Why does Canada have such terrible internet? Is it a regulation thing, competition thing, or what? Why do you guys have such extreme data caps?

AFAIK Internet is unregulated here. The CRTC is [basically] run by Bell & Rogers, they seem to do what they want. When one has a deal, the other shortly follows - when you cancel with one you're stuck going to the other.

As long as they each gain the customers the other loses, they win.

As an American in Canada, I most often hear that a duopolistic system is the root of the country's internet problems. I haven't heard a single suggestion that there are technical limitations or lack of consumer demand.

Many reasons. 1. We're a unpopulous country for the area we occupy. 2. Our investment environment is much more conservative. 3. We gave some sweet deals to telephone companies in order to get 80 percent telephone coverage back in the 70s. Toronto isn't bad though. You can get 250 mbit for a decent price

Oligopoly (or duopoly in most cases) with regulatory capture.

Have you looked at Teksavvy? They sell a cable package in Ontario that gives you 60 mbits for a bit over 60$ (more after tax and all that)... You can get pretty decent download caps with them (it starts at 75 gigs/month, but I have upgraded to 300 gigs/month for a bit more. they also have an unlimited option).

I was with TekSavvy before I moved (2x25mbit mlppp). Everything was great, and there was even a promo for "no activation fees" when I signed up.

When I moved a year later, they told me I would have to pay that activation fee again, because Bell treats move orders like setting up a new customer, and thus they can't waive the fee. I ended up going with another ISP that had a similar promo.

Different areas have different packages, or at least differing availability. The best package available in my area is 28mbps and unlimited bandwidth for $62/month.

Don't forget the data caps.

You've got it good. Here in Santa Cruz California at the southern end of Silicon Valley, I pay $70/month for a whopping 6mbit (ADSL). This is via a reseller of everyone's darling Sonic. They helpfully include "free" phone service I have no use for, which is then responsible for a not free $10 of that bill, $7 of which goes to Sonic for providing the "free" phone service.

And yet it gets worse: here in South Africa, I'm paying just over 140 USD for a 8mbit ADSL, with a +- 50 GB bandwidth cap.

I suspect the New Zealanders are about to chirp in with their extortion-level rates :)

Who is the reseller?

As bronson said, it is indeed Cruzio. There was 26 hour outage yesterday due to a fibre cut in SV. It didn't affect people on Cruzio's DSL service but did affect those of us on the resold Sonic Fusion service.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/capitola/ci_23040335/at-t-c...

I bet he's talking about Cruzio's Velocity service.

(I'm on it too)

Same here on the Central Coast of California. In my town though there is only one cable internet provider (Comcast).

My only other option is DSL

Comcast is still sadly better than Charter (though I think Charter is owned by Comcast now?).

Seriously! These people don't know how bad it can be.