{"id":3241,"date":"2013-04-04T10:09:03","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T15:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/?p=3241"},"modified":"2017-11-19T20:14:39","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T01:14:39","slug":"smaller-providers-offer-consumers-a-choice-in-internet-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/?p=3241","title":{"rendered":"Smaller providers offer consumers a choice in internet plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like water or electricity, internet access is increasingly more than a luxury \u2013 it\u2019s a necessity for work, education and communication.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But it comes at a cost \u2013 and advocates are pushing to let Canadian consumers know they can pay less for an internet connection.<\/p>\n

Marc Bissonnette runs CanadianISP.ca, a website that compares the speed and price offered by internet service providers (ISPs) across the country. He founded the site nine years ago, frustrated by the common perception that there were only a couple of options for internet access in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most common emails I get is, \u2018Oh my God, thanks for your site, I didn\u2019t realize I had a choice,\u2019 \u201d Bissonnette said.<\/p>\n

There are hundreds of ISPs across Canada, and the market for business and residential internet alone was worth $7.2 billion in 2011. But more than three-quarters of that market is dominated by the five largest ISPs and their affiliates, according to the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission, which oversees and regulates ISPs in Canada.<\/p>\n

BIG PLAYERS IN CONTROL<\/strong><\/p>\n

Larger ISPs such as Bell Canada Enterprises and Rogers Communications Inc. are the incumbent players, and they own large amounts of the essential infrastructure needed to deliver internet services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey own the last mile \u2013 the wire that comes into your house,\u201d Bissonnette explained.<\/p>\n

To allow competition, the larger ISPs are required to sell bandwidth to smaller ISPs at wholesale prices, who in turn can sell it to consumers at a lower price closer to the wholesale cost.<\/p>\n

But the smaller players still face significant barriers to entry \u2013 Bissonnette contrasts the multimillion dollar marketing budget of Bell with a smaller ISP which can\u2019t afford to run web ads.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really is David versus Goliath,\u201d Bissonnette said.<\/p>\n

While eight out of 10 Canadian households have Internet access, access is sharply divided between income levels.<\/p>\n

In households with an income of $87,000 or more, internet access is almost universal. By contrast, only slightly more than half of all households with incomes of $30,000 or less are connected to the internet.<\/p>\n

NO INTERNET LEADER<\/strong><\/p>\n

And Canada consistently places in the middle of the pack in international rankings of internet speed and pricing.<\/p>\n

Ookla Net Metrics, a company that measures bandwidth speeds around the world, ranks Canada 33rd<\/sup> \u2013 one spot above the United States, but behind the Ukraine, Estonia and Hungary.<\/p>\n

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) also tracks broadband penetration and pricing in developed countries.<\/p>\n

In the latest rankings, Canada is pegged at 23rd\u00a0out of 33 OECD countries in total broadband access.<\/p>\n

Catherine Hart takes issue with that.<\/p>\n

Hart is the communications co-ordinator of OpenMedia, an advocacy organization that pushes for increased internet access in Canada, and lower prices for consumers.<\/p>\n

She points to a recent report by the CRTC that identified per customer revenues in Canada as higher than anywhere else in the world.<\/p>\n

NO INCENTIVE FOR PRICE-CUTTING<\/strong><\/p>\n

She said that means that the established players have little incentive to lower prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see why they wouldn\u2019t want that situation to change,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that\u2019s been made clear is that this is a systemic problem,\u201d Hart said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a customer problem, it\u2019s the market structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in order for that to change, Hart said the public needs to put pressure on the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019ve got somebody who\u2019s both the supplier to all their competitors, and the competitor, that\u2019s a tough nut to crack,\u201d Bissonnette said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t just a matter of national pride \u2013 it\u2019s a raw necessity,\u201d Bissonnette said, explaining that internet access is essential for the shift from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many jobs are literally going the way of the dodo,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like water or electricity, internet access is increasingly more than a luxury \u2013 it\u2019s a necessity for work, education and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[102,100,101,99,104,103],"class_list":["post-3241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-finanice-2013","tag-catherine-hart","tag-isp-costs","tag-isps","tag-joel-eastwood","tag-marc-bissonnette","tag-ookla-net-metrics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3241"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4510,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions\/4510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}