Healthcare in Ontario SUCKS!

When I lived in BC and was diagnosed with diabetes in 2004 everything I needed was covered by my medical plan. Not so in Ontariario. You have to fight for every dollar. The best example of idiotic care here is that they pay for insulin but not the needles to take it. Are we supposed to drink it? Needles are $40 a box, and, if like me you use six a day, that box doesn't last very long.

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The Death of Customer Service?

Apparently Facebook's new search feature will allow people to search for certain key words from a number of sources. Hopefully it will search WordPress blogs as well. This post is about my disaster of an experience with BelairDirect, my insurance company. They only underwrite insurance in Ontario, so this won't be of any interest if you are in BC, where ICBC handles all the insurance. I didn't know how good I had it while I lived in BC.

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So Much for the "Power" of Social Media

There was a job back in Kelowna with a company owned by the son of a colleague I had done business with many years ago. I thought it might be interesting and maybe help me get the job if I asked all my friends and colleagues to send a simple email to him with the subject line "Hire Gary Jones".

At the very least I thought getting maybe thirty or forty emails would help to get me noticed. Okay, so some of my 136 friends on Facebook don't know me well enough to send what looks like a recommendation, but a lot of them do. Not only that but a lot of them are friends I have helped out when they needed it; everything from help with moving to renovating to taking them out on my boat. A simple one-line email wasn't too much to ask, I thought.

No such luck. It backfired on me big time when all he got was TWO emails. That's right - TWO! If he read into it that I had asked all my many friends and colleagues in the Okanagan to send him a simple email, and the response was a big fat TWO, then it's not surprising that I never heard from him again.

Given my current desperation to get the hell out of London and back to my beloved Okanagan, this experience sure brought me down, which is the last thing I needed right now.


What's more important - your job or your health?

This was my letter to Service Canada regarding filing for medical benefits –

I find myself in an intolerable position with my current employer, Stream Global Services, here in London, and I need urgent advice.

I started with this company October 12th, 2011 as a Customer Service Representative for the Bell Satellite TV contract. I fell for the stated goal that we were to offer “exceptional service” to Bell’s customers to regain market position. I attended various training sessions in which we were encouraged to investigate all possible issues with a customer and do our very best to resolve the issues and retain the customer. On the floor this turned out to be a lie. What, in fact, we were to do was as little as possible in the shortest amount of time. I was admonished on every call where, although I solved problems that had been ignored before and thus retained the customer, my AHT (Average Handling Time) was over the goal of ten minutes. The fact that I retained thousands of dollars of business by solving customer’s problems; had the highest FCR (First Call Resolution), meaning my customers did not have to call back again, and my PCCS (Post Call Customer Survey) scores were the highest on the floor, various managers constantly berated me over my AHT.

It got so bad that they put me in a remedial program called B2B to “correct my behavior” and lower my AHT. Upon completion of the program I was forced to sign an acknowledgement of my target AHT and that I would be fired if I did not meet the “agreed” goal. Shortly before graduating one of the senior staff berated me on the floor in front of my colleagues, treating me like a five year-old, over a long call that he claimed was unnecessary because I was wrong, even though I had consulted a senior on the call. He claimed he would also discipline the senior, even though she did not report to him. When I consulted with my senior, she not only confirmed that he was wrong, but was also livid that he told me she would be “disciplined”. I reported this issue to Human Resources and advised them that if I was ever berated in public again I would take the matter up with a wrongful dismissal lawyer.

It should be pointed out this is a deplorable company. They have no respect for their employees, lie about their programs and treat employees unbelievably poorly. We have fridges that don’t work. Broken Microwaves in which to heat our lunch. Toilets that have been broken for months. Their practices are Neanderthal. Knowing that staff had been quitting in droves in February they announced a whole new program of metrics that would allow us to make more money. To date this program has never been implemented. Even their current program, which offers minimal reward for meeting all of your metrics, and on which they find every excuse in the world to not pay you, they run a month behind on payments, a clear violation of the contract.

There have been countless incidents of employees being bullied and harassed. One employee who had to book time off for a medical procedure was told she would lose her shift seniority and be placed back on a night shift where she would not see her kids. When I asked why the outside door to the smoking area did not have handicapped access for an employee in a wheelchair, I was told not to report it because the company would close the smoking area. Every piece of equipment we have to do our jobs – the phones, the archaic computers and, most importantly, our software, constantly break down or are unavailable. The most critical software tool we have to deal with customers goes down on a regular basis, every day. We are told to lie to customers and tell them “our software is being updated”.

Every word you say to a customer is recorded and Quality Control staff are constantly monitoring what is said. They write you up for the slightest mistake and are more than often wrong in their interpretation of what was said. I was written up for calling someone at Bell “stupid”. Only when I objected to signing the report did they listen to the call again and realize I had said “that was stupid”. Big difference. Last Monday I was written up for saying that I was glad that Bell was recording the call, inferring that because the company was so stupid I was glad it was being recorded. Again, I refused to sign the report because I knew what I had said. The customer was being obviously flirtatious with me, making suggestive comments and I advised her to remember that the call was being recorded to keep the call professional. My manager had grabbed me the minute I walked in for my shift and threatened to write me up and action (fire me) over this call. I told him to listen to the call before he went any further. I also questioned why Quality had never once written up a call where I had saved a customer who called to cancel or on any of the other hundreds of calls where I had saved a customer. My most frequent request from customers is to be able to call me back personally because I am the “only one who ever helped me properly”. No, they only report you on negative calls.

Instead of fixing all of the countless issues we have with our software, they focused their efforts on their new “Rockstar” program based on feedback from customers. They list numerous issues we are to investigate with the customer, mostly to sell them more programming, but not once do they qualify this lofty objective by adding “in the shortest possible time”. The program was to launch last week, but, no surprise, there are “glitches in the software”. Our new desktop phone management system was to launch last February, but we are still waiting. The current version crashes all day and even disconnects customers, but nobody cares. They also changed policy this week that we are to call disconnected customers back within thirty seconds, but, first our system fires the next call at you in less than one second, and, secondly, we are to get a manager’s approval before making a callback. Yet more stress.

During my time with this company my health has deteriorated substantially. Even though I am a diabetic my blood pressure has always been low (110 over 70) and my sugars were under control. I do suffer from diabetic neuropathy which results in very painful feet. My work limitations resulted in my being approved for ODSP as of last July. Due to my earnings I lost my financial assistance and my drug card, which I appealed and won and my drug card was restored. On my last visit to my diabetic team at St. Josephs they were very concerned that my heart was “racing” and my BP had increased to a dangerous level. I told them that my experience with my employer had gone from being upset, stressed and shaky after my shift, to experiencing the same condition going to work. The pressure has become intolerable and I cannot work there anymore. My health is more important to me and I will not let a job this bad kill me.

As for my current status at Stream I emailed my manager after the berating over the call, asking for VTO (Voluntary Time Off) and was told none was available. I was told to ask for vacation time, but the system would only allow a request for the next day. I then advised him that I wanted to go home sick because I could not do my job effectively under the present conditions. I reminded him that my AHT metric had been cause for termination weeks ago, at least that had been the daily threat, so just terminate me and stop threatening me. He told me he would speak to the Bell rep on site and then I was to meet with HR, but no one got back to me before the end of my shift. My manager is off the same days as I am, Tuesday and Wednesday, so I sent an email to the Bell rep that I would not be back, but I was not quitting. I would phone in sick, if only because I haven’t missed a single minute since I started and have voluntarily worked every holiday since I started.

To make matters worse, my doctor has discovered a potentially cancerous growth on my abdomen and is trying to get me in for a biopsy as quickly as possible, which is only adding to my stress. My mother died of cancer and I had a birthmark on my forehead removed several years ago because it tested positive.

My situation is complex, but I do not wish to make my life even worse. London Housing has also been taking the maximum $612 a month in rent from me, which makes working even more pointless. ODSP has been deducting the full amount of my wages plus my pension, leaving me wondering why I am working when it is killing me? I need to support myself and, most importantly, get my health back under control. I know I have worked the required hours to file for Employment Insurance, but I need some direction on what I am to do with my employment. Life has been stressful enough without making my situation worse.

I would very much appreciate your guidance.

(Due to the urgency of my situation I was hoping to meet with someone who could advise me, but I was told the process takes five days. I phoned in sick this morning mostly because I am waiting to get a biopsy, plus my stress level is off the charts.)


Think ICBC is a bad deal?

A few years ago I saw a small classified ad for a Ford Ranger. I was getting into renovating and needed a truck. After I went to the shop and decided to buy the truck I wanted to leave my car for some bodywork to sell it, so I needed plates and insurance to be able to drive the truck.

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The Joys of dealing with Rogers.

Michael A. Adams
Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
Rogers Cable, Inc.
333 Bloor Street East, 7th Floor
Toronto, ON
M4W 1G9

Dear Mr. Adams:

Although, based on my experience with your company so far it is painfully clear that you don’t care what customers think, or things would change, I wanted to detail just what hell Rogers has put me through. Maybe someone in management will wake up and actually do something about your nightmare of a company.

After a months long battle over my services, mainly stemming from my request, made months ago, to cut back my services because I had lost my job and was now on social assistance, but your customer service staff just repeatedly told me to pay the bill and THEN they would look at changing my services, which makes no sense, I finally reached John in the Office of the President. After much back and forth, he finally agreed to cancel my TV service and reduce my internet service, as long as I remained with Rogers, because I had requested my account be cancelled and I was going with Bell, who offered a much better package.

Bell then called me back to advise that Rogers had refused to allow the transfer. When I got back to John he said his “offer” to eliminate all the incorrect back charges was based on me staying with Rogers, but he had not yet told me that. I reminded him that I never signed any contract and I simply wanted to be finished with Rogers, but he insisted if I cancelled that Rogers would “come after me” for the full outstanding balance. I asked if this wasn’t blackmail and was this the way Rogers did business?

The next thing was that I got a warning notice in my browser telling me that I had reached my paltry 15 GB limit. Not only that, but I would be charged an insane $4 per GB of overage. I fundamentally disagree with the greedy cash grab of UBB in the first place, as do thousands of other Canadians. I have filed protests with the CRTC against this regressive practice. Shaw and Telus have recently bowed to pressure and upped their limits and cut their overage charges in half. I hope that during the upcoming CRTC hearings that they will respond to angry Canadians and ban this practice. In other areas at least the caps are more realistic, at 150 and 250 GB. A limit of 15 GB is beyond absurd.

My rational for objecting to this UBB is twofold; one, it smacks of monopolistic practices and I don’t’ view it any differently than what Microsoft was convicted of with the anti-trust charges. How is Rogers capping internet usage, thereby pushing companies like Netflix out of the market, any different? Secondly, we have “bait and switch” laws in Canada. You pressure consumers to sign upon monthly contracts at set fees, then you encourage them to watch everything on Rogers “on demand”. Then you impose limits on usage, which flies in the face of your advertising, and then you have the nerve to charge obscene overcharges of $4 per gigabyte on top of that, as you told the CRTC, “recover costs”. What costs? An outright lie and certainly clear evidence of “bait and switch”. Hook them with set monthly fees, and then change the contract to add additional usage charges.

Bell again approached me to provide service and I told them if they could get you to agree, to go for it. They were successful and told me that Rogers had agreed to suspend my service as of July 25th and would send me a pro-rated bill, which you did. I hated that I had to stay one more minute with your company, but I was at least thankful that I would be done with you forever come July 25th.

First thing this morning, when I checked my email I got nothing but errors that the server could not be connected. Worse, my browser could not connect either. I went though all the steps to ensure my wireless internet connection was working and it showed “connected” and “excellent”; however I could not get into anything. I use Google Phone because I only have a very expensive Fido paygo that costs a fortune to make outgoing calls, but I had no choice. Thus started my saga of dealing with umpteen people at Rogers, all day long.

The first tech support person I spoke to said he could not communicate with my modem, so it must be defective. He told me to go to a Rogers store to switch it with a new one. I have an infected foot, so walking is very painful, but I made the trip to the store and switched my modem. The girl in the store said she had updated everything and I should only need to plug in the modem and everything would be fine. It wasn’t.

The situation was exactly the same with the new modem. It showed full connectivity, but I couldn’t do anything. I called back to speak to tech support, on my very expensive cell again and this time I was told that the “word order had not gone through properly from the store” so my modem was not “bound” properly. They were to put me though to customer service who could do this for me. First disconnect of the day, so I had to call back and go through it all again. This time, after again holding forever on my expensive call, the tech told me there was a problem with my account. I said I only just got the bill two days ago, so how could there be a problem already? He had no answers, but put me through to billing. Second disconnect of the day, so I called back and pressed all the numbers for “billing”. After waiting forever, again, the lady I spoke to said she understood my frustration, but she didn’t have the authority to reactivate my account, so she would transfer me to someone who did. I said I had been cutoff twice already, so please don’t transfer me. She laughed and said she would never do that, and promptly transferred me, and, yes, yet another disconnect.

