5 ms·

You want the apologetics for this? Canada is a massive, spread-out country, and providing coverage is uniquely difficult. You want the real reason for this?

You want the apologetics for this? Canada is a massive, spread-out country, and providing coverage is uniquely difficult. You want the real reason for this? The second, the nanosecond any politician let any foreign competition into the complacent, cushy Canadian market, Rogers and Bell would unleash a propaganda campaign about the theft of good Canadian jobs. (Just like the dairy industry does.)

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
> Canada is a massive, spread-out country, That's such a worn out trope that doesn't match the reality that most of the population lives on the southern border near a handful of cities. Serving the US population is demonstrably harder and yet manages to be cheaper despite our own widespread price fixing.
- perardi 5y ago
  Ha, which is why I immediately bashed it. But it’s what Rogers would say.
- adventured 5y ago
  Interestingly the US mobile market right now would probably look a lot like Canada, if foreign competition entry had been similarly blockaded. T-Mobile saved the US from a Canada-like outcome, in the hands of AT&T and Verizon. All Canada would probably have to do is invite T-Mobile to come in and wreck the telecom cartel (including making sure T-Mobile had proper access to spectrum to compete). The cartel will, of course, obviously fight any attempts to change the status quo.
  - solarkraft 5y ago
    Funnily enough the situation in T-Mobile’s home country has been close to Canada’s for a good while because they had a near-monopoly there (and still do to some extent in other areas, as they used to be state owned).
    - AwaAwa 5y ago
      One country's saviour is another country's dictator
sudosysgen 5y ago
Russia is much more spread out than Canada in every single way, especially as far as population goes. I think we could use that as a marketing point, if even the dysfunctional and corrupt Russian telecoms can do it then why can't we?
- raxi 5y ago
  Russia is well beyond the map. There are 5EUR/mo for unlimited traffic (I consume ~50GB/mo for 5EUR)
AzzieElbab 5y ago
spread-out argument seems to be applied everywhere in Canada to justify costs of anything. It is simply not true in most cases. wrt mobile data, the argument falls apart when you consider that coverage is simply not available as advertised. As far as propaganda campaigns go, only ones that matter nowadays are digital, and great weakness of online propaganda is that you get pushback
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Yep, just got back from visiting family in Alberta and I couldn't believe how terrible Roger's coverage was out there. Inside Edmonton, fine, but almost nothing at my parents place west of there and awful inside Jasper... which is like, a major tourist zone. And I don't mean up mountains or anything. Like, in the town site or just outside of it. Canadians are being fleeced.
- gmokki 5y ago
  On the graph Finland is on the opposite end. And Finland is one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe with mandatory coverage of tundras. I think it boils down to good legislation and luck on how our 3 mobile operators compete.
cardy31 5y ago
Dairy is a bit different though. Allowing the states to sell their dairy into Canada would be cheaper, but their regulations on what you can put into milk and dairy (antibiotics, hormones) are much more lax than Canadian standards. Because of that I'm quite happy to not let US dairy compete in Canada.
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Yep and there's something more ... wholesome seeming about Canadian dairy farmers getting a leg up vs Bell and Rogers getting a leg up. In reality most dairy farms are large industrial operations, though.
  - greenshackle2 5y ago
    Not that it really changes your point, but I suspect most dairy farms are small, but most milk comes from large dairy farms. Large farms have orders of magnitudes more cows than small farms. This is great for the dairy industry, they love to advertise that most farms are small, family-owned operations, which is technically true, while selling you factory farm milk. (If it's not intuitive, imagine a world with 10 farms with 50 cows each, and one farm with 3000 cows. I suspect that herd size looks more like a power law distribution than a normal distribution, but a quick google search didn't turn up good data.)
    - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
      There's probably information on dairy quota distribution out there. Might be interesting to investigate. My understanding is it's very hard to get quota.
- angott 5y ago
  Let's be honest, the antibiotics and hormones are just an excuse to keep the foreign competition out, and keep prices high in the process. If the government really cared about protecting consumers, they would not care about the country of origin. They would have import controls that ensure imported foreign milk follows the Canadian standards you mentioned. Instead, they simply slap an incredibly high average duty of 218.5% on any dairy product coming from abroad, no matter its characteristics, effectively blocking any import of dairy. There is high-quality milk made in the U.S. too. But Canada prefers to protect Canadian oligopolies and keep competitors out. And this way, consumers keep paying higher prices for the same product. Why not let consumers decide what they want to purchase?

