Rogers confuses data and bandwidth, cites inappropriate study and can't do math.

It looks like Rogers at least, is citing Cisco's global usage study and using it to draw conslusions about Canadian usage.

As mentioned in a previous post, it is irresponsible to cite a global study to make claims about Canadian usage. Surely global statistics don't apply to Canadians when Canada's internet is so much slower that the rest of the world's.



They also say that:

"Others say it’s more fair for customers to pay for the amount of bandwidth they actually use. We agree with this approach."

Then why not do this? Ie: Charge based only based on bandwith (2Mbps, 1Mbps, 512kbps, etc) and not based on monthly usage? Monthly usage is not bandwidth. Are you sure you're not getting these confused Rogers?

They are also making claims like:

"Our premium tier provides you so much bandwidth (175 GB) that you could watch streaming video on YouTube every day from 7 a.m. in the morning until midnight without reaching your cap"

Aside from the fact they again confused bandwith (usually measured in Mbps) with monthly usage limit (usually meaasured in Gigs), they also got their numbers wrong. YouTube bitrates vary from 0.25 Mbit/s to 5.0 Mbit/s. Watching from 7am-midnight is 17 hours. 17 hours/day for 30 days is 1 836 000 seconds.

Sure at YouTube's lowest bitrate, you can watch all month and only use ~56 Gigs. But even a modest bitrate of 2.0 Mbit/s will use ~448 Gigs, easily exceeding their Ultimate Internet limit of 175Gb.

By the way, am I the only one who can't get YouTubeHD to work in Canada without long buffering pauses?

Macleans thinks Canada's internet is "fast and modern". Harvard disagrees

Macleans (owned by Rogers) came out with an article on friday in favour of usage-based billing.

In it they claim conservatives are "encouraging the popular delusion that usage-based billing will condemn Canada to backwater Internet"

And they think Canada's internet is "one of the fastest and most modern".

Harvard disagrees, as my earlier post on a study out of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University covers. (pdf, pg 247)

"Though it was among the first nations in the world to provide widespread, retail broadband service, Canada’s recent broadband development has lagged behind other developed nations. Canada’s broadband penetration rates are often lauded, but the country is a poor performer on price and speed and a declining performer in penetration."

Canadian Media Giants: Pro-UBB, Anti-Net Neutrality

Shaw is big. Shaw, along with Rogers and Bell are Canadian media. See the list of companies they own here.

We already know they're pro-UBB, but they are also anti-Net Neutrality.

On Friday Feb 19th, "Cable companies, broadcasters and union representatives" met to discuss what should be done about their latest foreign devil: Netflix.

The meeting was hosted by Norm Bolen, president of the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA), who says the meeting was to discuss the impact of online services “competing for content, competing for customers and the effects that might have on the Canadian system"

Hmm... Norm Bolen...

His bio tells us he was previously Executive VP -- Content at Alliance Atlantis, responsible for fine Canadian channels like "Food Network Canada" and "BBC Canada"...

But there's already a Netflix Canada, so he's probably out of ideas...

But wait!

Alliance Atlantis Communications was bought by Canwest which was bought by Shaw.

And we know what Shaw thinks (who, as one of only 3 major Canadian Broadcaster's, was surely there). They want Netflix regulatd by the CRTC. As Shaw's president Peter Bissonnette puts it his we-pay-taxes-so-they-should-too argument, companies like Netflix:

"Undermines the ability of Canadian broadcasters to finance Canadian programs because the foreign competition is sapping their revenue base."

It sounds like they, and other major Canadian broadcasters (Rogers, Bell, I'm looking at you) want Netflix taxed.

Is not selectively taxing specific internet services a violation of the principles of Net Neutrality?

Then that's our media industry for you folks. Three companies that are pro-UBB and anti-Net Neutrality.

Cisco's stats and Canadian usgae based billing

It seem's like the following chart from Cisco Visual Networking Index: Usage Study might be a source of the oft repeated claim "A tiny fraction of the population is using a lion's share of the usage."



I'm not sure if this is the source material for the Canadian claims being made, but it shouldn't be.

This table is talking about global internet usage and if considered for a moment, makes alot of sense.

I bet if we considered the speeds offered in different countries as well as penetration in those countries, corrected for the popultation of said country, I bet all we would find is that the table above only tells us "the Japanese, Sweeds and Koreans are using the interet much more than the rest of us."

Stay tuned.

But in the meantime, does anyone have a source for Canadian usage statistics? StatsCan, as usual, seems to be of little help.

The role of intellectuals in society

Bryan Caplan has an interesting article about research conducted by Hans Noel. Definitely worth a read:

He assembled a big data set of all the written issue positions staked out by major pundits in major outlets at twenty-year intervals, then did factor analysis.

The results:

The empirics by themselves are impressive, but he also shows that pundits' period of chaos and realignment precedes politicians' by about a decade. While it's not decisive proof, it's consistent with a story where intellectuals change their minds first, and activists, the rank-and-file, and politicians gradually get into line.

HT: MarignalRevolution

Connectivity in Canada: Stats

From: "Next Generation Connectivity: A review of broadband Internet transitions and policy from around the world"

Courtesy of The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University (pdf)

Overview of how Canada compares to the rest of the world (pg 247):

"Though it was among the first nations in the world to provide widespread, retail broadband service, Canada’s recent broadband development has lagged behind other developed nations. Canada’s broadband penetration rates are often lauded, but the country is a poor performer on price and speed and a declining performer in penetration."

Other interesting stats: