• Phone:
  • Burlington: 905-631-6576
    Toll Free: 1-888-527-2477
  • Address and Map
  • 2349 Fairview St Unit 304
    Burlington ON, Canada
    L7R 2E3
    > View Map
  • Office Hours
  • Monday - Friday:
    8:30am - 5:00pm

    Saturdays: Closed

    Sundays: Closed

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Lara Internet Service Provider Customers, Please Note

The following describes certain changes to the Terms of Service (TOS) applicable to your plan, necessitated by the requirement that Lara Internet Service Provider pass on usage based billing practices of certain DSL providers. Continuous use of your services will be considered agreement with those changes to the TOS and your service plan.
If you do not agree with the changes to the TOS your sole remedy is to call us, cancel all the Lara Internet Service Provider services to which you subscribed, stop using all of the services and terminate your Agreement with Lara Internet Service Provider. If you do not agree with the changes to your high-speed Internet service plan, your sole remedy is to stop using the service and terminate your Agreement with Lara Internet Service Provider with regard to that service. In such case you may consider signing up for another, more suitable, plan.


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)


1. What is Usage Based Billing (UBB)?

Usage Based Billing (UBB) is an increasingly controversial charge that is virtually unique to Canada, and makes consumers pay artificially high amounts for downloading and uploading content via the Internet. With UBB your High Speed Internet usage will be measured and capped to a set monthly limit. Additional usage will be charged extra.


2. Why is Lara Internet Service Provider implementing Usage Based Billing for residential High Speed DSL Internet customers?

On January 25, 2011, the CRTC rendered a decision allowing incumbent carriers, such as Bell Canada, to introduce UBB on the wholesale high-speed access services that Lara Internet Service Provider employs to provide its own DSL-based high-speed Internet services in Ontario and Quebec, effective March 1, 2011. This date has been postponed until May 1, 2011. The introduction of UBB by those carriers effectively forces Lara Internet Service Provider to pass those additional costs to its Residential DSL High-Speed Internet customers.


3. What is the CRTC?

The CRTC is an independent public authority that regulates and supervises broadcasting and telecommunications in Canada.


4. When will these changes be implemented?

Commencing May 1st 2011, your existing "up to 5 Mbps High Speed Internet" plan will now have 25GB (gigabytes) of monthly usage included. Your usage will be calculated from the first through the last day of each calendar month.


5. How can I see and track my Internet usage

We are currently working on a tool that will allow you to monitor your usage.


6. How many gigabytes (GB) do different online activities use?

1GB of usage will allow you to do the following things (approximate measurements)
View 26,000 web pages or
Send/receive 105,000 e-mails or
Exchange over 2,000 Microsoft Word documents (of about 10 pages each) or
Exchange up to 500 digital photos or
Download more than 200 songs or
Stream 18 hours of music from the web or
Download 1.5 movies (or 2/3 of a movie in high definition) or
Play games online for 240 hours (or 10 days)


7. How do I determine the approximate amount of gigabytes (GB) I will need?

If you have never verified your household usage or if you are a new customer, you may not know your average monthly usage. Below is a table that may help you estimate potential usage based on your intended activity:

Intended Internet Activity Average Monthly Usage
Primarily use email combined with a light amount of web surfing. < 25 GB
Moderate web surfing, occasional file sharing, online shopping and email. < 25 GB
Extensive web surfing, sharing music, video streaming, downloading and playing games, online shopping and email.
Power users that use multiple computers, smartphones, and game consoles at the same time.
Potentially > 25GB


8. What are my options?

In response to the implementation of UBB, Lara Internet Service Provider had devised plans tailored to your intended Internet.


9. Will I be notified when I approach and reach the usage limit of my plan?

If you reach 75% of your available usage for a calendar month, Lara Internet Service Provider will notify you via your browser that you are approaching your usage limit.

When you reach your available usage limit for a calendar month, Lara Internet Service Provider will notify you via your browser and reduce the speed of your connection to 64kbps. At this time you will be asked to contact us to review your account.


10. Is there anything we can do (as customers) to fight this? / Can you point out some petitions or effective courses of action?

If you would like to get further involved here are some links you can visit to make your thoughts known and to participate:


1. http://www.stopthemeter.ca - Signing the petition will now automatically send our
Minister of Industry, Tony Clement (the person politically responsible for the CRTC) an email.

2. Join the twitter campaign at http://act.ly/2kw

3. Join the Facebook campaign
http://www.facebook.com/notes/openmediaca/stop-the-meter-on-your-internet-use/455248704798


For more information: Please do not hesitate to contact us!


By Telephone: 905-631-6576
By Fax: 905-631-7404
By Email: billing@lara.on.ca