Throughout all of this I had remained calm, but my next call was not. I demanded that the person I spoke to transfer me to the RIGHT person and not disconnect me. I finally spoke to a Damon who was very understanding of what I had been going through all day and promised to rectify the mess. He said he had a number of “frustrating” steps that he had to go though, but my service should be restored “by the end of the day”. I told him I had been through Rogers’ hell all day and I wanted the service restored now. He promised to call me back in an “hour or so” when it should be working again. Naturally, he never called back.

I called yet again around seven o’clock and spoke with a very snarky tech support person, whose name I can’t remember. He had me disconnect the modem and the cable, then started down the same road I had been through in my very first call in the morning. When I tried to point this out to him, suggesting that this was not the problem, he got snippy with me and said if I didn’t allow him to go through his procedures, how was he going to help me? After going through the same useless procedures he told me he could not connect to the modem and said it too was “defective”. He arranged for a tech call for Friday between two and five, but suggested I still had time to return to the Rogers store and exchange the modem yet again.

Knowing that it was not the problem with “defective” modems, I none the less hobbled back to the store,only to be met with a sign scrawled on the door saying that the cable centre was closed due to “technical difficulties”. I was obviously frustrated at this, so I tried to open the door anyway and found them open. I then went to the back counter, unpacked my modem and stood there as one of the employees was on the phone. After a few minutes he ended the call and started shuffling all the papers he had on the counter. He did not acknowledge me standing there or suggest he would be “right with me”, just ignoring me. After maybe ten minutes of me getting more and more angry, an employee, Brittney, noticed I had been standing there and asked if I was just exchanging something and then said she could help me at the front.

When she learned what kind of day I had thanks to Rogers, she acknowledged my frustration, but said she might not be able to exchange the modem because the systems had been “down all day”. I calmly said that after what I had been through and being forced to hobble over for the second time, I wanted a new modem. She offered to call and see if they could deal with it. After an unbelievable amount of time patiently waiting on hold, dealing with other customers and chatting with me, she finally got someone. She explained the circumstances and the person she spoke with offered to help. Brittney then most graciously offered to give me a couple of free rentals for my troubles. Very classy. I told her she was the first and only person with Rogers who knew how to deal with a customer and was competent in her job. Most refreshing.

Sure enough when I returned home and hooked up the third modem, nothing had changed, as I knew it wouldn’t. I had my fill of frustration for the day so I gave up and watched the movies Brittney had given me.

First thing Friday morning, knowing that the tech call was going to be pointless, I again called in and spoke with a Liza and related the whole mess to her again. She checked with her manager, who said they saw nothing wrong with the account, but they had no authority to bind the modem. She said she would transfer me to “level two” tech support, but, after I explained that tech support was pointless because they can’t check that the modem is bound to the account, she put me on hold and said she would talk to someone in the department that could. I stress with her to please not disconnect me and she said she was not transferring me, but just putting me on hold. I asked that she please call me back or get someone else to call me back, knowing I was going to be disconnected, and I was. Your phone system is pathetic and only serves to further angry already frustrated customers.

Knowing that if I called back I would never be able to reach Liza again, and would only get the annoying “we are experiencing a higher volume of calls today” message, which is the norm and not at all unusual, I hoped that Liza would call me back. I write this as I wait, so it will be interesting to see if anyone calls me back. At this point, given my experience, I doubt it. So I am left stuck at home, destroying any plans I had for going to the Canada Day celebrations today, waiting for a tech visit that I just know is going to prove as equally useless as everything I have been going through already.

During the hour I have now been waiting for a callback that I doubt is going to come, I attempted to go through the procedures to refresh my network, hoping that someone has done something at Rogers. To my considerable surprise when I went to refresh my network settings using my Dell Wireless program, my original network, named KING, was gone! Instead, when I viewed the available networks I now saw WLAN, which I had never setup and didn’t even know if it was mine. When I attempted to connect to this network of course it asked for the network key, which I don’t know. So, now I am left in an even worse position with no available network and no clue why my original settings are gone. Any attempt to reestablish any connection has failed.

No surprise that Liza never called me back after we were disconnected, but the tech did finally come, which was even more grief. The first thing he tells me, after spending at least ten hours with all the idiots at your company, is that the wire had been disconnected! No wonder no one could talk to the modem! Does nobody know this? What kind of useless system can’t even tell when there is no connection? All the hours and trips to the store were completely useless and a total waste of everyone’s time.

The tech immediately had reconnected me and got the network up on his computer, but then he handed me the setup disk and told I had to reconfigure my wireless network. I asked him if he could just make sure I got reconnected okay before he left, especially given what I had been put through. He refused and left. Sure enough as soon as I tried to reinstall the network the software reported an error that it could not configure my network because some other program was managing my network. Yes, my Dell laptop has its own network manager which has always worked perfectly. Why would your software attempt to override that? After many attempts to get it to work I gave up and went through the grief of moving everything around so that I could use the USB connection to the modem. Just more grief because of your idiotic systems!

I called back to speak to your cancellation department who, believe it or not after what you have put me through, said she could only cancel the account after thirty days. After a lesson in just how pissed off a customer can become, I told her I wanted the service cancelled on Monday so that Bell could also install my internet service when they are here to install my TV and phone service. When she said she was going to put me on hold I told her that I had already been disconnect umpteen times when anyone at Rogers did that, plus I was on my very expensive cell phone at thirty cents a minute. I asked her to do what she had to do and then call me back, but she insisted on me holding. When she came back fifteen minutes, or $4.50 for me, later, she said the department she needed to speak to was closed, but she had sent some emails and it should be dealt with. Yeah, like I believe anyone does what they say they will do at Rogers? I can’t believe she left me on hold while she wrote emails! Do your people have no common sense?

There are so many issues here and idiots that I was forced to deal with, it boggles the mind. Why did the first tech I spoke to first thing this morning not know that it was an account problem and had nothing to do with my modem being defective? Is that too much to ask? Why was I disconnected every single time someone tried to transfer me? Why did NO ONE know the wire had been disconnected in the first place? Why do staff not call back, which only serves to further infuriate the customer? Why are your staff not properly trained? Why is there no escalation procedure when a customer is clearly upset and getting nowhere?

When this all started hours and hours ago the stupid part was that I discovered my internet was down when I went to pay my Rogers bill. Now, after wasting an incredible amount of time with hours on my phone gobbling up expensive minutes I cannot afford, sending me to the Rogers store twice for no reason, and literally, the pain and suffering and emotional distress you have caused, not only will I not send you a cent, but I hope to be compensated for my time. If you chose to take me to court over this I will relish the opportunity to blast you in public in the hopes that I will save other customers from the horrors of dealing with you.

Somewhat related and curious is that I naturally wanted to be as vocal as I could about my disastrous experience with Rogers, so I visited the site IHateRogers.com, and attempted to post my concerns about UBB and my recent experience; however, all emails were returned as “undeliverable”. When I checked into who owned the domain, imagine my surprise when I discovered that you own the site! It’s this yet another despicable move to squash horror stories about your company? Looks heavy-handed to me? Yet another issue that the CRTC should look at.

I’d like to envision a meeting with your senior managers during which my letter is read out to them, and giving them thirty days to earn their fat salaries by solving these problems, or they’re fired, but I know from experience that nothing will ever happen and you will go on ripping customers off solely because of greed. This is deplorable. No wonder people hate Rogers. It is well deserved.


The Saga of my Boat (Published)

This is an article that was published way back in May, 1996 in The Daily Courier. The newspaper I have carried around with me all these years is starting to crumble, so I thought it best to get it saved on my site before it completely disintegrates. 

The Heading was Society must review Young Offenders Act with a sub heading of Parents, police, teachers and other young people must act together to change corrupt attitudes.

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Microsoft

Over TEN years ago, 1999 to be exact, I sent a proposal to Microsoft which was, essentially, the forerunner to what today we call "cloud computing".

