[sc:internet-category ]The CRTC finally released it’s decision on UBB for the wholesale market (so no change to anyone buying directly from Bell/Rogers/etc.).  The decision is long and complex but it comes down to a total rejection of Bell’s desire to have usage based billing implemented on independent ISPs.

The CRTC, whether for political reasons (they were told by the government that UBB was unacceptable after all) or for technical reasons (we can only hope as it would mark a shift to a more reasonable approach by the CRTC), finally came to the right decision.

The decision basically says that network providers like Bell can charge a fixed rate for each last mile connection, a fixed rate per 100Mbps of connection the independent ISP wants to their network as well a some ancillary monthly charges.  There is also an option to combine this all in to a single flat rate per connection, but the important carriers all have gone with the first option.

This squares perfectly with traditional network rates, where you buy a link and it doesn’t matter how much you use it, you pay for the capacity.

This means vendors like TekSavvy and Acanac can continue to offer services with different bandwidth caps or even no caps at all.

One item I noticed is there is quite a bit of justification around the cost model in the decision.  It’s based upon actual costs plus a “reasonable” markup, though what that is is never revealed in the decision, but we can say that it’s somewhere between 15 and 25 percent.

The really juicy part of the decision is in the appendices where the CRTC lays out the costs:

	Monthly access rate (without usage)
Speed	Bell	Cogeco	MTS Allstream	RCP (Rogers)	Videotron
0.5 Mbps	$14.11			$11.97
2 Mbps	$14.11
3 Mbps		$12.73		$12.31	12.79*
5 Mbps	$14.11
6 Mbps	$24.70
7 Mbps	$24.70	$14.78			15.37*
10 Mbps	$24.84			$14.25
12 Mbps	$24.84
14Mbps		$15.06
15Mbps				$19.06	$22.35
16 Mbps	$24.98
25 Mbps	$25.00			$21.00
30Mbps		$24.98			$23.77
32Mbps			$23.08
50Mbps		$42.05		$22.69	$26.89
120Mbps					$37.01
Capacity per 100g	$2,213	$2,695	$281	$1,251	$1,890

There are several interesting things to note here:

• Videotron has some weird speeds (see * above), for simplicity I matched them as close to the competition as possible.
• Bell basically admits that the cost difference between speeds is down to which technology you have, ADSL cost $14/month and ADSL2 costs $25/month.
• The cable providers all pretty much agree there’s a sliding scale of increased costs as rates increase.
• Bell and Cogeco seem to be significantly more costly than their competition.
• There’s a clear disconnect between the providers and their capacity costs, it’s not logical MTS Allstream can provide the same service at 10% the cost of Cogeco.

So what should we Take from this?  Looks like everyone should move to where MTS Allstream is available, their going to have significantly lower costs in comparison to everyone else.  But in reality someone needs to look at WHY there’s such a big difference in costs.  Without any real competition, the providers can simply continue to do incredibly wasteful implementations because they know they will always be able to make a “reasonable” profit on them.

Getting a competitive environment in place would drive all the costs lower as each provider tried to undercut each other.

The question will now become what does the above pricing mean for the average user.  At first glance it looks like an increase will likely be coming once this is implemented on Feb. 1, 2012.

[sc:internet-category ]Google for years has tracked WiFi hotspots physical locations so they can better support their location services with Android and other products.  Of course Google isn’t the only one doing this but with the rise of Android they are perhaps the largest collector of this information.

Yesterday they announced a way to opt-out of the service for those who have WiFi and don’t want to be identified by the location services.

Their solution?  Everyone should rename their SSID’s to include “_nomap” at the end.

Ya, think about if for a moment.  You’ve got it.  That’s just plain insane.

Let’s list a few things off the top of my head that are wrong with this:

• It’s opt out instead of in.
• I have to rename by network and then reconnect all my devices.
• For non-English speaking areas, it makes no sense.
• It limits what I can call my network (32-6=26 letters)
• I HAVE TO HAVE A FREAKING UGLY SSID

Let’s face it, Google clearly believes that SSID’s (and probably everything else) are public information that they should have access too.  It’s the users that should have to do the work to block Google’s access.

What it comes down to is simple, is an SSID the street number on your house or is it a “Home sweet home” sign hanging in your kitchen.

If it’s a street number then Google can drive by and read it from off of your property and there’s nothing you can do about it.

If it’s a sign in your kitchen, then they can’t without trespassing on your property (or at least being a peeping tom).

And here’s where it get tricky, it’s both.  It all depends on the intended use of the network.  If your McDonald’s giving out free WiFi access, then its public information like their street address.  But if it’s for private use then it’s like the sign in your kitchen.

Google has decided that unless specifically told otherwise, everything is public and that’s just plain wrong.

Too make it even worse, they haven’t done the logical thing and made it easy for the end-user to opt out, they’ve made it a major headache.  This presumably is to make sure that no one will actually take the time and effort to make the changes required to opt out and therefore keep this valuable information flowing in to them.

For a company that claims it’s motto is “do no evil”, they seem to have chosen every evil choice possible with this one:

Google Exec 1: So should we make this opt in (good) or opt out (evil)?

Google Exec 2: Oh, opt out of course we need that info.

Google Exec 1: Ok, should we setup a website to allow users to at least opt out (good) or not (evil)?

Google Exec 2: A website will be hacked asap and some hacker group will opt out everyone, we cannot have that!

Google Exec 1: Well ok, but people have to be able to opt out, otherwise the government will be all over us.

Google Exec 2: I’ve got it, instead of making it easy, international and quick (good) lets force everyone to have to do a lot of extra work so they won’t do it at all (evil) that way we can say we’re being good by giving everyone the option but won’t lose any real data that we just have to have!

Google Exec 1: Perfect, write that up in a happy sounding announcement and add some words around creating an industry standard to!

Ah to have been a fly on the wall that day .