10 ms·

The utterly inefficient and overpriced Canadian telecoms exist only because we allow one specific behavior: 1. A new local player comes to town, builds their o

The utterly inefficient and overpriced Canadian telecoms exist only because we allow one specific behavior: 1. A new local player comes to town, builds their own infrastructure (e.g. connects one building to fiber) and starts offering competitive service. 2. Rogers/Shaw/Bell/Telus immediately offer better terms for the residents of that building. 3. The competitor runs out of money and leaves. 4. The telecoms revert to their usual pricing. This hurts competition, this hurts customers, this hurts long-term infrastructure resilience, but not a single politician ever comes close to even admitting the problem. I understand you cannot do it on the federal level where both major parties are on the telecoms' payroll, but it could be a very low-hanging fruit for someone running for a municipal position to address. But nope, identity politics, words, feelings and fighting climate change with paper straws seem to be what the electorate wants instead. Sad.

nayuki 4y ago
These observations are very true. A friend was living in a Toronto condo building, and I saw them choose to switch from Beanfield to Bell/Rogers for the same monthly price but higher Internet speeds. They took the bait and now everyone pays the price in the long run. And yes, Bell/Rogers gouges with high prices for houses/apartments that don't have an independent ISP like Beanfield, etc.
- rbt5009 4y ago
  That's a shame. I recently moved to Toronto and got Beanfield mostly by chance. I'm really pleased with the service, hope to stick with them for a long time.
- futureproofd 4y ago
  I recently moved to a newly built condo in Toronto and there was a special resident onboarding email, which happened to include a promotional offer from Rogers, advertising a rock bottom deal on internet that I couldn't refuse. I later asked the Rogers representative on the phone how they managed to score the deal with the building developer, and he basically told me that they have an ongoing relationship. They basically have the deal made as soon as the project gets off the ground.
UkrainianJew 4y ago
I also remember Air Canada or WestJet doing the same to some small air company offering cheap flights from Kelowna (?), but I cannot find the news piece. Does anybody here have a better memory than myself?
- jamincan 4y ago
  The airport in Kitchener has a deal where an airline is offered exclusive rights to a new route out of the airport for, I think, two years. Westjet/Swoop was recently throwing up a storm in the media over this when Flair took advantage of the deal, calling it anti-competitive. Never mind that they had, and still have, access to the same deal. The reality is that they were only interested in running those routes as long as another airline was. YKF has been down this road before.
- justsid 4y ago
  Are you thinking of Flair or Swoop? Never flown them out of Kelowna when I was living there, but I remember both being a big deal when they finally arrived.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    They're still around
  - msbarnett 4y ago
    Swoop is owned by WestJet, it's just their discount brand. Flair's actually independent and used to be based in Kelowna but is now based in Edmonton – they're probably who GP is thinking of.
    - jbm 4y ago
      I'm incredibly thankful to Flair as my flight to Montreal now costs 1/3rd what it cost last year. It's unfortunate that I need to visit a province that discriminates against my mother with its regressive laws, but at least I can pay my respects and get out without contributing to the oligopoly that runs the country.
pj_mukh 4y ago
Curious though what the government could do about this pricing scheme here? Seems like the solution is to setup a bureaucracy to watch pricing and then micro-manage the situation whenever its tried? The ride-hailing services pulled this in various places around the world. Airlines in Canada did it as well. Feels like whack-a-mole.
- nabaraz 4y ago
  Promote fair competition. Verizon tried to get in Canadian market in 2019ish but top three telecom formed a mafia and didn't let that happen. Same thing with Delta, would be a much better alternative to Air Canada.
  - seized 4y ago
