7 Suggestions for Limiting Internet Competition

As reported in the Toronto Star, a large percentage of Canadian Internet users are about to be sent back to the primitive and restrictive usage-based billing models of the early Internet. Rogers is about to introduce consumption / usage billing to its Internet service.

The effect of this change is just as serious as the anti-competitive, anti-choice, anti-innovative tactics of traffic shaping already being employed by Rogers and Bell. Traffic shaping and usage based billing models allow the service providers to inhibit services that are competitive to their own. And make no mistake, if unhindered they will do just that!

Once the mechanism are in place it will be easy for them to protect themselves from competing and innovative new services. If one was to advise service providers on how to limit competition, the following would be great suggestions:

1. Are consumers choosing Internet Telephony services such as Vonage and Skype instead of your own? Randomly drop some of the competitors' packets. Problem solved!
2. Are consumers listening to online radio broadcasts instead of your radio stations? No problem, just interfere with the audio stream. Problem solved!
3. Are consumers dropping your TV service in favour of watching custom Internet video, based on their content and schedule preferences? We can't have that, now can we? Just introduce usage based billing. After the consumer gets a few $1,000 invoices the problem will be solved!
4. Consumers complaining about your practices? Just tell them that it's for their own good. After all there is an "evil" 5% of Internet users that want to use the Internet for more than casual Web browsing and email. So you're real and noble intention, is that you want to protect the 95% of "good" Internet users. Problem solved!
5. Don't mention the fact that for years, you've been reaping the profits of selling your services based on bandwidth that the vast majority of subscribers never used.
6. Don't mention either that you realized that the demand for bandwidth was increasing but you chose to maximize profits instead of reinvesting in infrastructure.
7. And finally, start inserting your own content into other unrelated Internet content and display it to your remaining "good" users to reinforce the message that you are in control of the Internet.

Here's a bonus suggestion:

If a consumer calls to complain about your anti-competitive tactics do the following:

Immediately place the caller on hold while you laugh uncontrollably. After 30 minutes have passed and you have regained your composure, tell the caller that you will transfer the call to the complaints department and "accidentally" disconnect the call. Once the silly consumer calls back in, inform the complainer that in Canada, consumers have few if any alternative providers to choose from and that Bell and Rogers ensure that the same anti-competitive practices are imposed onto their competitors. Then sarcastically ask if you should transfer the call to the cancellation department.



If you care about the future of the Internet, your freedom to choose, innovation, competitiveness and affordability, I urge you to act now:


Contact the CRTC

Find and contact your Member of Parliament





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