As an account rep for Northern Computer, dealing mainly with small to medium sized businesses, I saw that many of these companies could not afford the heavy hardware and software costs of having their own in-house IT department, yet the needed the programs, connectivity, access to their data, and critical backups. At the time I was working with David Fowler, who was then GM at SILK Internet. He helped me tremendously by supporting a plan where SILK would fund the hardware costs of the shared servers and high-speed connectivity, in exchange for a percentage of the revenue generated from companies who subscribed to our service. This meant that everyone, from a small company to the road-warrior electrician could have secure access to their data, anywhere, anytime and on any device, such as a "smart" phone. The key was getting Microsoft to allow pay-per-use of their software, such as Office. SILK agreed to buy a licensed version for every server, just like a company would, but then users would share the cost by paying to access the program. Someone such as an electrician who needed to do a quote would only need to pay a few dollars for the one-time use, and not the hundreds of dollars to buy a suite of programs he did not need to own.

I somehow managed to get all the way up to a Senior Manager of Licensing who told me that Microsoft would NEVER EVER consider pay-per-use of their software. He literally laughed at me on the phone and the entire project died right then and there.

My how things change! This announcement from Microsoft today -

Available in select Microsoft Office 365 service plans, Office Professional Plus delivers the productivity of Office as a flexible, pay-as-you-go service. It’s a complete, enterprise-class Office experience that ensures you’ll always have the latest versions of all Office desktop applications. And with Office Web Apps, you can access your documents, email, and calendars from virtually any device*.  

If they had just listened over ten years ago they would be a lot farther ahead today and I would be a rich man. Life ain't fair!


Do you know what UBB is? You soon will

UBB stands for Usage Based Billing and is often incorrectly referred to as bandwidth caps. Most people agree that a bandwidth cap refers to the speed, or the concept of throttling back your internet access speed.  It is a creeping cancer being implemented by huge telcos like Bell and Rogers, and threatens to send the use of the internet back to the dark ages. Parents now have to worry what their kids are downloading, like music, and the family can't enjoy affordable services like Netflix without being paranoid about going over their usage limit.

My personal story is that I lost my cable TV service because, well, I haven't robbed any banks lately, so the ridiculously high monthly costs were out. I was left with my already expensive internet connection to watch TV and the occasional movie, mostly because TV sucks at this time of year. After all, don't those same huge companies and all the networks assail me every day, urging me to watch "on demand"? Well, boys, you can't have it both ways. We do watch a lot more of our entertainment over the internet these days, and the thanks we get is for these same monster companies to then penalize us for doing so, with insanely low usage limits and absurd overcharges. I already pay way too much for my internet service, then they impose a measly 15 GB limit, which I, of course, went over in a few days. Even worse they want to charge me $4 a gigabyte for every one over! Highway robbery!

Who's fault is all this? Well, the CRTC, whose mandate is to promote Canadian content and keep us safe from all those big bad American programs, stuck their nose where they didn't belong and rubber stamped the big telcos request to start imposing limits on their wholesale customers - the ISPs (Internet Serivice Providers). The independent ISPs were previously free to market their services however they saw fit, and most offered "unlimited" usage as a draw. No more because they're now being squeezed by the big brother companies who control everything, and with the CRTC's blessing. Remember that the CRTC is made up of industry cronies or those wanting cushy jobs with the telcos when their time at the CRTC is up. Sound like a cozy relationship? You betcha!

As soon as this was announced there was a backlash of angry consumers who knew where this was going. An online petition drew 160,000 signatures instantly. Prime Minister Harper, never the one to care about lowly Canadians, and much more concerned with big business, suddenly realized that this was going to come back to haunt him, so he ordered the CRTC to have another look. The result is that the CRTC is holding hearings into the issue. A kangaroo court if I ever saw one. They are taking opinions from people like you and me on their website, but they carefully craft the options to look like they actually give a damn. Not! The Chairman was quoted in a recent speech as saying that their previous decision meant Canadians have control over who they use. Who is he kidding? When every ISP in the country is forced to pass on usage limits, what choice is there? Laughable if it weren't so serious.

The whole world is learning to use the internet as a valuable tool. Rich content is improving more and more every day. New companies are springing up to develop this content and the industry is growing in leaps and bounds. There are already reports of companies scaling back their websites so that they don't take as much usage to visit. Everyone from people using Netflix to those using your computer as a phone will be affected. The government's pathetic response has been to force the companies to send you a notice, usually one in your browser, warning you that you are going to go over your limit. Their gestapo tactics are also to force you to acknowledge the notice so you can't come screaming back at them when you get the huge bill. Remember, these are the same louts that make cell phones in Canada far more expensive than they should be.

