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sherman10570
join:2000-10-15
Pleasantville, NY
 ·Verizon FIOS
| 50-90GB/month costs Riplin - The Sympatico caps were designed for people like you. One way or another, someone pays for bytes transferred.
I work for an ISP (actually a Sympatico competitor), and right now bandwidth costs us $2/GB. We're expanding our network, and hopefully we'll have that down to $0.60/GB. Buying backbones in Canada just isn't cheap.
At $0.60/GB, and 80GB/month, that means it costs Sympatico $48/month to feed your high-speed need. That alone is over what you pay (remember they also provide you with a modem, email, web space, newsgroups, [crappy] support, etc). I agree 5GB is too low (my company's service includes 20), but to be complaining about paying for the large amount of data transfer you do is absurd.
DSL and Cable companies are starting to act like long distance companies. They have costs based on usage. And when customers use a lot of their resources, does it not make sense that the customer should perhaps pay for some of that?
- Sherman | |
| | Riplin
join:2002-05-13
canada
 ·Bell Sympatico
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs So you've actually confirmed my suspicions, $2/gig and I doubt bell being it's large size actually pays that amount, would mean at $8/gig which is what they are gonna charge means they make a 400% profit. Ain't no one gonna make a 400% profit off me. Also 50 gig is nothing if you know what your doing on the net. Unfortunatley 80% of the people think web surfing and e-mail is all there is to the web. Ignorance is bliss. I wouldn't mind paying $80 for 80gig but $600 for 80gig, they're dreamin. | |
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DMT
@sympatico.ca
| I would suggest that the price they've decided to charge for bandwidth, beyond the 5GB limit, is somewhat arbitrary. The purpose of a bandwidth cap is not to make money, but to curb the excessive behaviour of a very small percentage of users. The vast majority of Sympatico users will never come close to surpassing the alloted quota. Among the group that does go over 5Gigs, how many of those are actually using their "residential" service for legal and/or purposes which are defined in the Terms of Use Contract? Consider charges beyond 5Gigs as a tax for your aquisition of materials (feature length movies, pirated video games and software) which you really shouldn't be downloading anyway. In this case it's a tax that not only covers the cost of the bandwidth itself, but also the charges incurred for monitoring an entire customer base. In your case, where you admit to downloading 50Gigs per month, you really have no business whinning about increased costs just because your free ride is about to end. | |
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Mashiki
Balking The Enemy's Plans
join:2002-02-04
Woodstock, ON
 ·Bright House
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs And this from someone on the sympatico domain. There are other ways to curb "excesive behavior" then applying ul/dl caps. And yes while you are right that some people will never reach the cap limit, others will. Bell has touted their service as being good and great, and when you(used) to talk to a service rep they would say that they gear themselfs towards things that use a good deal of bandwidth, some of the ways they could go about it is give warnings, then cap out the users modem. Simple enough isn't it?
But...there are ALOT of legal things that soak up alot of bandwidth. Music, programs, patch's, demo's, the list goes on and on. This does nothing but cripple bell, and slowdown the growth of their subscribers.
He does have every right to whine about what they are about to do, he is a paying customer, and the customers are what keep you afloat. | |
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Deadpool
Go Sens Go
Premium,VIP
join:2001-03-29
Canada
·Bell Sympatico
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs Said by Mashiki:
"He does have every right to whine about what they are about to do, he is a paying customer, and the customers are what keep you afloat."
I'm glad you brought that up. With your biased attitude, it's a surprise you haven't cancelled your Sympatico account already.
What about the member's who pay the same price as everyone else, who don't use up the bandwidth on the Bell Network, but get slow speeds because of the people who do suck the resources out of the Network.
Why should I pay 45$/month, the same you pay, for a service that's slower because you don't want to stop your high quality streams, or your MP3 downloads?
Bell Sympatico is not going to lower the price for the people who DON'T use the service that much, in case you thought of that as a solution. From a business perspective, you wouldn't want to lose money either.
Instead, they're going to jack up the prices for people who do. What's wrong with that?
The Internet is not regulated. Complain all you want, but other company's will follow suit.
--
Although I work for Sympatico, I do not make any posts while I'm at work. | |
| | | | | dragonsky
join:2002-05-14
North York, ON
| I'll throw a monkey wrench into your argument Sherman, Here in Canada Some service providers do charge for data transfers on the user end however the ISP does not pay for data transfers, they pay for a pipe. Most ISP's in Canada who offer high speed connections have DS3's this is a 45MB's connection to the backbone. The average cost for one of these pipes is $3000/mth cdn. And the pipe will usually have between 100 to 300 customers on it. Bell has several of these pipes to multiple backbone providers and only pay's $1900/mth for each line.
