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Kreeblah posted:Everything I've ever heard about the CRTC when it comes to telecommunications basically boils down to, "Well, they're loving us again, but it's run by ex-Bell/Rogers/Telus execs, so we can't do anything." So, I've always wondered: has there ever been any movement up there to reform how people are selected to be on it or how it's run or something? No, they like to keep things "business as usual". Canada may be this figuratively "little" unassuming country filled with polite people, but basically all levels of our government and big business are fabulously corrupt. I'm not sure I can even recall a Prime Minister, Premier, or big business in recent memory that wasn't involved on some scandal or another. We as Canadians are far too apathetic about how our country is run, and the guys at the top take full advantage of it. gently caress, look at Gordon Campbell. Guys got single-digit approval ratings, and although people talk about ousting him, he'll likely just run out the clock till the next election because most people don't want to bother doing anything actually effective. "Hurrr, I hate dat fucker Campbell, but as long as I get my Timbits and can watch hockey, I'd just rather ignore the situation. Hurrrr."
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Nov 1, 2010 13:18
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Joink posted:Not to long ago a commercial was on from uhh Rogers I believe about some plan that included 'unlimited social networking' I would always bust out at anyone near me and say WTF IS THAT? limited facebook doesn't exist, i hate cell phones, then throw something. I believe those plans don't charge you for data/internet when you're only using certain sites, such as the aformentioned social networking stuff.
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Nov 3, 2010 10:11
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AmbassadorTaxicab posted:But the whole point is that it doesn't need to be that way. Is Facebook paying off tremendous amounts of money to Rogers or Bell to offset bandwidth costs? Probably not. It takes the same amount of bandwidth to load up a Facebook page as it does to load any other page. Except you're checking it more often, so you're actually using more. The whole point is that if you give people free data for access to social networking sites, some of the most popular sites out there, then more people will sign up for your phone plan. There's no incentive or kickbacks (that we know of) going between Facebook and X phone carrier, but there's definitely incentive for the phone carrier to give customers a deal on certain features to draw far more customers in. Details behind said cost structures are largely irrelevant as well, as the plan could actually cost more, but slap on "Free Facebook!" and the masses will line up in droves. And no, you can't make certain bits of water or electricity cost more, but that's only because there's no way to track that sort of thing. But it's extremely easy to track every bit of data in and out of your phone, and a phone carrier could certainly charge you less while accessing some sites and more for others. It's not "all the same poo poo", every bit and byte of data is a unique identifier, fully trackable, and fully exploitable. Sucks, but money talks. Bloody Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Nov 3, 2010 |
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Nov 3, 2010 12:27
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Cryptic Edge posted:Thats why you (as a country) need to start demanding that the ISP's actually setup your social resources to be more in line with a first world country. Australia too, because both of those countries are backwards when it comes to the Internet and make Chinese Internet service look good. At the rate your ISP's are dicking you, we can expect North Korea to have Internet to more homes at a faster rate by the end of 2015. You can't demand anything and get results when there's no competition. It's our local ISP's way, or the highway. Even if someone came on the scene and decided to offer broadband access, they'd quickly be bought up by the big boys of they posed any real competition. Just look at the former independent cell companies that popped up here in Vancouver. Several years ago a glut of smaller cell carriers cropped up in Vancouver, and offered real, affordable competition to the large telcos. And where are they now? All bought up by the big guys, and still operating with their original names so as to trick the consumer into believing they're still the same small carrier that's looking out for the consumer. In reality their plans are only marginally more attractive than the telcos, but again, all profits go to the telcos anyway.
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Nov 8, 2010 14:37
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tonelok posted:Netflix is working on 1080p streaming. That's going to go over really well with the ISPs/telcos. Bad enough you are somehow cheating them because you no longer do PPV or whatever. Would that really be a huge issue in Canada though? Netflix's selection is loving revolting up here. I got my free trial, and two days later was basically "Hmmm, yeah..... not getting my moneys worth here. Cancel." I guess some people might be into it, that is if they like watching Westerns from the 40's that flopped, or off-brand ripoffs of the American Pie series. "Hey Mike, you wanna watch "El Gunno Magnifico', or 'Panty Camp 5: Ain't Nuthin' Butt a Groove Thong'?" "Uhhhhh.... lets watch commercials instead."