    Air Canada isn't perfect but Delta is junk. I have flown on both many times. Many counties have their own airline. Canada shouldn't automatically give up our airline in favor of a US one, because the US one wants in.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    Verizon was already in the Canadian market once before, holding a sizeable stake in Telus. I would say that they, along with AT&T owning a stake in Rogers during the same period, and of course AT&T also establishing Bell Canada earlier, are responsible for the present state of telecom in Canada. There were a number of other players who were trying to compete, but is wasn't easy going up against the offspring of the American behemoths.
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  Acknowledge that internet / phone service works much better as a utility and nationalize or highly regulate (i.e. fixed pricing schemes) the telecom companies.
  - II2II 4y ago
    The CRTC does dictate a fixed pricing scheme for mobile phones: https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/phone/mobile/occa.htm https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/phone/mobile/occa.htm Near the bottom it states that those companies are supposed to promote those plans. They didn't the last time I tried looking them up. Regulation is meaningless if there is a lack of enforcement. (Note: I'm not saying that the pricing scheme is particularly good since it leaves the needs of many people unaddressed. On the other hand, it does address the needs of those who would have the most trouble affording phone service.) Also consider the continual battle of third-party ISPs to provide affordable Internet access. The CRTC says the major providers have to lease out their lines and stipulate what those rates are. On the other hand, those third-party ISPs are constantly fighting to keep the rates low and are pretty much tied to providing service levels that match the major providers.
skipants 4y ago
> 2. Rogers/Shaw/Bell/Telus immediately offer better terms for the residents of that building. I was about to write a whole comment about how I've never seen this myself and to disagree with you I was going to compare the price of Bell Fibre in my building to Beanfield. The latter of which I have at $50/mo at 1Gbps. But then I loaded up Bell's availability page and entered my address... it was almost like a sick joke. The spinner was saying "Checking availability" or something like that. However, I could see the page with prices behind it darkened out while it was running. It was $115/mo for 2 years and $125/mo after that for 1Gbps fibre. But when the spinner was done and they "checked my availability"... well what do ya know! It's now magically $50/mo. Pretty disgusting that they can get away with that.
- FpUser 4y ago
  I use 1Gbps symmetric Bell fiber small business package which includes static IP. Pay $129/month and generally happy. Static IP is important as I host some stuff right in my basement. You got me curious with this Beanfield. It is indeed $50 for 1Gbps symmetric (no static IP of course) but when I looked at their business package it is $300 for the same speed. Static IP is extra. I wonder what does such a big difference include.
  - bshipp 4y ago
    If i had to guess maybe it is a guaranteed 1Gps slot? It does seem like an excessive markup.
    - bruce511 4y ago
      "markup" is one way to price things, but not necessarily the best way. A better way, and likely the thing in play here, is to price according to a mix of value provided, and the ability of the market to pay. If you are spread enough this will result in some markets paying effectively a large markup, and done a much smaller markup, and some, potentially, less than cost. The reason the package costs $300 is because that is what the market will bear, and the utility to the customer exceeds the value of that cash. Incidentally that value may also be in support etc. In summary, markup is one of the least effective pricing methodologies, and invariably leaves a lot of money on the table.
nerdponx 4y ago
Does Canada not have strong antitrust laws? As far as I know, this is explicitly illegal in the USA.
- lupire 4y ago
- notatoad 4y ago
  regardless of the law, canada chooses not to enforce it when it comes to the big telcos. they do what they want, and the politicians obey.
- mrshadowgoose 4y ago
