Small-business owners speak out against usage-based Internet billing

Norm Tomlins’s six-person company in Oshawa, Ont., is like many small businesses: Its disparate parts operate via an Internet connection.

His company, Voice Network Inc., installs VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone lines and custom designs business software, and has employees scattered across Ontario’s Durham Region and as far away as Montreal.

Mr. Tomlins has been swept up in a national debate about Internet usage prices. If a federal regulator has its way, he fears he might have to start dragging his employees into the office, and hiring locally as opposed to seeking the best talent that telecommuting can buy.

The Canadian Radio-television

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission issued its decision on usage-based billing on Jan. 25, which allowed large Internet service providers just as BCE Inc. to charge by-the-byte prices to smaller providers who lease space on their networks. Industry Minister Tony Clement, along with the Prime Minister and opposition politicians, have spoken out against the ruling. Amid the furor, the regulator’s chairman has said he will review the decision.

Even even though Mr. Clement has promised to overturn the ruling, CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein says he stands by the principle of billing Internet clients by use.

For many small Internet providers, that would mean an end to popular unlimited plans that allowed them to differentiate their service from Bell’s – and pull in clients intent on making their businesses more productive. But, the price of their Internet service could go up. And those businesses using up a lot of bandwidth by transferring large files and telecommuting, just as Mr. Tomlins’s Voice Networks, could be in for a harsh, new reality.

"Do we pay extra, or do we have people come to the office like the good old days?" Mr. Tomlins said, noting that the monthly Internet bill for each of his separate employees could jump by about $70 based on price adjustments his small ISP has made to prepare for the ruling coming into effect. "It will make us less productive."

The federal regulator made the change to give large ISPs another way to manage increasing broadband traffic from online video, which major providers argue could strain their networks. But, experts contend that such arguments are "specious," as IDC Canada’s lead telecom analyst Lawrence Surtees says, because of the increase in network capacity brought on by advances in innovation.

Anger with the CRTC’s decision in the end spilled from the online world, where a petition against the move but counts more than 400,000 signatures, onto the front pages of newspapers and national radio and television broadcasts. Now it wasn’t until businesses started speaking up that the debate shifted from being about unusually heavy downloaders to companies trying to harness innovative technologies, and regular users trying new, bandwidth-intensive services just as video-streaming site Netflix.

Shortly earlier Mr. Clement used Twitter to say he would overturn the usage-based billing decision if the CRTC did not, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business sent him a formal letter saying Internet service metered by use represented a serious setback for entrepreneurs.

In recent weeks, the Bank of Canada has increasingly urged companies to improve productivity in some cases by investing in information and communications innovation, during earmarking more money for technology and development and research.

$65-a-month package offered

Her business currently subscribes to a $65-a-month package offered by Shaw Communications, which said this week that it would hold public consultations previously it starts charging its clients on volume basis, in spite of the company already having monthly caps in place for most of its clients.

For Ms. Tatum, but, any increase in those costs would be too much for businesses owners in Fort McMurray to absorb, she said

"Everybody thinks the roads are paved with gold here nevertheless the fact is that businesses are facing huge hurdles right but," Ms. Tatum said

"Our labour costs are higher. Our cost per square footage is higher ... It is super expensive to do business here... Every single dollar means so much."