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

> Canada is a massive, spread-out country, That's such a worn out trope that doesn't match the reality that most of the population lives on the southern border near a handful of cities. Serving the US population is demonstrably harder and yet manages to be cheaper despite our own widespread price fixing.

perardi 5y ago
Ha, which is why I immediately bashed it. But it’s what Rogers would say.
adventured 5y ago
Interestingly the US mobile market right now would probably look a lot like Canada, if foreign competition entry had been similarly blockaded. T-Mobile saved the US from a Canada-like outcome, in the hands of AT&T and Verizon. All Canada would probably have to do is invite T-Mobile to come in and wreck the telecom cartel (including making sure T-Mobile had proper access to spectrum to compete). The cartel will, of course, obviously fight any attempts to change the status quo.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  Funnily enough the situation in T-Mobile’s home country has been close to Canada’s for a good while because they had a near-monopoly there (and still do to some extent in other areas, as they used to be state owned).
  - AwaAwa 5y ago
    One country's saviour is another country's dictator

sudosysgen 5y ago

Russia is much more spread out than Canada in every single way, especially as far as population goes. I think we could use that as a marketing point, if even the dysfunctional and corrupt Russian telecoms can do it then why can't we?

raxi 5y ago
Russia is well beyond the map. There are 5EUR/mo for unlimited traffic (I consume ~50GB/mo for 5EUR)

AzzieElbab 5y ago

spread-out argument seems to be applied everywhere in Canada to justify costs of anything. It is simply not true in most cases. wrt mobile data, the argument falls apart when you consider that coverage is simply not available as advertised. As far as propaganda campaigns go, only ones that matter nowadays are digital, and great weakness of online propaganda is that you get pushback

cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Yep, just got back from visiting family in Alberta and I couldn't believe how terrible Roger's coverage was out there. Inside Edmonton, fine, but almost nothing at my parents place west of there and awful inside Jasper... which is like, a major tourist zone. And I don't mean up mountains or anything. Like, in the town site or just outside of it. Canadians are being fleeced.
gmokki 5y ago
On the graph Finland is on the opposite end. And Finland is one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe with mandatory coverage of tundras. I think it boils down to good legislation and luck on how our 3 mobile operators compete.

cardy31 5y ago

Dairy is a bit different though. Allowing the states to sell their dairy into Canada would be cheaper, but their regulations on what you can put into milk and dairy (antibiotics, hormones) are much more lax than Canadian standards. Because of that I'm quite happy to not let US dairy compete in Canada.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Yep and there's something more ... wholesome seeming about Canadian dairy farmers getting a leg up vs Bell and Rogers getting a leg up. In reality most dairy farms are large industrial operations, though.
- greenshackle2 5y ago
  Not that it really changes your point, but I suspect most dairy farms are small, but most milk comes from large dairy farms. Large farms have orders of magnitudes more cows than small farms. This is great for the dairy industry, they love to advertise that most farms are small, family-owned operations, which is technically true, while selling you factory farm milk. (If it's not intuitive, imagine a world with 10 farms with 50 cows each, and one farm with 3000 cows. I suspect that herd size looks more like a power law distribution than a normal distribution, but a quick google search didn't turn up good data.)
  - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    There's probably information on dairy quota distribution out there. Might be interesting to investigate. My understanding is it's very hard to get quota.
angott 5y ago
Let's be honest, the antibiotics and hormones are just an excuse to keep the foreign competition out, and keep prices high in the process. If the government really cared about protecting consumers, they would not care about the country of origin. They would have import controls that ensure imported foreign milk follows the Canadian standards you mentioned. Instead, they simply slap an incredibly high average duty of 218.5% on any dairy product coming from abroad, no matter its characteristics, effectively blocking any import of dairy. There is high-quality milk made in the U.S. too. But Canada prefers to protect Canadian oligopolies and keep competitors out. And this way, consumers keep paying higher prices for the same product. Why not let consumers decide what they want to purchase?