UBB

Usage Based Billing is the talk of the internet nowadays (sorry Egypt) so I might as well put my two cents in. Here it is: the idea is absurd! Doing some reading online, I found out that bandwidth costs at most a dime or two to provide a gigabyte of bandwidth but Bell and Shaw want to charge around $2 per gigabyte over a 25GB cap. Does that sound fair?

I see many problems with this whole thing. While I do agree that there should be a bandwidth cap, 25GB is way too low. Set it at 60 and I think most Canadians will be fine with it. Second, why does UBB have to be mandatory for all ISPs? The CRTC should let free markets control prices. IF we do have to have UBB, then the charges should be more in the area of 25 cents/GB. That would be ok by most. Third this whole thing smells of corruption and corporate interests, just sayin'....

As for efforts to reverse the decision there are four groups who want to protect UBB: the greedy, the apathetic, the ignorant and the technologically impaired.

Note: The Canadian government has taken the first steps needed to reverse the decision. I realize that I'm late in jumping on the moral outrage bandwagon, but I just wanted summarise my thoughts on the issue.

TL;DR: moral outrage over UBB