  On paper, yes. But over the last few decades our regulatory bodies have been subverted by influence from our telcoms. Recently our telecom regulator (the CRTC) was considering whether MVNOs should be allowed in Canada. Our Competition Beaureau, which is supposed to be enforcing antitrust laws, provided guidance to the CRTC[1]. Here's an excerpt: "MVNOs can drive lower prices and greater choice, but they also could threaten the demonstrated progress in enhancing competition in this industry to date." That's right. "Increased competition and lower prices is bad for competition." "Demonstrated progress" in a country with some of the highest telecom prices in the world. Let's not even get into how the chairperson of the CRTC is literally a former telecom lobbyist. Ultimately, MVNOs were "approved", but with practically insurmountable requirements for new entrants, effectively blocking them. [1] https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/04505.html https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/0...
  - jvm___ 4y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
    - dmix 4y ago
      There really should be a big investment in an anti-regulatory capture organization the way there are anti-trust lawyers and privacy czars. Which would have the dual purpose of employing researchers and public outreach and have powers to stop hires, limit grants/subsidies, and collaborates with with anti-trust. But who are we kidding, politicians never bite the hands that feed them.
walrus01 4y ago
> The utterly inefficient and overpriced Canadian telecoms exist only because we allow one specific behavior: > 1. A new local player comes to town, builds their own infrastructure (e.g. connects one building to fiber) and starts offering competitive service. You forgot to mention that whoever is the ILEC in an area (Telus, Bell, etc) and/or the incumbent 35+ year early advantage local cable TV operator (Shaw, Rogers) has an immense advantage in owning and controlling existing right-of-way to reach whatever is the last mile service delivery location, whether it's aerial pole to pole or duct routes.
- futureproofd 4y ago
  They legally have the right of way to build infrastructure to connect to newly developed, last mile locations? Interesting.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    whether in usa or canada, local governments treat the incumbent local phone company and cable tv company as a default essential utility, so if it's not a legally enshrined right, it would certainly be shocking and weird if they didn't build to new places of course in places where the local phone company or cable tv company shares aerial utility pole based infrastructure with the local power company, they're very close buddies as well
    - octoberfranklin 4y ago
      In most of the USA the local telcos are obligated to extend service to new construction as part of government grants they've received in the past. The obligation is usually for something like ~10 years, but the grant cycle is shorter than that. The recent "RDOF" mega-grant has one of these clauses (at the census block level): "All support recipients must serve locations newly built after the revised location total but before the end of year eight upon reasonable request" https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904/factsheet https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904/factsheet These mega-grant things happen every 6-8 years. The last was "CAP II", preceded by "CAP I", etc. The telcos are basically treated like municipalities when it comes to federal grantmaking. This is basically the system that was lobbied into place after AT&T was broken up; the FCC just took over AT&T's local-loop capital allocation.
vvillena 4y ago
Isn't this a simplified version of what Rockefeller did with the oil market more than a hundred years ago? Drive out competition by financing any extra costs with profits from the markets where there's no competition. Such behavior spawned lots of laws designed to prevent it from happening again. And, just like the telecoms extort huge subscriptions from their clients using extreme product bundling, politicians engaged in ideology and law bundling to get voters to flock to them attracted by some laws, enabling them to enact (or in this case, repel) the laws preventing them from going back to 19th century capitalist practices.
tshaddox 4y ago
Why do new local players invest in new offerings if it is apparently so obvious that the big telecoms will come in and undercut them long enough to exhaust their capital?
- brewdad 4y ago