I may agree with a cap on the upload side but not the download. This would make pirates think twice about hosting on the DSL modem, and still not affect home users who use it the way it should be used (Legally).
I know all this because I am an ISP in Toronto, CA offering DSL to businesses. The one thing I can say is that Sympatico is loosing about $30/mth for each home user as they have to pay $60/mth/user for the Dslam equipment and Line use. Bell Sympatico is seperate from Bell the phone company on the books and pays a line fee.
Dragonsky | |
| | | johnnycanuk8
join:2001-06-22
Gatineau, QC
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs Where did you get the $3000/mo average price for a DS3??
A 45mbps T3 goes for at least $15000/mo with extra charges for loop and mileage. On top of this, most of the prices I found are in US dollars, convert to Canadian and you are looking at over $20000/mo | |
| | | | Riplin
join:2002-05-13
canada
·Bell Sympatico
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs Actually I would like to know this myself. If they are paying $20,000 for a 45mbit/month with 300 customers paying 45.00/month then they are losing money, on the other hand if they are paying $3000.00/month or $1900.00/month as you say then they are making a killing and someone needs to expose this. Why doesn't a sympatico employee come out and tell us these figures so we know if were being dupped or not. I have no beef with a company making some profit off their user's (I should know i work in retail and we work on a 20% margin) but if they are being greedy then I will do my best to bring out the truth. | |
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sherman10570
join:2000-10-15
Pleasantville, NY
·Verizon FIOS
|
dragonsky - We have presence in a telco hotel, and we peer (100mb Ethernet) with a few providers. We pay about the same per connection, but then are charged per GB on top of that. So I guess it works out to about the same. Someone ends up paying for bytes transferred along the line...
I can understand why Sympatico is instituting caps - where you put 100 to 300 customers on a DS3, Sympatico probably can only fit 50 of their high use customers on one.
Also, Bell Canada charges Nexxia for co-location? I thought they were one giant Bell company (although I do understand SBC has part ownership in Bell Canada)...
- Sherman | |
| | | | dragonsky
join:2002-05-14
North York, ON
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs Sherman, I've got 2 100MB ethernet lines over Fiber lines into a pop in building, we pay $7500/mth for the first and $7800 for the second, we pay no data transfer charges to our Backhaulers (GT & AT&T). The DS3 is with GT at $2900/mth and has no data transfer charges on it. We also pay from $65/dsl to $500/dsl line depending on speed and type since we can offer both adsl(1.5/640 lowest) & sdsl (7MB/7MB Highest.) this is the rental charge from the telco for use of their equipment (Lines & DSLAM) our customers are required to purchase the modem. These are the same prices Bell Sympatico pay's to bell nexia (With a higher discount for larger numbers.) I've got the Bell Nexia charge book as we looked at nexia for DSL. On the average my customers (All businesses) use approx. 60GB of data each month. I do have a cap of 100GB/mth and people will find that Nexia charges their DSL business customers with the same cap.
You right though Sympatico does have problems with high end users, but as with all DSL providers they over load the pipe on a 3:1 to 4:1 ratio. It's not financially feasable to have only 40-60 customers/DS3 pipe. I use the 4:1 ratio and it works fine as most people don't use more then 128-256K of the main pipe anyway. | |
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sherman10570
join:2000-10-15
Pleasantville, NY
·Verizon FIOS
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs dragonsky - It's becoming more and more obvious that we're paying about the same for the same amount of "main pipe".
This is what we're charged from Nexxia (as posted by the owner of my company)...
-----(Start usenet message)-----
I've posted my costs before, but things have changed a bit in the last few months. Here's what I pay for Bell Nexxia DSLAM port leases:
1.2M res, PPPoE - $20/mth
3M res, no PPPoE - $80/mth
1.7M bus, PPPoE - $40/mth
3.4M bus, PPPoE - $85/mth (more than 2x the 1.7 price is crazy, but that's the best I can get so far from Nexxia)
3.4M bus, no PPPoE - $140/mth
BellNexxia doesn't charge for bandwidth over those links(and does not provide internet connectivity), but currently charges almost $2K/mth for a 100M ethernet port for aggregating DSL customer traffic.
For our SDSL and downtown Ottawa ADSL customers we lease copper loops from Bell ($23/mth and up depending on loop length) and hook customers directly to our own DSLAMs.