Canadians aren't exactly known for their willingness to rise up and protest something, well, excluding the clueless idiots in Vancouver, but if YOU don't do something, like at least file your objections on the CRTC website, we are all going to pay the price. These UBB limits in Canada are often in the area of 15 GB. In the States people are objecting to 250 GB limits! To their credit Shaw and Telus recently announced an increase to 150 GB and they cut their overage charges in half, but it's not enough.

If we are going to give these guys a license to print money, like they need it, let's at least look at how it's done in the UK.  They have daily limits of 3 GB and, if you go over this limit, your speed is throttled back to 25% until the next day, when your contracted speed is restored. This is enough for a family to maybe watch a movie or play online games, but it stops anyone from gobbling up massive bandwidth running a porno site or a server in their home. This is at least a sensible option if we have to have UBB.

Two legal questions on this issue. One, didn't Microsoft get hefty multi million dollar fines under anti-trust laws for using tactics that limited competition? So how do these big guys in Canada all get together and impose these limits, thereby forcing a competitor like Netflix out of the market? How is that different? Also, doesn't Canada have bait and switch laws? That's where a company promotes a low ball offer, but then forces you to buy something more expensive. The big guys have encouraged you to sign long term contracts with them to lock you in to certain monthly fees. Fine, but then they impose these limits;  charge you more if you go over and levy huge per gigabyte charges, sending your monthly bill into the stratosphere! Sounds like bait and switch to me!

Let's get together on this one folks! We're mad as hell and we aren't going to take it anymore! Right? Right?


What ever happened to the "Smart Box"?

Years ago I read an article about the Smart Box that would soon be in every home and would revolutionize how we receive our television, telephone, music, games and movies.  It would be a single conduit into the home and would deliver all the services throughout the home, with no wires. The discussion at the time was who would bring this to your home - telcos, cable companies, satellite companies, maybe even municipalities or local power companies. The technology was already there and companies like Shaw were promoting "fiber to every home" to provide the highest possible speeds. What happened to this vision?

All we have today, years later, is network executives, content producers, cable and phone company executives, software and hardware companies - everyone involved in the entertainment industry, all squabbling for control, protecting their own turf.  Companies like Netflix, one of the only ones actually partly responding to what consumers want, true "on demand" services, then creating a backlash from traditional cable companies who impose ridiculous and unjustified bandwidth caps to stop people from using Netflix, or at least making it much more expensive than the $8 a month Netflix charges. There is no reason for this other than good old greed.

While Netflix does represent a solid concept - delivering on demand movies and series television from a well designed user menu interface, easy connectivity and fast streaming speeds, with the ability to pause. The service is limited to a single user on a single device, such as a WII. The downside of the service is that it is currently offering only older movies and series television, with no current TV offerings or recent movie releases. Compared to pay per view movies and cable on demand services, which typically charge upwards of $5.99 per movie, Netflix, at $8 per month is extremely economical. Even with a limited library consumers will likely maintain the service just to have it when they feel like watching something different or nostalgic.

Although I may not be typical, partly because I am not working right now, plus I am alone, I am still a consumer of entertainment, in some ways even more in need. As a job searcher my internet connection is vital as I spend a great deal of the day on the internet. As cloud computing becomes more and more the norm (some 40 million people use it today) a reliable and safe connection becomes more and more critical. It is equally important that the ability to move seamlessly between various devices is possible. Although I also have a cell phone, my plan is for unlimited incoming calls and text, not for making calls. For that I use my free Google Call Phone feature, which, albeit incredibly rudimentary with no features such as contacts, offers crystal clear voice call quality and ease of use. It could only be better for me if I weren't tied to my laptop headset and could use a Bluetooth ear bud and get the same call quality.

My Television is an old non HD set (why is it a "set?" Set of what?) so receiving HD broadcast or movies isn't critical, but this will soon be the norm. Until today I have been with Rogers, but the costs have been outrageous and I can no longer afford to have their service. A decent internet connection and a minimal television package was over a hundred dollars a month, not something I can possibly afford. Having been in the industry with Shaw Fiberlink, I know that the costs of laying fiber have gone down drastically, so it's fair to assume that most parts of the civilized world have been connected with fiber, so bandwidth is not an issue, except to print money. The cable companies have shown they are vultures here, putting "caps" on bandwidth, trying to convince us that it costs more to provide more. It's a bad joke. It's like the case of Bell Canada charging a customer some fifteen thousand dollars for a few dollars of cell phone service. These companies are today's robber barons and they must be stopped.

