In Canada many people won't get Netflix[1] because of ridiculously low bandwidth caps. It's amazing how much lack of competition and corrupt regulatory bodies can stifle innovation.
[1] And of course, Netflix' catalog in Canada is very limited due to similar politics.
Indeed. I moved in with by g/f and soon after that, her Rogers Internet service went up in price and monthly cap got slashed to 60 GB/month. I subscribed to Netflix service for the 30 day free trail, but promptly canceled after I saw the horrid selection and b/w usage. Needless to say, we are switching to Teksavvy since I've been a customer of theirs since 2001
I am on Teksavvy and a Netflix subscriber. I found Netflix catalog to be quite good, it may not have any blockbusters from the past few decades but it has a very good selection of indie, foreign and old movies. Netflix Canada also has good selection of tv series e.g. Mad Men, Topgear etc. Its definitely worth it for monthly price which is half the price of a movie ticket.
In the west, we've got SHAW who recently lowered bandwidth caps without changing the price and are charging for any overages, and Telus who are not yet charging for overages but they try to lock you in on contracts and also have caps. For a 15/1 pipe you pay about $60/month.
The problem is since all of the major ISPs also provide television they are effectively attempting to get rid of netflix as competition by placing such restrictions on our access.
http://openmedia.ca/ has been campaigning to get rid of the caps in Canada. Quite a fair bit of interesting reading and it's nice to see it gaining momentum lately.
Say what you like about the Maritimes, but one thing is for certain: I'm so glad that the main ISP out here is Eastlink. 15Mbps is the stock standard, and for a bit extra you can double that (or, for a lot extra, you can go to 100Mbps). Admittedly there is a 250G advertised cap on the faster plans, but nothing advertised on the 15Mbps plan. Plus, we definitely don't have to deal with weird torrent filtering, shaping, interceptions or anything.
And it definitely is good enough for Netflix.
Just wanted to throw that out there... you never know, they may eventually creep westward and bring some real competition :)
agree.... I hope the wireless careers can give some stiff competition to the wired incumbents like comcast, road runner and their ilk.... that did be nice!!!!!!!
You should actually be rooting for telco competition. Look at areas where Verizon FIOS and Comcast compete head-to-head. Not only is the broadband excellent quality, it's price competitive with almost any other European/East Asian nation.
There's no doubt in my mind that the U.S. can have excellent broadband at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, in most areas we only have the choice between pricy, midgrade cable internet and cheap, slow DSL.
I'm rooting for all competition; I don't have any reason to believe that telcos would be any less corrupt than cable companies. But if we had a choice between multiple wireless providers, multiple cable providers, and multiple telcos, we might stand a chance at a fair deal.
The Cable/Telco-FIOS spar is likely to evolve into a wink-and-nod conspiracy where companies all settle on similar high prices and compete only in the marketing arena (see SMS as one easy example).
In any case, they're absolutely right. These plans are clear cash grabs, and they wouldn't exist if we had proper competition.