  Why does anyone try to sell books when Amazon exists? It's the nature of the optimist.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    But people actually do sell books. It’s not the case that Amazon always comes to new book store locations and undercuts them on price just long enough for them to go out of business.
    - brewdad 4y ago
      Amazon undercuts pretty much every bookseller on price. A few local/specialty shops can survive but Barnes & Noble is pretty much the only national competitor left in the US and they are on the ropes. My local B&N is now a pile of rubble, soon to be a fast food place.
amelius 4y ago
Sounds like how the free market was designed to work. Not that I find it a particularly good design, though.
- specialist 4y ago
  Freemium Markets™ aka Pay to play.
- culi 4y ago
  > free market > was designed
- Teever 4y ago
  Utilities like telecoms can't be free market due to the natural monopoly effect. We can't have a hundred different companies burying infrastructure or stringing up lines on poles.
  - bonestamp2 4y ago
    An extra 2 or 3 might be ok.
    - dmix 4y ago
      Seriously, the world will not end because more than two companies are laying fibre. Especially as the country grows in size. This weak apologia for monopolies is what keeps them around. Even when the cost created via gov-backed pseudo-private monopolies are obviously worse than their hypotheticals.
  - xwolfi 4y ago
    You can, but profitability is limited. You can have 5/6 maybe max in a dense country. With 4 in France, they each slowly fibered the whole country reaching an approximate 25% coverage each and compete in wave: one day they are at 20MBps and suddenly one explodes at 100 and the rest run after to restabilize market share. If they dont they all get fined by the regulator looking at european average speeds.
roenxi 4y ago
While I believe that this is a tactic that gets used, it shouldn't work. And therefore it is points to probable regulatory failures. Note that the theory here is that the majors will offer cheap prices if the infra is duplicated. That means "I" (my building) could build my (our) own fibre connection and then use that as leverage to get cheap internet without having to actually run it. It'd be a bit silly, but sounds long-term profitable. The focus should be on enabling this sort of competition.
14 4y ago
I was really hoping Musk would bring Starlink for cheaper then Rogers et all. I think for now they will mainly focus on rural areas but as time goes on hoping they lower the prices enough that even city folks with clear line of site to satellites can hook up and ditch Rogers.
pabs3 4y ago
Last mile connectivity is a bit of a natural monopoly, in Australia they converted that to a government owned monopoly that leases their infrastructure to ISPs. I wonder if Canada should do the same.
baskethead 4y ago
Canada is rife with oligopolies and the government does nothing to make this right. Everything is much more expensive in Canada vs the US because there's simply no competition.
shahsyed 4y ago
It definitely won't happen in Toronto, seeing as John Tory was, and still is, in bed with Rogers. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/john-a-tory-a-quiet-humble-man-who-shaped-canadian-dynasties/article4182147/?page=all https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/john-a-tory-a-...
zx8080 4y ago
What exactly does prevent almost any company in the free market to protect their market share with this way (if they can)?
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Deeper pockets because of income from different markets.
jacquesm 4y ago
Canada is rife with monopolies because of this. It's a very unhealthy market.
Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
After seeing how the telecom infrastructure was targeted in Ukraine, No sane government in the world can afford to maintain an oligopoly telecom infrastructure anymore; Ironically often in the name of national security. I think the best way to address it is to open the industry for disruption by encouraging new players(without Billion dollars in market cap) by removing barriers for entry, With stringent monitoring/punishments for anti-competitive behavior including backroom deals among carriers and mobile ecosystem duopoly.
skyde 4y ago
why not fix the bigger problem instead. that politician can be « on telecom payroll ». we can all agree politicians are supposed to represent the population of the country not the company and their board of directors.

