CRTC shackles competitive market: Teksavvy

CRTC green lights usage-based internet billing CBCBell Canada has won concessions from the CRTC in its plan for usage-based internet billing.Bell Canada has won concessions from the CRTC in its plan for usage-based internet billing. (Courtesy Bell Canada) Metered internet usage is on the way, with the CRTC handing down its final decision on how wholesale customers can be billed by large network owners. The federal regulator on Thursday gave Bell Canada the approval to implement so-called usage-based billing to wholesale customers â€" usually smaller internet service providers that rent portions of its network â€" within 90 days. Under the plan, Bell will charge wholesale service providers a flat monthly fee to connect to its network, and for a set monthly usage limit per each ISP customer the ISP has. Beyond that set limit, users will be charged per gigabyte, depending on the speed of their connections. Customers using the fastest connections of five megabits per second, for example, will have a monthly allotment of 60 GB, beyond which Bell will charge $1.12 per GB to a maximum of $22.50. If a customer uses more than 300 GB a month, Bell will also be able to implement an additional charge of 75 cents per gigabyte.

CRTC ruling handcuffs competitive market: Teksavvy Globe and MailThe CRTC has varied one of its decisions on an appeal, which means pretty soon Bell will be allowed to charge wholesale Internet service providers â€" ISPs, such as Primus and TekSavvy â€" on a usage-based billing model. That means customers of those smaller ISPs will no longer enjoy unlimited Internet plans, will see data caps put in place and possibly higher monthly fees. The decision, which comes into effect in 90 days, is emblematic of a gradual shift in the way Canadians are paying for Internet services and is not a particularly sharp turn for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which has made an effort to rely more on market forces in recent years. Nevertheless, this has huge implications for competitive ‘resellers,’ like the two mentioned above, because they bring other services to market (like VoIP) over the networks of the big guys.

Florida bans jurors from tweeting, blogging CNet NewsFlorida has officially banned jurors from tweeting. New jury instructions adopted by the Supreme Court of Florida, which judges will pass along to jurors, instruct them not to discuss the case through “electronic communication, such as a blog, Twitter, e-mail, text message, or any other means.” Tweeting (or Facebooking, or blogging) about cases has happened, of course. An Ohio man convicted of drunk driving unsuccessfully tried to get a new trial after a juror blogged about the case. A New Hampshire juror was caught calling criminal defendants “riff-raff.” A judge removed a juror after she reportedly posted on Facebook: “Gonna be fun to tell the defendant they’re guilty.” And a Georgia federal judge banned even spectators from sending live updates through Twitter from the courtroom.