Surprise-surprise. Feds had another shoe!

If you take a peek at my November 18 2009 blog in which I admitted begrudging respect the the federal government's decision to allow low-cost competition to the large wireless companies, I should perhaps have hedged my respect.

The feds, it seems, have dropped the other shoe. What they 'gave' the public in the way of lower cell phone charges because of heightened competition, they have now taken back Big Time and handed straight over to the large carriers like Rogers, Bell and Telus.

The big guys are going to laugh all the way to the bank now that, as a result of a CRTC decision today, the big internet providers are allowed to cap their excess bandwidth, which will force prices for internet video streaming way, way up. One expert I saw interviewed today estimated that whereas people pay something like $40 a month for unlimited use of high speed bandwidth right now, after the CRTC decision works its insidious way to the marketplace, that $40 will look more like $100 to $140 a month.

The big guys are now free to charge whatever the market will bear for the service just about everyone is learning to need in so many ways.

With the world moving towards internet delivery of video (witness Netflix's direct delivery service via internet), today's decision has just slapped a $100 monthly 'tax' on every web user who wishes to move ahead with technology.

Hey, how about reversing both of the decisions I've referred to here. It'd be a lot cheaper to have less competition for wireless phone service than it will be to pay $100 more a month to be on the technological front edge of the web.

Please, tell me how the CRTC decision helped the average Joe-Jane out there?

Tell me I'm wrong wrong in suspecting that today's decision was a politically-driven payback for the previous decision.

Bastards, all!