The City of Victoria joins the Stop The Meter movement

Victoria -- British Columbia has reinforced its leading position in the fight against the implementation of Usage Based Billing on small Internet Service Providers. The City of Victoria has passed a motion addressed to CRTC, in which the city urges the committee to reverse the decision regarding the UBB.

Victoria -- British Columbia has reinforced its leading position in the fight against the implementation of Usage Based Billing on small Internet Service Providers. The City of Victoria has passed a motion addressed to CRTC, in which the city urges the committee to reverse the decision regarding the UBB.

It is the threat of limiting the diversity in Canada’s telecommunications sector and the fear of high prices that stand among the many reasons behind the motion, which was issued on Thursday, February 4. “Usage-based billing, or metering discriminates against certain forms of information, such as audio and video,” the motion also points out.

So far CRTC has delayed the implementation of UBB, but we are still far from winning this fight. Sign the petition at stopthemeter.ca and join the 400,000+ fellow Canadians, who recognize the need for action.

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Motion re. Usage-Based Internet Billing in Victoria

WHEREAS the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission
(CRTC) has, in Telecom Decision CRTC 2010-255, allowed incumbent
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to charge their customers, including
wholesale customers (smaller independent ISPs), based on predetermined
thresholds of bandwidth use;

WHEREAS this decision has allowed incumbent ISPs to impose unjust
financial limitations on how many gigabytes of usage their independent
competitors can provide to their customers, thereby severely limiting
diversity in Canada’s telecommunications sector;

WHEREAS this pricing regime will result in impediments to independent
ISPs’ abilities to financially differentiate the services they provide to
consumers from the services of incumbents, which harms competition
and market innovation;

WHEREAS usage-based billing, or metering discriminates against certain
forms of information, such as audio and video, insofar as it charges
consumers more for content that requires the use of a large amount of
gigabytes.

WHEREAS these high prices will act as a tax on innovation, free
expression, and empowerment, as those who produce content become
less able to produce and disseminate their work freely;

WHEREAS this pricing regime will increase the overall cost of Internet
access for end- users, thereby deepening the digital divide, which is
antithetical to the CRTC’s broadband accessibility mandate;

WHEREAS usage based billing limits Victoria residents’ ability to access
online services, to become educated, and to communicate with others,
and hampers the free and full exchange of information;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Victoria City Council will write to
CRTC to urge them to reverse Telecom Decision CRTC 2010-255 and
to prevent incumbent ISPs from imposing usage-based billing on the
independent ISPs that purchase wholesale broadband, and that this
correspondence will be CC'd to the relevant Provincial and Federal
Ministers.