Canadian cellphone rates among worlds worst, duh!

[manny_santos]

Duh, what a surprise!

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...sive-oecd.html

[Rumors]

I bet our ISP rates are the same.

[MolsonExport]

Rogers ("duh-da-duh!"...stupid corporate sound). Loathsome company. same goes for Sellus and their meerkat commercials.

[mylesmalley]

But...but...Rogers, Bell and Telus wouldn't try to screw us over!

[1ajs]

maybe mts will come to the rescue lol

[rapid_business]

Hopefully some of these companies they sold some of the spectrum to will start soon and will compete with these thieves...

[bob1954]

The whole country needs more competition when it comes to every aspect of our economy! Everything from resturaunts to cellphones to housing! Everything is so expensive up here. Open things up for God's sake!!

[1ajs]

crtc won't and theres some weird stupid crtc rulles that make it so the compition can get away with these rates and theres nothing we can do

[Nicko999]

Originally Posted by bob1954

The whole country needs more competition when it comes to every aspect of our economy! Everything from resturaunts to cellphones to housing! Everything is so expensive up here. Open things up for God's sake!!

Compared to the States, most of the things are more expensive but that's not the case if you compare with Europe(ex: cars are cheaper in Canada).

[vid]

Originally Posted by bob1954

Everything is so expensive up here.

Materials cost more here than in other places, and standards are labour and product quality are higher.

The first hurdle for those start-ups will be to grow into a decent sized company without being bought out. Every cell phone and internet start-up in Northern Ontario from Espanola to Kenora has been bought out by TBayTel.

[SpongeG]

whatever happenned to CRTC allowing i think it was 2 or 3 more cell companies operate here in Canada?

[rapid_business]

/\

" A host of new competition for cellphone customers is about to enter the market in the wake of a federal wireless spectrum auction held in the spring of 2008. The auction saw five new companies acquire licences to operate new cellphone businesses.

Three - Globealive Holdings, Public Mobile and DAVE Wireless - are expected to begin offering services either late this year or early next. The increased competition should be enough to allow a merger of BCE and Telus to pass regulatory and competition scrutiny from Ottawa, the analyst said."

-Telus and Bell merger speculation article

[The Chemist]

I don't miss Canada's cell phone companies one bit. China Mobile is WAY, WAY, WAY better than Telus, Rogers, or Bell.

[bob1954]

I can understand some of this stuff, like cell phone rates, ( there just isn't enough population to keep rates down), I don't know if labor is all that much higher than the US. But I'm talking about resturaunts and grocery stores and the like... And what about oil & gas, my God gasoline is very high and we've got the worlds second largest reserves of the stuff! In Calgary some of the Petro-Can stations are/were running out!! This should'nt happen in this day and age... Just my 2 cents worth!

[1ajs]

were runing outa gas here in winnipeg two the refineries are all down

[vid]

Originally Posted by bob1954

I can understand some of this stuff, like cell phone rates, ( there just isn't enough population to keep rates down)

Funny, this isn't a problem in Iceland, which is less populous than Windsor.

Originally Posted by bob1954

I'm talking about resturaunts and grocery stores and the like

Food costs more here because we are usually further from it and unlike the United States, only have a small area to devote to the growing of it.

Originally Posted by bob1954

And what about oil & gas, my God gasoline is very high and we've got the worlds second largest reserves of the stuff! In Calgary some of the Petro-Can stations are/were running out!! This should'nt happen in this day and age... Just my 2 cents worth!

This tends to happen when refinery capacity hasn't increased with demand.

[F. Lionel]

Originally Posted by Thunder In My Pants Bay

The first hurdle for those start-ups will be to grow into a decent sized company without being bought out. Every cell phone and internet start-up in Northern Ontario from Espanola to Kenora has been bought out by TBayTel.

Not entirely true - DMTS (Dryden Mobility) just transitioned their network from CDMA to GMS in order to go head to head with TBayTel across the Northwest. By Christmas their network west of Thunder Bay will equal TBayTel's coverage. The build out scheduled for next year is basically a mirror of TBayTel's coverage east of the city but also includes building networks out to places that have NO coverage right now such as Armstrong and Pickle Lake. It's all CRTC approved and already working in some places west of here.

[F. Lionel]

Originally Posted by Thunder In My Pants Bay

Funny, this isn't a problem in Iceland, which is less populous than Windsor.

But if you only have to build a network to service the island of Newfoundland (just a little larger than Iceland) your costs are much lower. The coverage area of Iceland is also small (most people are clustered on the west coast) in comparison to the island so really you are looking at building a network to cover an area comparable to maybe twice the size of PEI... that is downright cheap compared to coverage from coast to coast in Canada. Iceland also has a cell phone penetration of 106% compared to Canada's rather dismal 64%.

The comparison isn't quite perfect, I understand, but we should be comparing apples to apples I think.

[rapid_business]

/\ But that is chicken and egg stuff in terms of usage rates (penetration) and cost.

[MolsonExport]

I simply do not buy the coverage cost argument. Southern Canada is as densely populated as the US. I would reckon that 99% of the Territories get little or no coverage.

It comes down to shitty oligopolies, with the most byzantine and opaque pricing options imaginable.