High-Speed DSL Internet Access from NCF

Payments are made monthly, about seven days before the day-of-the-month on which your service first started (the 'activation date'). For example, a person who signs up on the 10th of the month and has service activated on the 15th (their 'anniversary day') would have their credit card charged on the 8th of each month.

Payments are processed seven days in advance so if there is a processing problem, we'll have a bit of time to contact people to resolve the problem (otherwise we'd have to interrupt service).

The first payment is processed when you sign up. The first month of service starts usually a few days later, on your activation date.

Tax applies to DSL service (HST for Ontario residents, GST for Quebec). Also, though rare, people who exceed the monthly free bandwidth may be billed for the extra bandwidth. Please see "What happens if I use more than 200GB in a month?" below.

If you want your service moved (eg., from one location to another), or if you change voice service provider (eg., Primus to Bell), there is a $25 charge. If you change during the first month the type of DSL service (eg., 'dry' or 'regular'), there's a $25 fee.

Just contact us (best by Office Message from the NCF Help page, but alternatively by phone, email, or mail). We need five business days to close a DSL account, so do call us at least a week before your "monthly anniversary" date to avoid being billed by our billing system for another month's service. You will continue to have service until your current paid-for month ends. Note that to keep things simple, we don't refund for partial months and we cannot cancel during your first month of service (since we start setting it up when you sign up).

When we receive your cancellation, we'll send a confirmation email for your records -- if you don't receive a confirmation email, assume that we did not receive your request to cancel and we will continue to bill the monthly fee.

The best way to help NCF do more and get better is to donate or volunteer. NCF relies on support from its members. Donations to NCF help provide internet access to others less fortunate, and help to improve NCF internet services. You can donate online at the NCF donation web page; you can arrange monthly donations there as well (many members donate monthly).

Another good way to help is to tell people about NCF. The more people using NCF, the less it costs per member.

Three neighbours might share a single high speed DSL connection like this: We'd like everyone in a sharing group to become NCF members (even if only a free, StartPage-only member). One member subscribes to NCF DSL service and purchases a DSL modem with wireless capability (eg., TP-Link 8901G). The subscribing member could connect computers to the router using ethernet cables, and all parties (typically within 60m and often farther) could connect using wireless. Each computer accessing the DSL modem by wireless requires a wireless card (most laptops have them built in, otherwise inexpensive add-ons). Wireless security is built-in, and access control can be by password and/or wireless ID (the TP-Link 8901G allows you to limit connections to only computers that you specify). Each family could contribute $10 to the member paying for the service and everyone would have high speed access for a price not much higher than dialup.

Bandwidth charges would apply only if total bandwidth used exceeds the monthly free bandwidth amount. It's up to you and your neighbours to manage that. Generally most families use much less than the monthly free bandwidth.

Here's one way to think about it -- if you have configured your computer to be safe on the internet (eg., by using a firewall), it should be no less safe when it is connected to a router shared with a neighbour.

However, if you enable file or printer sharing on any of your computers, you need to think about how to do that without losing privacy.

The ideal candidates for sharing are neighbours who each have only one computer (and thus no need to enable file sharing), each with their own firewall.

Yes, for an additional $4 per month.

A 'static IP' is an IP address that doesn't change. For a typical dialup or DSL connection, you get a different IP address each time you connect to your ISP (an IP address is your computer's unique identifier on the Internet.) This is fine for normal usage (email, web surfing, etc), but if you want to run your own servers then it's best for your computer to be known by the same identifier all the time: you want your IP address to stay the same (or "static") for every connection.

You will usually lose service for one to two business days. Please leave us a message seven to ten business days in advance to make the transition as smooth as possible.

If you are switching to a provider other than Bell, you will need to contact your new telephone supplier to get a circuit line number for us for your phone line.

If you are switching to a 'digital telephone service' (VOIP) such as 'Rogers Digital', 'Vonage' or others, and terminating your traditional analog voice service, please check out dry copper DSL from NCF.

We're charged $5 to change service providers, which we pass on to you.

DSL download speed (up to 5 Mb/s) can be up to 90 times faster than dial-up. What took an hour to download on dialup can now be received in a couple of minutes. Web browsing is much faster, and streaming media becomes much more feasible (including real-time video, audio, and voice). DSL connections are classified as 'broadband', meaning they provide high bandwidth.

The bandwidth of the DSL data channel depends on the length and electrical quality of the wire between your residence and the neighbourhood telephone office. The download rate is typically capped at 5 Mb/s, but if you are too far away or if your line has quality problems, it may not reach 5 Mb/s.

It depends on your habits. A household consisting of two adults who use their computers heavily, doing a lot of web-browsing, email, etc, and downloads for ordinary computer maintenance, use less than 5 GB per month.

In a recent month, half of NCF DSL subscribers used less than 20 GB.

Activities that use a lot of bandwidth include downloading gigabyte-length movie files, downloading very many music files, and connecting to streaming-media for long periods of time. Even with these activities, 300 GB per month represents a lot of usage.

With the TP-Link 8901G, you can plug four computers into it and you instantly have a home network. Wireless is even easier. The built-in router makes all this possible.

Having a built-in router also provides security benefits. 'Network address translation', a router function, means that your home network will be invisible to the internet -- malicious people simply cannot 'see' your home computers. This is a tremendous layer of security. You can buy more inexpensive modems and routers separately, but not for the cost of a TP-Link modem (which combines a modem, router, and firewall into one device) from NCF.