Just as bad as the cable companies are the content producers and networks, all of whom are acting like kids in a sandbox. Hard to believe these are high-priced adults when you see what they try to pull every day. They want the only football to be theirs and to threaten to take it home when they don't get their way. There's so much concentration of ownership and infighting, trying to protect their content from being widely distributed without being able to gouge everyone. Think for a second about movies. Talented artsy people come up with concepts for a movie. Producers then convince investors to put money up for production, hoping the movie will be successful and they will get a return on their investment. Theatres book the movie trusting that people will lay down their hard earned money to watch the movie. Everyone then hopes that people will enjoy the movie and then tell everyone to go and see it. The movie makes millions and everyone is happy. Okay, so at what point in this distribution chain did someone restrict access or charge exorbitant monthly fees or demand a guaranteed return, regardless of whether the movie was any good? No, it succeeded or failed based on merit, pure and simple. Why isn't TV like this?

The Smart Box model is still a subscription based model, but it allows for full customization of what consumers want. No forced theme packages chosen by someone who has no clue what you like. You are presented a list of all "channels", movie services, games, and internet. You select exactly what you want and then you receive a firm price back, both a monthly cost and a per use cost.  The monthly cost would be similar to an iTunes model, where you would pay reasonable charges for things like "network" channels and "specialty" channels, interactive games and movie models similar to Netflix, which basically grants access to a library of older titles. Just like Netflix, the program would start to learn what you like and make recommendations to you.

The hardware part of the Smart Box is that is establishes an in-home wireless network for all devices, from desktop computers to smart phones, each with its own unique address. This same box might also deal with things like home security, appliances, lighting and HVAC. Here I'm dealing with the delivery of home entertainment.

The first concept is similar to a Netflix streaming service, but it deals with what's been referred to as "television". We'll now call it "broadcast" for clarity. The menu on each device first asks for a selection, such as Broadcast, Movies or Games. Selecting Broadcast then brings up what looks like the menu you see at tvguide.ca, but the times shown are not when the program is "airing" but rather when you want to schedule it. You start with the local news and the choices are "live" or "delay" with a time to watch. You can then either continue with "live" or program your evening, selecting the appropriate times. Similar to the way cable services allow you to set reminders, the program would warn of program overlaps, although this applies only to "live" selections. Even with "live" selections you can  pause or rewind if you missed something, or select "record for later" if you are interrupted.

The other change is that all "live" programs are interactive, including the commercials. You can open a chat window and interact with other live viewers to comment on the show, similar to what you can do watching online content or playing interactive games. The interactive part of the commercials would allow viewers to do things like rate the commercial, the product; request buying coupons (downloaded to print) or comment on using the product, all of which would prove invaluable to advertisers. People might request a coupon to be delivered to their smart phone the next time they are at the Retailer, for example.

Movies and games would function as per current models, such as Netflix and Playstation. The monthly charge for a movie subscription would allow customization similar to a Windows Media Gallery library, with selections by genre, actor, or release date. For example there would be a children's library, a foreign films library and so on. The base rate, such as the current $8 a month would grant access to older content as it does on Netflix now. With the demise of Blockbuster there would be an upgraded service which would offer movies the day they are released. This might be in the area of $29 per month, which makes for economical viewing for all members of the family. Games would be charged on a similar scale. First run movies, that is those that are opening in theatres, would be available on a per movie basis, charged at a premium, but not as outrageous as it might cost to take a family of four to the theatre.   Maybe something in the order of $12-14 would allow a family to watch the movie on their big screen TV and provide their own refreshments without the insane costs of the theatre for popcorn and drinks. Theatres will not go the way of Blockbuster because the huge screens and sound systems will still be a huge draw for many, plus the development of 3D and things like IMAX, which will never replicate properly at home.

Because all of this is based on connecting to the internet, having the option to access all of the features of the web on the "Entertainment Devices" is obvious. Everything is about interactivity, from chatting with fans of a broadcast show, to tweeting the stars of the show, to rating the show for the producers.

Instead of competing in the market for things like 3D, manufacturers would instead compete on design and integration, such as full integration between cell phones, tablets, laptops, PCs and HD TV.

The Smart Box - what you want, when you want it, where you want it - everywhere.