Metering the internet is wrong at any price, let me tell you why.
Under any form of UBB (usage-based billing for internet service) consumers would have no ability to make informed decisions when choosing when and where to “spend” their allotted amount of internet.
Anyone can receive cap-bustingly large attachments in their email at any time without their express permission, every computer operating system and many programs need access to an unknown amount of internet to download necessary software security patches (for example Microsoft releases software updates once a month, which you may not realize if you’ve selected auto-updates on install), and many websites sell advertising space which today can include not only large images but also animations and video that would be a huge draw on any cap.
In each case it is impossible to predict how much of your allotted amount of internet would be used, and in the case of email attachments and auto-updates sent to you also impossible to reject the data transfer, completely eliminating your right as a consumer to choose when/what/where to purchase or more specifically in this case use up your limited allotment of internet.
Clearly, metering the internet is wrong at any price.
The good news is that you can easily Stop The Meter.
Visit the OpenMedia website and send a handily pre-written message (although feel free to edit the message for yourself) directly to the CRTC calling on them to reverse the previous UBB rulings and allow independent ISPs to choose their own customer billing solutions.
Need more background information on UBB or the Stop The Meter campaign?
Try this previous entry I wrote to sum up the usage-based billing problem. Visit the OpenMedia website to find out more or get started right now with these simple steps:
- Send your Message to the CRTC,
- Sign the ‘Stop The Meter’ petition,
- Like OpenMedia.ca on Facebook and share OpenMedia’s Posts with your friends on Facebook,
- Follow @OpenMedia_ca & Tweet about ‘Stop The Meter’ on Twitter, and
- Educate yourself and others, for example share this YouTube video: George Stroumboulopoulos takes on UBB.