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Nov 18, 2010 18:34
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kuddles posted:People keep saying that, but I don't get it. Maybe because I have no clue what the American version has (although I always assumed because of our weird licensing issues it would be worse), but as far as I'm concerned, the selection is astronomically better than anything I had imagined. I love it. I'm just going by Shaw's VOD/PPV services. They are of course much more expensive than Netflix's offering (depending on who much you watch), but you actually get new stuff. At this point Shaw gets virtually every new release the same day the DVD comes out, for $5 a pop either on VOD or PPV. They also have a fair selection for free TV shows (The Office, Cleveland Show, Family Guy, Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, etc etc), and a wide selection of other TV shows at 99c a pop. The only recent release I can think of that they didn't get is Toy Story 3, but that's Disney for you. What are Netflix Canada's most recent releases? All About Steve Jennifer's Body Miss March Best of Chris Farley Super High Me Fly Me to The Moon What Happens in Vegas Whoo! Timely, and entertaining! Don't worry though, they'll probably get Avatar or Inception on there in a good 5 to 6 years (well after they've probably played on television). 8ender posted:I don't doubt at all that Netflix will be getting a better selection as time rolls on. Unlikely. After people bitched that the Canadian selection sucked, the CEO basically came out and said "We're not about new releases, or going to compete with rentals or PPV services. We're for people who want to catch old movies they missed." Essentially they're offering a low-priced service with lowest-common-denominator offerings. Bloody Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Nov 18, 2010 |
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Nov 18, 2010 19:15
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kuddles posted:Yeah, well, that's just it, isn't it? I never assumed that an "all you can watch, on demand" service for $8 as month was going to carry all the most recent uber-blockbusters that could still handily make $5-6 as a time limited rental. I agree that they can't have the new-new stuff for that price, but I would still expect new releases within a few months of them coming out on DVD. At this rate they'll start getting new releases years after they've been out. And it won't be all movies either, as they have very few contracts with the studios for streaming content, so they're not going to have anything at all from many studios catalogues.
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Nov 18, 2010 20:39
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drcru posted:Kind of an aside but I have Shaw and don't get those shows for free. What kind of package are you on? Just basic digital. They're not under the "Free" section, just go into Television, then Prime Time, and several of the shows listed there are free. The only downside is they don't keep the free and paid content separate, so some shows listed there are the paid stuff. Keep in mind as well that Shaw only has a fraction of their total content listed through the TV menu. If you go to their VOD website, there's a ton more stuff to choose from.
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Nov 19, 2010 16:40
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SeventySeven posted:Fixed that for you. Exactly. "Hey, do you live in downtown apartment or condo high-rise? Great! Is your rent or mortgage over $2000 a month? No..... oh, uhhhh.... sorry, we don't serve the plebs."
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Dec 31, 2010 19:31
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Chris Knight posted:Uncompressed size is irrelevant. It's not, because most Steam games come uncompressed.
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Jan 7, 2011 05:05
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Called up Shaw today and gave them the polite but stern harangue about this whole new thing, and they upgraded me from regular Hi-Speed to Hi-Speed Extreme for $20 less a month than I was paying before. Hopefully 100gb should hold me, as I don't download too much from Steam.
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Jan 16, 2011 01:50
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less than three posted:It's on mine, Vancouver proper. I think it only shows up if you've gone over your bandwidth allowance.
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Jan 26, 2011 04:02
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bl4d3 posted:You must be kidding. I've ordered books at the same time from both Indigo/Chapters (Canada Post) and Amazon (UPS) to a large Canadian city, both with the Free Shipping option, and Canada Post literally took 4-5 more days to arrive than UPS did. I thought it got lost. Now that simply may be because of different service levels that the store is willing to pay for, but that is a huge difference. The problems with UPS are multiple. Shipping from the US to Canada is frequently exorbitantly expensive with UPS. They add in brokerage fees to cover customs fees, but they charge well beyond what FedEX and even Canada Customs charges. The delivery methods are terrible as well. Someone has to be there to sign for the package or they won't deliver. You can ask them to drop it on their second attempt, but if there's nowhere safe to drop it (even though you said they could), they won't leave it. They have no local pickup centers as well (at least near me), so if you aren't able to catch it at the one distribution center they have in a 100 mile radius, then the package immediately goes back to the sender. Fedex isn't much better, but they have a few more options for delivery or an easier pickup. Canada Post is generally just as fast for standard shipments, they have pickup centers everywhere, their delivery requirements aren't as strict, and they'll hold stuff for a week if you need to pick it up. Beyond that, if I need something ordered quicker, I like to go with Purolator if it's available.