-----(End usenet message)-----
Our average daily use of any given peering provider is not more than 10mbit/sec. We have around 900 users (both ADSL & colo), and never have a problem with pipes maxing out. Since most everything's 100mbit ethernet, we have a lot of room to work with (eg. when a software company releases a new version of their peer to peer file sharing software)
- Sherman
PS: dragonski, I would be curious to know the name of the company you own. My email address is on my info page. | |
| |
Mashiki
Balking The Enemy's Plans
join:2002-02-04
Woodstock, ON
·Bright House
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| Responding to Deadpool:
Ahh...but I'm not on sympatico now am I? Personaly I don't like the poor quality that bell offers in my neck of the woods. Even after they stripped out all the lines and replaced them, laid down new fiber and all...it's still crap here.
Anyway, that's getting off topic. The thing is, while some abusers exist on the network this happens in all instances of any type of communication available, solutions exist besides pissing everyone off. Most people will ignore something that goes down as long as it doesn't directly effect them, as soon as it does...they wonder how this happened.
But, your paying for the service, he's paying for the service and bell is the one that said they offered great speeds. Bit cap restrictions are fine, download and upload caps are not. Think of it like this, if you were buying water from the city at $7/mo, and they suddenly said now you can use 1000L in, and 350/L out(sewage) a month and for every liter over you must pay us $5, what would you do? You'd be screaming and yelling and be getting pretty ticked off.
And in truth I never said anything about lowering their prices, tiering is fine but it should be done via a bit cap, not a dl/ul cap.
How it should work is like this:
200/75 - Lowest tier and cheapest
600/150 - medium tier
Max/Max - Highest.
Simple enough isn't it? I know well enough that bell can float easily enough charging a customer @ 25.50 a month and still make a profit, more then enough people will buy the highest tier as well if it's priced reasonably. But...bell is now being undercut but their compition, who sells ADSL for $39.99 a month and as high as $199.99 a month for business.
No...they are not jacking up the prices, they are pilageing the consumers, especially the ones who signed up for "unlimited useage". Like myself, I signed up for "unlimited useage" because I am a gamer, and I play in tourny's I need the speed and unlimted bandwidth.
Other compaines may follow suit, but there will be others who don't and they will be seeing the influx of users who want a company to stick by their promises. I'm sorry but bell had been the only phone company in canada for 90+ years, and they pillaged the customer, and since they have a high end up on the DSL market they are doing it again.
Personaly, I prefer some type of compition. And if that means I have to take my business elsewhere, then I will. Including local phone service.
edit: spelling/clairity
[text was edited by author 2002-05-14 15:09:31]
[text was edited by author 2002-05-14 15:11:04] | |
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dsljk
@sympatico.ca
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs You just don't get it do you? Bell is not trying to rip you off for your unlimited and intensive use. They don't want to charge you 600 a month (although they will). They want to drive you off. they want you to leave, so you are not such a drain on their bandwidth. Too many users like you and they would have to upgrade their backbone just to keep their bread and butter customers who are much less on line. You are spitting in the wind if you think they will feel sorry for you and your need to dl 80 gigs a month. bye see you on cable | |
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Mashiki
Balking The Enemy's Plans
join:2002-02-04
Woodstock, ON
·Bright House
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs said by dsljk:
You just don't get it do you? Bell is not trying to rip you off for your unlimited and intensive use. They don't want to charge you 600 a month (although they will). They want to drive you off. they want you to leave, so you are not such a drain on their bandwidth. Too many users like you and they would have to upgrade their backbone just to keep their bread and butter customers who are much less on line. You are spitting in the wind if you think they will feel sorry for you and your need to dl 80 gigs a month. bye see you on cable
I really hate replying to anonymous people. They are trying to rip people off. Tier it, do something else but by doing this Bell is alienating their customers. The only real reason that bell is doing this is so the CEO and his buddies can get their new porshe's this year along with their multi-million dollar bonus. No other reason, if bell wants to do this then fine but customers will go somewhere else, it won't be too long down the road when people consume 5gb/mo in a breeze.
But in truth, bell does have a DSL monopoly and they are milking it. | |
| | | | |
DMT
@sympatico.ca | Re: 50-90GB/month costs Tiered service is coming too, it has already been announced in the media. Just wait a month. | |
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Deadpool
Go Sens Go
Premium,VIP
join:2001-03-29
Canada
·Bell Sympatico
| "Think of it like this, if you were buying water from the city at $7/mo, and they suddenly said now you can use 1000L in, and 350/L out(sewage) a month and for every liter over you must pay us $5, what would you do? You'd be screaming and yelling and be getting pretty ticked off."
Now you're comparing apple to oranges. How can you even compare water usage to Internet usage?
The Internet isn't even regulated. Nor is it a necessity in your life, or it would be regulated. That's why ISP's can charge what they want for service.
Water on the other hand, is a necessity in life. That's why it is regulated, and that is also why companies CANNOT charge what they want to supply it to you.
Do you wanna take another stab at a better argument this time?
