I've really been tempted to start a political party here in Canada with a focus on telecom regulation, if not running on completely outlawing private telecom operations like Bell and Rogers. If I got enough people running with me to fill the needed seats, then I figure we could take majority on just a promise of $20 a month unlimited talk/text cellphones, $20 unlimited wireless data packages, $30 unlimited home internet, and free basic landlines.
The only 'real' problem is then what to do with the rest of term for government.
I'd be wary of promising such things to everyone in canada. There's a lot of places where you'd have to spend thousands of dollars to provide those things to a single person. Starting a publicly funded ISP would probably be good enough to get most of those things though. Either private ISPs would have to compete with it, or you have a solid public option.
I am still absolutely dumbfounded about how internet/wireless plans seem to be moving further from the direction everyone wants it to go. Verizon just announced their tiered service, which costs more than their current service with lower data caps.
I've really been tempted to start a political party here in Canada with a focus on telecom regulation, if not running on completely outlawing private telecom operations like Bell and Rogers. If I got enough people running with me to fill the needed seats, then I figure we could take majority on just a promise of $20 a month unlimited talk/text cellphones, $20 unlimited wireless data packages, $30 unlimited home internet, and free basic landlines.
The only 'real' problem is then what to do with the rest of term for government.
If you're government is anything like ours, your service would cost $200 in taxes for the $20 service and speeds would never increase.
The free market is hard at work in my area. Time Warner tried to pull the bandwidth cap down here and got smacked with about 50,000 letters from the people who threatened to switch to DSL (I was one of them). I'm excited for the day when satellite or wireless technology is sufficient to remove the need for large mega-ISPs just to get internet. The barrier of entry for ISPs is much too high today.
If you're government is anything like ours, your service would cost $200 in taxes for the $20 service and speeds would never increase.
The free market is hard at work in my area. Time Warner tried to pull the bandwidth cap down here and got smacked with about 50,000 letters from the people who threatened to switch to DSL (I was one of them). I'm excited for the day when satellite or wireless technology is sufficient to remove the need for large mega-ISPs just to get internet. The barrier of entry for ISPs is much too high today.
Sprint has a seriously tempting offering in my area. Unlimited everything for $100, and with new android phones with wifi hotspots it can be as good as a shitty isp for phone, text, and internet everywhere. Don't remember the fine print, but I'd definitely pick them back up if I were not in canada.
Call me ignorant, but do you really have monthly bandwidth limits in the US on internet trough broadband? We got that on mobile phone connections here in Sweden, but nothing like that on our broadband. And even then, when I get past my limit on my phone they cap my speed to 32kbit. What happens when you run out? Do you disconnect permanently or do they cap your troughput? That's awful, in any case.
Call me ignorant, but do you really have monthly bandwidth limits in the US on internet trough broadband? We got that on mobile phone connections here in Sweden, but nothing like that on our broadband.
Are you sure about that ? There is a difference between unlimited bandwidth and "unlimited" bandwidth. Check the fine print. Over here there are officially no bandwidth caps. However, in the fine print it says something along the lines of "bandwidth is not capped, within reasonable limits". It doesn't define what reasonable means any further. But I know from a torrent addicted friend that he eventually got a phone call from his ISP asking him to tune down on usage a bit when he topped the couple of TB per month, several months in a row.
If you want shitty broadband you should move to NZ. I'm one of the luckier people in that I have a relatively decent cable connection (15m/5m), but that costs me NZ$140 (about US$100) a month for 40gb. Most people are on less than 10gb a month.
But wait! It's all going to be ok! The incredibly far-sighted and forward looking NZ government is implementing it's ULTRA FAST BROADBAND plan! It will cost billions, but by the end we will have a network that can take NZ forward, delivering a massive 30mbps! Wait, what? Our new plan is going to leave us still behind the rest of the world? Oh, and there's no new infrastructure going out of the country?
Wow, good job, nz government. We're now stuck with the worlds biggest below speed LAN.
if you think programming is like sex, you probably haven't done much of either.-------------- - capn_midnight
Are you sure about that ? There is a difference between unlimited bandwidth and "unlimited" bandwidth. Check the fine print. Over here there are officially no bandwidth caps. However, in the fine print it says something along the lines of "bandwidth is not capped, within reasonable limits". It doesn't define what reasonable means any further. But I know from a torrent addicted friend that he eventually got a phone call from his ISP asking him to tune down on usage a bit when he topped the couple of TB per month, several months in a row.
Nothing is truly unlimited, of course. I guess they assume most users won't use up their full bandwidth 24/7.
But no, there are no defined limits in the contract - just that the usage is "within reason" - whatever that might be.
Edit: Still, I've never received such an email from my ISP. I have heard of a few who have, but those were too in the range of several TB per month. I don't think that falls under "within reason".
Call me ignorant, but do you really have monthly bandwidth limits in the US on internet trough broadband? We got that on mobile phone connections here in Sweden, but nothing like that on our broadband. And even then, when I get past my limit on my phone they cap my speed to 32kbit. What happens when you run out? Do you disconnect permanently or do they cap your troughput? That's awful, in any case.
I pay $52 a month for my 100/100 mbit connection.
It depends on the ISP and area. Some broadband ISPs have added caps but I think it's mostly in areas where there is no competition. In areas where there is multiple choices for cable, DSL, and fiber, if one person has a cap they would lose all their business. The OP was in Canada though, I think Canada is different.
Sharing it with that many is surprisingly rarely a problem you can feel