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Feb 5, 2011 09:15
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Modian posted:Excellent, I knew Shaw wasn't evil. I feel sorry for the people who switched to Telus over this, they might as well have been signing the dotted line with the devil himself. I wouldn't make any predictions yet. The fact that they say they're simply backing away for a few months to mull the situation over sounds like they're simply going to best figure out how to placate the mainstream with as paltry an offering as possible. "Hey, it's Shaws new Super-Huge Internet Time package! Now with unlimited bandwidth*!" *500kbs down, 10kbs up
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Feb 9, 2011 10:02
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Stanley Pain posted:Yeah Speedtest always shows bogus numbers for me. Dude, you just used up your monthly bandwidth running that Speedtest. But, it's only fair. *ba-doom TSH*
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Feb 20, 2011 17:08
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Vergeh posted:I guess the Netflix thing is the CRTC's apologetic handjob to Big Broadcasting for being forced to review the whole UBB thing. I wouldn't blame Netflix if they just told this country to gently caress off. Agreed. The Canadian Government can be like that Simpsons episode where the town nickel and dimes the movie production until they're forced to leave. There are a LOT of businesses and industries that tried moving to Canada at some point, and then left a few years later because it wasn't economically feasible anymore. There are just some things you can't get here, and if you want it you have to import from somewhere else and pay through the nose for it. The ironic thing is even though Canada is like that episode, we actually bend over backwards to get film companies to work up here. Everyone else though, pay up er git out!
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Feb 21, 2011 05:25
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Armor-Piercing posted:It has given us Corner Gas. And the sad thing is that Corner Gas is one of the better Canadian shows in recent memory. Canada is so desperate to have "stars" that stay in the country, that any idiot with even a micron of talent gets their own show. Endless repeats of horrible Just for Laughs poo poo, comedy specials with hacks who would be booed off the stage in any other country, Mike Bullard, Comedy Inc., hour-long dramas that try to mimic their US counterparts but still being canadian by mentioning hockey and universal health care as much as possible, and the worst of the worst, Royal Canadian Air Farce. Let's not even get started on our abysmal movie industry that turns out horrible, horrible stuff like Bon Cop, Bad Cop, and the latest "I'm a confused sexual deviant!" work from Atom Egoyan.
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Feb 21, 2011 06:54
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I wouldn't be surprised if it's still on. Ron James though is another perfect example of someone with zero talent, and yet has stuck around forever and has somehow been elevated to the status of one of Canada's premier comedians. Rick Mercer has sort of become this way as well. He was pretty good back in his This Hour days, but after getting his own show and being held up as the Canadian Jon Stewart, he's really resting on his laurels and falling back on tired and predictable comedy. And speaking of This Hour, that show has gotten pretty rank as well. Once Mercer left, and then eventually Greg Thomey and Mary Walsh left, all the real talent of the show was gone. I don't see why Cathy Jones is still on the show; while she wasn't the best performer, she was leagues better than the hacks they have on now. What I wouldn't give to still see Mary Walsh doing more Marg Delahunty or Dakey Dunn, or Thomey's incompetent politician Jerry Boyle.
Bloody Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Feb 21, 2011 |
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Feb 21, 2011 07:13
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Nomenklatura posted:Edit: And I have no idea what the hell Bloody Hedgehog is on about with the film output. Canadian film is actually fairly good; often excellent. Atom Egoyan is internationally respected, "deviant" or no, and Cronenberg's Canadian work was arguably his best. The Egoyan comment I actually meant about the characters in his films, not Egoyan himself. And while Canada certainly turns out great films, one or two over a decade does not make us a country great at filmmaking.
