Friday, May 28, 2010

The Little ISP That Could

The survival of all small, independent ISPs is at stake and they all know it. Bell has been slowly eroding any competitive advantage that the small ISPs may have had with tariffs such as usage based billing. The small ISPs are fighting back and somehow my ISP, TekSavvy, finds itself leading the charge.

Don't believe me? The CRTC will hold hearings that will examine allowing independent ISPs to co-locate DSLAMs in the central offices. And right there, presenting second only after Bell, is TekSavvy. CEO Rocky Rocky Gaudrault explains why. They indeed are the little ISP that could.

There's no guarantees that the CRTC will allow co-location. If anything, recent decisions would seem to indicate favouring the ILECs. However, the folks at TekSavvy seem rather confident about success and have already announced plans for how they intend to raise money for the DSLAMs with a $2 increase for basic DSL service.

I actually don't have problem with the price increase but it is an inefficient manner in which to build infrastructure. The ILECs didn't have to do it this way. When they were starting out, they got plenty of government support, which is how public infrastructure should be built.

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