nayuki 4y ago

These observations are very true. A friend was living in a Toronto condo building, and I saw them choose to switch from Beanfield to Bell/Rogers for the same monthly price but higher Internet speeds. They took the bait and now everyone pays the price in the long run. And yes, Bell/Rogers gouges with high prices for houses/apartments that don't have an independent ISP like Beanfield, etc.

rbt5009 4y ago
That's a shame. I recently moved to Toronto and got Beanfield mostly by chance. I'm really pleased with the service, hope to stick with them for a long time.
futureproofd 4y ago
I recently moved to a newly built condo in Toronto and there was a special resident onboarding email, which happened to include a promotional offer from Rogers, advertising a rock bottom deal on internet that I couldn't refuse. I later asked the Rogers representative on the phone how they managed to score the deal with the building developer, and he basically told me that they have an ongoing relationship. They basically have the deal made as soon as the project gets off the ground.

UkrainianJew 4y ago

I also remember Air Canada or WestJet doing the same to some small air company offering cheap flights from Kelowna (?), but I cannot find the news piece. Does anybody here have a better memory than myself?

jamincan 4y ago
The airport in Kitchener has a deal where an airline is offered exclusive rights to a new route out of the airport for, I think, two years. Westjet/Swoop was recently throwing up a storm in the media over this when Flair took advantage of the deal, calling it anti-competitive. Never mind that they had, and still have, access to the same deal. The reality is that they were only interested in running those routes as long as another airline was. YKF has been down this road before.
justsid 4y ago
Are you thinking of Flair or Swoop? Never flown them out of Kelowna when I was living there, but I remember both being a big deal when they finally arrived.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  They're still around
- msbarnett 4y ago
  Swoop is owned by WestJet, it's just their discount brand. Flair's actually independent and used to be based in Kelowna but is now based in Edmonton – they're probably who GP is thinking of.
  - jbm 4y ago
    I'm incredibly thankful to Flair as my flight to Montreal now costs 1/3rd what it cost last year. It's unfortunate that I need to visit a province that discriminates against my mother with its regressive laws, but at least I can pay my respects and get out without contributing to the oligopoly that runs the country.

pj_mukh 4y ago

Curious though what the government could do about this pricing scheme here? Seems like the solution is to setup a bureaucracy to watch pricing and then micro-manage the situation whenever its tried? The ride-hailing services pulled this in various places around the world. Airlines in Canada did it as well. Feels like whack-a-mole.

nabaraz 4y ago
Promote fair competition. Verizon tried to get in Canadian market in 2019ish but top three telecom formed a mafia and didn't let that happen. Same thing with Delta, would be a much better alternative to Air Canada.
- seized 4y ago
  Air Canada isn't perfect but Delta is junk. I have flown on both many times. Many counties have their own airline. Canada shouldn't automatically give up our airline in favor of a US one, because the US one wants in.
- randomdata 4y ago
  Verizon was already in the Canadian market once before, holding a sizeable stake in Telus. I would say that they, along with AT&T owning a stake in Rogers during the same period, and of course AT&T also establishing Bell Canada earlier, are responsible for the present state of telecom in Canada. There were a number of other players who were trying to compete, but is wasn't easy going up against the offspring of the American behemoths.
ryanbrunner 4y ago
Acknowledge that internet / phone service works much better as a utility and nationalize or highly regulate (i.e. fixed pricing schemes) the telecom companies.
- II2II 4y ago
  The CRTC does dictate a fixed pricing scheme for mobile phones: https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/phone/mobile/occa.htm https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/phone/mobile/occa.htm Near the bottom it states that those companies are supposed to promote those plans. They didn't the last time I tried looking them up. Regulation is meaningless if there is a lack of enforcement. (Note: I'm not saying that the pricing scheme is particularly good since it leaves the needs of many people unaddressed. On the other hand, it does address the needs of those who would have the most trouble affording phone service.) Also consider the continual battle of third-party ISPs to provide affordable Internet access. The CRTC says the major providers have to lease out their lines and stipulate what those rates are. On the other hand, those third-party ISPs are constantly fighting to keep the rates low and are pretty much tied to providing service levels that match the major providers.

skipants 4y ago

> 2. Rogers/Shaw/Bell/Telus immediately offer better terms for the residents of that building. I was about to write a whole comment about how I've never seen this myself and to disagree with you I was going to compare the price of Bell Fibre in my building to Beanfield. The latter of which I have at $50/mo at 1Gbps. But then I loaded up Bell's availability page and entered my address... it was almost like a sick joke. The spinner was saying "Checking availability" or something like that. However, I could see the page with prices behind it darkened out while it was running. It was $115/mo for 2 years and $125/mo after that for 1Gbps fibre. But when the spinner was done and they "checked my availability"... well what do ya know! It's now magically $50/mo. Pretty disgusting that they can get away with that.

FpUser 4y ago
I use 1Gbps symmetric Bell fiber small business package which includes static IP. Pay $129/month and generally happy. Static IP is important as I host some stuff right in my basement. You got me curious with this Beanfield. It is indeed $50 for 1Gbps symmetric (no static IP of course) but when I looked at their business package it is $300 for the same speed. Static IP is extra. I wonder what does such a big difference include.
- bshipp 4y ago
  If i had to guess maybe it is a guaranteed 1Gps slot? It does seem like an excessive markup.
  - bruce511 4y ago
    "markup" is one way to price things, but not necessarily the best way. A better way, and likely the thing in play here, is to price according to a mix of value provided, and the ability of the market to pay. If you are spread enough this will result in some markets paying effectively a large markup, and done a much smaller markup, and some, potentially, less than cost. The reason the package costs $300 is because that is what the market will bear, and the utility to the customer exceeds the value of that cash. Incidentally that value may also be in support etc. In summary, markup is one of the least effective pricing methodologies, and invariably leaves a lot of money on the table.

