009 contain streaming video content; for example, the average bandwidth for YouTube is roughly 150MB per hour. Furthermore, one can easily purchase more than 60GB per month in video and audio files from services such as iTunes. If a user wishes to upload video or photographs to an online hosting service such as flickr or vimeo, they will instantly become what Mr. Arnold calls a “heavy user”; I know of one artist who uploads at least 100GB of photographs from her home every month. Finally, education is rapidly deploying online through protocols such as WebCT. I can speak from experience that my students exchange many GBs of data for school projects.

The internet in 2009 is used for a great deal of legal software distribution, and file sizes rise nearly equal to the exponential rate of Moore’s law. It is not uncommon for modern software to be many GBs in size. The Windows OS downloads many MBs of updates every week. If I chose to purchase Adobe CS4, the download is over 10GB. Computer and console games are rapidly moving from a retail purchase model to an online distribution model, and most games are between 2 - 15GB in size. Finally, many computer users know that sometimes computers crash and software must be reinstalled. In the online distribution model, reinstalling means re-downloading. Frankly, I cannot believe that a family with two or more children online will ever be able to remain under the 60GB limit.

I am fully aware that there is no such thing as unlimited internet. Some software, especially bittorrent, does need to be shaped so that overall net traffic can flow smoothly. However, I am offended by Cogeco’s subtle association of net usage with environmental responsibility, as evidenced by Marie Carrier’s suggestion that the new fees will “make the customer responsible for their usage.” In a time when responsible usage of electricity and natural resources such as gasoline have entered into the public discourse, the “responsible usage of the internet” is a cynical and damaging marketing ploy.

The reason that the Canadian Internet experience is beginning to slow down is not that more people are downloading. The problem is that companies like Bell and Cogeco have used their monopolies to increase their profitability by limiting investment in new technologies. It is for this reason that Canada has slipped from the top three to the bottom twenty in terms of international ranking of broadband speed and service. I wonder how happy Cogeco customers will be with their 60GB cap if they were to learn that customers of other cable ISPs get much higher caps. Comcast in the States, for example, has recently imposed a 250GB cap, which is infinitely more reasonable than 60GB. Japanese customers get to use their internet for ten times cheaper per MB than Cogeco customers. If Cogeco faced competition, then we would have a higher download limit in Canada.

There is no technological reason for the discrepancy. For example, in 2000 I routinely used 100-300GB per month and Cogeco never complained. Now they say that they must limit downloads so that the net doesn’t slow down for “average users”. If my downloading 300GB per month ten years ago didn’t slow down the net, why is it a problem after ten years of computer hardware developments? The reason is that as broadband access multiplied and more Canadians switched to broadband, companies like Cogeco banked the profits and didn’t invest in expanding their infrastructure. Where, for example, is the fibre optic network promised years ago?