--
Although I work for Sympatico, I do not make any posts while I'm at work. | |
| | | | Riplin
join:2002-05-13
canada
·Bell Sympatico
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs Ok Deadpool, since your a sympatico employee why not enlighten us with some true cost figures. Tell us how sympatico works their system. Are they paying for bytes transferred or are they buying a set speed at a fixed rate / month and it doesn't matter how much transfer is on the line? I agree the average customer doesn't give a hoot about what's happening but the higher bw users all think they are being gouged. Fill us in. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | Riplin
join:2002-05-13
canada | Re: 50-90GB/month costs And why won't bell disclose this info? Cause they like making 400% profit of us. | |
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Deadpool
Go Sens Go
Premium,VIP
join:2001-03-29
Canada
·Bell Sympatico
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs Bell is a public company. You could probably find the information on their corporate website, or in their annual/quarterly report.
And do you really think that Bell is making 400% profit when other small DSL companies are struggling to survive?
This isn't popcorn from a movie theater.
It takes on average 16 months, before an HSE customer becomes profitable for Sympatico.
Does that sound like 400% profit?
--
Although I work for Sympatico, I do not make any posts while I'm at work. | |
| | | | | | | | Riplin
join:2002-05-13
canada
·Bell Sympatico
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs There is no way your gonna tell me that it costs them 8.00/gig NO WAY! I'd be surprised if the payed a penny more than a buck. Work those figures out and tell me if they aren't gouging high bw users. I'd be quite content to pay bell 1.00 per extra gig after 5. That would mean my first 45.00 would get me my first 5 gig at about 800% profit and then if I used 60 more in that month they would rake in another 60.00. Thats $105.00/month for high speed. Do you think thats a fair price for 60gig/month? | |
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Deadpool
Go Sens Go
Premium,VIP
join:2001-03-29
Canada
·Bell Sympatico
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs You are forgetting the all important factor that Bell Sympatico does NOT own the lines for HSE. They lease them from Bell Nexxia the same way other ISP's do.
They do it that way for many reasons. A main reason is probably tax purposes, but it's also to account for all the money that get's sent through all the divisions of BCE.
Bell Sympatico is making no profit, Bell Nexxia is making the profit.
--
Although I work for Sympatico, I do not make any posts while I'm at work. | |
| | | | | | | | | | Riplin
join:2002-05-13
canada
·Bell Sympatico
| Re: 50-90GB/month costs i quote a few lines from ispworld.com
"Every year we encounter so much resistance from some backbones when we try to get company and pricing information, that we drop them from the Directory. This year, we expelled BCE Nexxia. Even though the company appeared in the 1998 and 2000 directories, a BCE representative said it was not within the company’s "comfort level" to "engage in a communication tactic" that didn’t provide BCE’s "entire value proposition." Basically, they didn’t want to reveal their prices. We recommend you hide your wallet if you approach BCE Nexxia for an upstream connection, for that matter, or anyone who refuses to disclose standard pricing.
Buck Fell | |
|
mnemo
@mc.v
| Bandwidth cap Hey Guys,
The reason is simple 3-5% of Sympatico customer use the
bandwidth more than the rest of them. So 3-5% use more than the half of the bandwidth, some are even using 5 gigs a day and even more. Well that's what happen when people
abuse their bandwidth. It's even mention in their paper that if you abuse they can disconnect you for good but that's something they don't want to enforce. It could be
worse, Videotron have a bandwidth cap of 6 gig and if you go over it's 2$ for every 100 megs so 20$ for 1 gig that's a real rip off. I do find though that they should give 15-20 gig a month. Something funny though they say they have the cap but I still don't see the Bandwidth usage tool on their site »service.sympatico.ca.
Thanx | |
| liq69ers
join:2003-02-14
Brampton, ON | dsl I think sympatico dsl service is pretty good. | |
| larry12
Premium
join:2002-01-04
L0N 1K0
| Satellite may be more expensive... But if you are a heavy down loader (not a gamer) then one should look into the Two Way Broadband Satellite Direcway. The commercial or SOHO packages start at $139 a month and will allow you 1.1GB activity a day at NO extra charge...
Now factor that in, and remember satellite will meet and or beat most phone and dsl lines on the download, this maybe a viable solution for you.
--
Canadian C-Com DiRECWAY Dealer/VAR; DW4020; G11,990Mhz Vertical; 62 RSL,66.82.10.41 ,1250Mhz H;, 4.0.1.28, Satmex 5, DW4000 , G11 1350Mhz, Vertical DW4000; 4.0.3.9; Yes all three services and waiting for the DW6000 replacement DW4020 appliance!! | |
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Re: 50-90GB/month costs