nerdponx 4y ago

Does Canada not have strong antitrust laws? As far as I know, this is explicitly illegal in the USA.

lupire 4y ago
notatoad 4y ago
regardless of the law, canada chooses not to enforce it when it comes to the big telcos. they do what they want, and the politicians obey.
mrshadowgoose 4y ago
On paper, yes. But over the last few decades our regulatory bodies have been subverted by influence from our telcoms. Recently our telecom regulator (the CRTC) was considering whether MVNOs should be allowed in Canada. Our Competition Beaureau, which is supposed to be enforcing antitrust laws, provided guidance to the CRTC[1]. Here's an excerpt: "MVNOs can drive lower prices and greater choice, but they also could threaten the demonstrated progress in enhancing competition in this industry to date." That's right. "Increased competition and lower prices is bad for competition." "Demonstrated progress" in a country with some of the highest telecom prices in the world. Let's not even get into how the chairperson of the CRTC is literally a former telecom lobbyist. Ultimately, MVNOs were "approved", but with practically insurmountable requirements for new entrants, effectively blocking them. [1] https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/04505.html https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/0...
- jvm___ 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
  - dmix 4y ago
    There really should be a big investment in an anti-regulatory capture organization the way there are anti-trust lawyers and privacy czars. Which would have the dual purpose of employing researchers and public outreach and have powers to stop hires, limit grants/subsidies, and collaborates with with anti-trust. But who are we kidding, politicians never bite the hands that feed them.

walrus01 4y ago

> The utterly inefficient and overpriced Canadian telecoms exist only because we allow one specific behavior: > 1. A new local player comes to town, builds their own infrastructure (e.g. connects one building to fiber) and starts offering competitive service. You forgot to mention that whoever is the ILEC in an area (Telus, Bell, etc) and/or the incumbent 35+ year early advantage local cable TV operator (Shaw, Rogers) has an immense advantage in owning and controlling existing right-of-way to reach whatever is the last mile service delivery location, whether it's aerial pole to pole or duct routes.

futureproofd 4y ago
They legally have the right of way to build infrastructure to connect to newly developed, last mile locations? Interesting.
- walrus01 4y ago
  whether in usa or canada, local governments treat the incumbent local phone company and cable tv company as a default essential utility, so if it's not a legally enshrined right, it would certainly be shocking and weird if they didn't build to new places of course in places where the local phone company or cable tv company shares aerial utility pole based infrastructure with the local power company, they're very close buddies as well
  - octoberfranklin 4y ago
    In most of the USA the local telcos are obligated to extend service to new construction as part of government grants they've received in the past. The obligation is usually for something like ~10 years, but the grant cycle is shorter than that. The recent "RDOF" mega-grant has one of these clauses (at the census block level): "All support recipients must serve locations newly built after the revised location total but before the end of year eight upon reasonable request" https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904/factsheet https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904/factsheet These mega-grant things happen every 6-8 years. The last was "CAP II", preceded by "CAP I", etc. The telcos are basically treated like municipalities when it comes to federal grantmaking. This is basically the system that was lobbied into place after AT&T was broken up; the FCC just took over AT&T's local-loop capital allocation.

vvillena 4y ago

Isn't this a simplified version of what Rockefeller did with the oil market more than a hundred years ago? Drive out competition by financing any extra costs with profits from the markets where there's no competition. Such behavior spawned lots of laws designed to prevent it from happening again. And, just like the telecoms extort huge subscriptions from their clients using extreme product bundling, politicians engaged in ideology and law bundling to get voters to flock to them attracted by some laws, enabling them to enact (or in this case, repel) the laws preventing them from going back to 19th century capitalist practices.

