Many believed the CRTC's ruling on a proposed usage-based billing model would have put in place protectionist measures for large telecommunications companies such as Bell Canada and Rogers Cable to compete in the Internet market. ISPs claimed that many customers transfer a lot of data through their Internet connections due to the explosion of high-definition video streaming options (e.g. YouTube, Netflix, the websites of TV networks, etc.), which placed a strain on their networks. Experts have argued that this is not a valid reason to implement a pay-as-you-go style system to cover costs as each ISP has enough network infrastructure to handle each customer maximizing their bandwidth rate per second simultaneously, and each gigabyte of bandwidth used per customer has a cost as low as $0.03 CAD according to Teksavvy, a third-party ISP. This regulatory change was very negatively received by the public, as over 460,000 signatures were gathered by OpenMedia.ca, which protested the decision. All three major political parties in Canada spoke out against the ruling. Implementation was delayed by the CRTC, pending further review. As noted above, in November 2011 the CRTC adopted wholesale billing options that gives independent ISPs the flexibility to create their own service plans and set rates for their customers.