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Feb 21, 2011 11:14
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teethgrinder posted:I came across this nifty list of Canadian television series trying to find a list of Global productions: Following that link, and then onto a link about the Canadian Television fund, I found this interesting tidbit: quote:On July 20, 2007, Keith Mahar, a former manager at broadcaster CHUM Limited, submitted a report to the CRTC, entitled Profiteering in the Name of Culture, respecting the Canadian Television Fund [1]. The submission recommends a judicial review of alleged CRTC corruption related to the Fund which he contends has unjustly enriched cable companies. As per Mr. Mahar, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulations, cable and satellite television distributors in Canada are required to contribute 5% of their revenue to the fund, which the companies can pass on to their customers in the form of inflated rates service. Since such consumer costs are embedded in their fees for service, consumers are subject to pay the 5% levy plus P.S.T. and G.S.T. on the cost of the company subsidy program. A copy of the submission is posted on the CRTC public file. On February 7, 2008, Mahar issued a press release covered by Reuters [2] which was critical of Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his alleged failure to act on information respecting related activities by the CRTC and corporations in the affair. So Shaw, and presumably all other telecommunications companies, were double dipping. Charging customers both tax, which goes to pay for the Television Fund, and a separate Television Fund Fee, buried in the other charges that customers pay. And then there was this little bit: quote:On December 20, 2006, Jim Shaw, CEO of Shaw Communications Inc. informed the Canadian Television Fund that he would be pulling approximately $56 million per year out of the fund. The move was later followed by Vidéotron (a subsidiary of Quebecor Inc.) who announced their plans to withdraw their contributions on January 23, 2007.2 So Shaw and Videotron are no longer contributing to the Television Fund. Who wants to guess if Shaw and Videotron are still hiding the Television Fund fee in the charges it levies against their customers? Just another example of how big-business are nickel and diming people to death. With the way the common man is being taxed and charged to death, and the daily stories of north american governments curtailing social services, a lack of social justice, and freedoms being eroded, I would be very surprised if we didn't start seeing some of the social upheaval we're seeing in egypt in the middle east here in north america some time in the next 50 years. We're pretty apathetic about poo poo here in north america, but there's that small but growing sense that people are getting tired of being pushed around and are contemplating pushing back.
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Feb 21, 2011 13:47
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Chris Knight posted:Don't really want to turn this into TV chat, but Corus is another stellar example of what happens when our companies get too large and start loving things up. The demise of the original programming on WTN and YTV to name just two. "What, we got into debt to buy your channel? Guess we have to lay everyone off and cut making original programming, because that costs too much!" I was directly hosed over by Corus. I was working with an animation company here in Vancouver several years back, and they opened a studio in Toronto. They had cut a deal with Nelvana to be one of their top production houses, and the whole point of the Toronto studio was to be close to Nelvana. So I moved there, supervised the day-shift ink & paint artists for a few years. Then Corus buys up Nelvana, slashes their animation budget and schedule, and vis-a-vis leaves us with no work. The studio slowly ground to a halt, and the last thing we ended up working on there was "Looney Tunes: Back in Action". Not exactly an auspicious way to close out a studio. Didn't help either that when I moved back to Vancouver, the Vancouver studio was now populated with an almost entirely new staff, most of which seemed to have a stick permanently wedged up their rear end. I got out of that sad-sack factory right quick.
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Feb 21, 2011 19:13
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Squibbles posted:Teksavvy resells shaw and telus connections at a discount, have you checked the web site to see if they can hook you up? When I entered my postal code in Port Moody it said no service but then I realized that in the top right corner it had Ontario selected, once I changed it to BC it detected my postal code as having service through them with no problems. Hey, I live on Port Moody. Small world....
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Mar 16, 2011 05:59
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rhag posted:I am not using bit-torrent, WoW is the only thing that is on my computer. Well, WoW does use Bittorrent to distribute their patches. Not that that excuses Rogers from just packet-shaping everything.
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Mar 26, 2011 23:28
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Finally some political issues I can get behind. A lot better than listening to them argue about where Ignatief lives or whether Canada should buy new jet fighters to protect us from...... someone.
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Apr 22, 2011 23:02
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Squibbles posted:So weird. I was JUST looking at it this weekend then a coworker said today he couldn't see it on his profile page and it seems to be gone from mine too now. I think it's just random oddness that crops up from time to time. I've seen the usage counter appear and disappear on my account page at least a dozen times.
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Apr 25, 2011 23:54
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Looking at those plans and just general internet packages all over the web, when are we collectively going to start measuring download speeds in megabytes and not megabits?
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May 26, 2011 05:44
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status posted:Never, since it's been that way since the beginning of the internet. Besides, if ISPs decided to switch, they'd be flooded with calls by people who don't know any better asking why their internet package is suddenly 8 times slower than it was before. I doubt it. Those who don't know any better just know they get "internet"; they wouldn't have a clue about bits, bytes, bandwidth, dry loops, or whatever. It's not really like their bill would break down every feature of their service either. I doubt most people would even notice except those that went looking for the info. fishmech posted:Maybe once you also have upload speeds that aren't 0.125 megabytes per second or less? drat, so I guess never then, at least in North America.
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May 26, 2011 08:39
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Powershift posted:What does abortion have to do with the internet? Aborted fetuses are ground up and used to lubricate the gears that power the Intarweb Tubes. I mean, durr, been living under a rock or something.
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May 31, 2011 06:51
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Just got the BB100 plan today. Woop Woop, tha's the soun' ah me modem on fy-ah. 