tshaddox 4y ago

Why do new local players invest in new offerings if it is apparently so obvious that the big telecoms will come in and undercut them long enough to exhaust their capital?

brewdad 4y ago
Why does anyone try to sell books when Amazon exists? It's the nature of the optimist.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  But people actually do sell books. It’s not the case that Amazon always comes to new book store locations and undercuts them on price just long enough for them to go out of business.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    Amazon undercuts pretty much every bookseller on price. A few local/specialty shops can survive but Barnes & Noble is pretty much the only national competitor left in the US and they are on the ropes. My local B&N is now a pile of rubble, soon to be a fast food place.

amelius 4y ago

Sounds like how the free market was designed to work. Not that I find it a particularly good design, though.

specialist 4y ago
Freemium Markets™ aka Pay to play.
culi 4y ago
> free market > was designed
Teever 4y ago
Utilities like telecoms can't be free market due to the natural monopoly effect. We can't have a hundred different companies burying infrastructure or stringing up lines on poles.
- bonestamp2 4y ago
  An extra 2 or 3 might be ok.
  - dmix 4y ago
    Seriously, the world will not end because more than two companies are laying fibre. Especially as the country grows in size. This weak apologia for monopolies is what keeps them around. Even when the cost created via gov-backed pseudo-private monopolies are obviously worse than their hypotheticals.
- xwolfi 4y ago
  You can, but profitability is limited. You can have 5/6 maybe max in a dense country. With 4 in France, they each slowly fibered the whole country reaching an approximate 25% coverage each and compete in wave: one day they are at 20MBps and suddenly one explodes at 100 and the rest run after to restabilize market share. If they dont they all get fined by the regulator looking at european average speeds.

roenxi 4y ago

While I believe that this is a tactic that gets used, it shouldn't work. And therefore it is points to probable regulatory failures. Note that the theory here is that the majors will offer cheap prices if the infra is duplicated. That means "I" (my building) could build my (our) own fibre connection and then use that as leverage to get cheap internet without having to actually run it. It'd be a bit silly, but sounds long-term profitable. The focus should be on enabling this sort of competition.

14 4y ago

I was really hoping Musk would bring Starlink for cheaper then Rogers et all. I think for now they will mainly focus on rural areas but as time goes on hoping they lower the prices enough that even city folks with clear line of site to satellites can hook up and ditch Rogers.

pabs3 4y ago

Last mile connectivity is a bit of a natural monopoly, in Australia they converted that to a government owned monopoly that leases their infrastructure to ISPs. I wonder if Canada should do the same.

baskethead 4y ago

Canada is rife with oligopolies and the government does nothing to make this right. Everything is much more expensive in Canada vs the US because there's simply no competition.

shahsyed 4y ago

It definitely won't happen in Toronto, seeing as John Tory was, and still is, in bed with Rogers. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/john-a-tory-a-quiet-humble-man-who-shaped-canadian-dynasties/article4182147/?page=all https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/john-a-tory-a-...

zx8080 4y ago

What exactly does prevent almost any company in the free market to protect their market share with this way (if they can)?

jacquesm 4y ago
Deeper pockets because of income from different markets.

jacquesm 4y ago

Canada is rife with monopolies because of this. It's a very unhealthy market.

Abishek_Muthian 4y ago

After seeing how the telecom infrastructure was targeted in Ukraine, No sane government in the world can afford to maintain an oligopoly telecom infrastructure anymore; Ironically often in the name of national security. I think the best way to address it is to open the industry for disruption by encouraging new players(without Billion dollars in market cap) by removing barriers for entry, With stringent monitoring/punishments for anti-competitive behavior including backroom deals among carriers and mobile ecosystem duopoly.

skyde 4y ago

why not fix the bigger problem instead. that politician can be « on telecom payroll ». we can all agree politicians are supposed to represent the population of the country not the company and their board of directors.