Please note that having a router does not protect you from email-borne viruses or from spyware that you download. You should still take precautions against that.

‘Usage-based billing’ (UBB) was a plan to bill for internet usage starting at 25 GB per month in Ontario and 60 GB in Quebec. There was so much outcry when it was introduced in January 2011 that the federal government, CRTC, and Bell Canada all distanced themselves, postponing or cancelling the plan.

Aspects of telecommunications in Canada, including the internet, are regulated by the CRTC, a part of the federal govt. In 2006, the federal government directed the CRTC to allow 'market forces' to have more influence on internet prices. In Oct 2010, the CRTC granted a request by Bell Canada Enterprise companies to allow a change in the way Bell charges ISPs for wholesale internet services on the basis of bandwidth usage. The new scheme was called ‘usage-based billing’, or UBB. See Decision 2010-255 and Decision 2010-802.

In a nutshell, Bell Canada says a few 'heavy users' are congesting its network. Bell Internet (a Bell Canada Enterprises retail division) already bills for usage at a certain usage threshold, and Bell Canada (BCE's network division) wants to make that the policy at the network (wholesale) level. The way it was structured essentially forced all ISPs (who all must obtain services from Bell Canada for DSL) to offer the same retail internet package as Bell Internet.

Bell Canada's initial requests in May (approved by the federal CRTC) asked for extra billing to start at 60 GB per month. On Dec 14, Bell asked the CRTC to allow Bell Canada to make extra billing start at 25 GB per month, which of course would affect many more people (in Ontario only; Quebec would remain at 60 GB) (see File 1478217 at CRTC, a Word doc from Bell in a zip file, from this page at the '7293' link in column 'TN'). The CRTC did not decided on that, but in late Jan, several Ontario ISPs announced new internet packages based on a 25 GB limit, essentially matching Bell Internet's plan.

In early Feb, public outcry and objections by Industry Canada minister Tony Clement (of the same government that gave direction leading to UBB) caused the CRTC to defer the change, saying it would reconsider, and asking for public input. Tony Clement re-iterated several times that the federal govt believes UBB is a bad idea.

At the moment, NCF members can use up to 300 GB per month as part of their monthly DSL, above which NCF reserves the right to apply a per-GB charge (NCF's policy is to not worry too much about that; it's only there to protect against abuse).

As the UBB ruling was written (but is now being reconsidered), UBB would have forced new usage-billing thresholds at 60 and 300 GB. There was also a possibility that in Ontario, the first threshold would have been 25 GB.

We didn't like many aspects of what was proposed. NCF buys bandwidth in bulk and then shares it among all members; it's not expensive and it all balances out. CRTC worries about congestion and 'heavy users', so wants 'toll booths on each of our driveways', so that we each must pay individually. This would have added to NCF members' administrative costs, and would be a hassle and additional expense for everyone. We think this policy decision would not help make our society better.

For more background on UBB, see Michael Geist's (Univ of Ottawa) article Unpacking the Policy Issues Behind Bandwidth Caps & Usage Based Billing.

Usage-based billing changes were to start March 1, said the CRTC, but after public protests and objections from the federal govt, the CRTC announced in Feb 2011 that it has postposed the start date and said they will reconsider the whole plan.

Here's a history:

Jan 31: The CRTC hasn't said whether it will approve Bell's Dec 14 request (to lower the billing threshold to 25 GB in Ontario). The UBB issue is in the news media headlines now, with public pressure on the CRTC and Industry Canada minister Tony Clement.

Feb 1: CBC says the federal govt will review the CRTC decision to allow UBB, altering or perhaps rejecting it (see "CRTC's internet billing decision faces review").

Feb 3: Industry Canada minister Tony Clement says CRTC's UBB decision will be altered, either by the CRTC or, if they don't do it, by the federal government (see "CRTC will rescind 'unlimited use' Internet decision -- or Ottawa will overturn it" in the Globe & Mail).

Feb 4: CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstien says the decision to defer UBB was theirs, not the government's, and that they (the CRTC) will defer UBB to at earliest May 1 in order to reconsider how to best accomplish the CRTC's goals. See CRTC to review internet billing decision at CBC. You can hear MPs discuss UBB with the CRTC chair at ParlVu (click on 'view this clip' and then select the audio you would like -- it's audio only, but it provides insight into the CRTC's view of things and goals). Michael Geist (Univ of Ottawa) provides analysis at The CRTC's Faulty UBB Foundation: Why There is Reason to Doubt the Review.

Feb 8: CRTC seeks internet billing feedback.

March: With election talk in the air, the federal govt has re-iterated that UBB as conceived is not acceptable. Industry Minister Tony Clement says there is no evidence of network congestion caused by 'heavy users' and, even if, that UBB would cure it ("Bandwidth hogs a myth: Clement"). The CRTC is calling for public input and review, pushing likely decisions into late 2011.

NCF is owned by its members, a large group of people in the national capital area (including you, if you join), so you can have confidence that NCF will look for ways to improve upon whatever our suppliers provide. NCF will always strive to maximize benefit for its members.

NCF is the national capital region’s not-for-profit alternative to commercial internet providers.

By signing up with NCF, you help strengthen NCF by increasing its economies of scale. With your decision, you decide which group/corporation you want to strengthen.