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Jun 9, 2011 12:33
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Sir Liquid Jerk posted:I got BB100 from Shaw today and they gave me this SMC SMCD3GN modem/gateway combo but I just want to set it to bridge mode and use my own WNDR3700 but I can't find the option anywhere is it possible? You have to get Shaw to do it, and they can do it over the phone. I initially had mine set to bridge mode, hooked up to my Cisco E3200 router. For whatever reason though, the thing was bottlnecked to around 87mbs, it would never go higher. Called Shaw and had it set to gateway mode, and hooked my stuff directly to it, and now I can hit the 100mbs ceiling on my connections. The SMC isn't the greatest router ever, but it gets the job done if you don't need any extended features found in better routers or DD-WRT/Tomato setups. Either way, Shaw is upgrading to Cisco modem/routers in about a months time, so people can upgrade then if need be.
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Jun 11, 2011 04:21
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I remember back when Rogers had Shaw's current territory, our first cable modem was a Lancity brand. The entire casing of the modem was made of metal, and had huge fins on it. Essentially the case served as it's own heatsink. Thing was big too and weighed something like 8 pounds.
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Jun 11, 2011 10:36
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I'm not sure if the full story was ever revealed, but I've heard everything from Ted Rogers and the Shaws being good friends and saying "What the hell, it'll be fun and profitable.", to both Rogers and Shaw building up such huge a huge negative public opinion in their respective territories that they swapped so they could start fresh with new customers. The latter might have had a definite impact, as I remember Shaw coming in here and their marketing basically amounted to "Rogers sucks, Shaw is coming to make things better!". I moved to Toronto right in the middle of their territory swap, and over there Rogers marketing was "Shaw suck, Rogers is coming to make things better!". And the extremely negative public opinion was there too, as I remember right before Shaw took over, people were seriously incensed with Rogers at the time. lovely service, lovely selection, high prices, negative-billing; a lot of people were legitimately thinking of just cutting out TV and internet altogether at the time because Rogers was terrible and the only game in town. Bloody Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Jun 11, 2011 |
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Jun 11, 2011 12:13
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So I was talking to my dad yesterday about how I had upgraded to Shaw's BB-100 plan. His response? "Oh, cool! So I guess the picture on your monitor is a lot clearer now then!" 
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Jun 12, 2011 15:45
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Yep, probably sometime this month. I don't know if they've released any info on what model it will be, but several Shaw reps have confirmed a switch to Cisco equipment.
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Jul 1, 2011 20:08
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fishmech posted:Why haven't any of these ISPs decided to go with peak-times throttling? It's what the British ISPs do for the most part, and it actually is a solution to the claimed problems of congestion. I still think Shaw does this. Obviously speeds will decrease during peak times of congestion, but the speeds I get at different times of the day can be charted like clockwork. The only two conclusions are that either Shaw is throttling, or there is the exact same amount of congestion every day at the same time in my area. The latter doesn't seem very likely.
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Jul 20, 2011 22:59
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I still don't buy it. I've been charting the speeds I get at certain times of the day for a week now, and I'm getting the same speeds almost to the megabit at any given time. I would understand if the speeds were even slightly more variable, but when I can look at my watch and go "Oh, it's 6:30, I'm going to get 77mbs down." and it's accurate almost to the megabit every single day, then I have to wonder.
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Jul 21, 2011 11:37
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Zigmidge posted:I'd say if you had access to SaskTel you're set! But then you'd have to live in Saskatchewan. Ughhhhhhh.
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Aug 7, 2011 00:49
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thexerox123 posted:Is it normal to get dramatically slower speeds on speedtest.net when torrenting, or is that a sign that I'm being throttled? Are you running the torrent at the same time you're testing? Because the torrent is sucking up all your bandwidth.
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Aug 8, 2011 15:08
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Vergeh posted:It's a bit like clocking your car's top speed when you've got the engine pulling double duty as an industrial lathe. Announcer 1 - "And here they come out of turn 5, and just look at Team Home Depot go! They're pulling into the lead, some fine driving there by driver Scooter Johnson!" Announcer 2 - "I couldn't agree more. And just look at the quality of that victorian writing-desk leg that co-pilot Tim Abrahms is turning on their engine-lathe. They'll certainly be earning style points at the finish line with quality craftsmanship like that."
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Aug 8, 2011 17:26
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Squibbles posted:I just signed up for Shaw's 100mbps/500gig package. Normally you wouldn't run into that much congestion. I think last night and this morning though they were having some serious problems with their infrastructure. Not only was my internet out for quite a while last night, even the TV signal was effected on the digital box.
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Aug 11, 2011 21:22
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