Page "Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission" Paragraph 26

* Bell Canada usage-based billing: On October 28, 2010, the CRTC handed down its final decision on how wholesale customers can be billed by large network owners.

Under the plan which starts within 90 days, Bell will be able to charge wholesale service providers a flat monthly fee to connect to its network, and for a set monthly usage limit per each ISP customer the ISP has.

Beyond that set limit, individual users will be charged per gigabyte, depending on the speed of their connections.

Customers using the fastest connections of five megabits per second, for example, will have a monthly allotment of 60 GB, beyond which Bell will charge $ 1. 12 per GB to a maximum of $ 22. 50.

If a customer uses more than 300 GB a month, Bell will also be able to implement an additional charge of 75 cents per gigabyte.

In May 2010, the CRTC ruled that Bell could not implement its usage-based billing system until all of its own retail customers had been moved off older, unlimited downloading plans.

The requirement would have meant that Bell would have to move its oldest and most loyal customers.

The CRTC also added that Bell would be required to offer to wholesale ISPs the same usage insurance plan it sells to retail customers.

Bell appealed both requirements, citing that the rules do not apply to cable companies and that they constituted proactive rate regulation by the CRTC, which goes against government official policy direction that the regulator only intervene in markets after a competitive problem has been proven.

In Thursday's decision, the CRTC rescinded both requirements, thereby giving Bell the go-ahead to implement usage-based billing.

This ruling according to Teksavvy handcuffs the competitive market.

This has been asked by Stephen Harper and Parliament to have the decision reviewed.

According to a tweet by Industry Minister Tony Clement, unless the CRTC reverses this decision, the government will use its override power to reverse the decision.