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> Hell, I've got better security for my email then I can get from Canadian Banks At this point why not switch to a US one? > I hate all Canadian telecommunica

> Hell, I've got better security for my email then I can get from Canadian Banks At this point why not switch to a US one? > I hate all Canadian telecommunications companies. Seems every thread about telecom ends up with a rant about Canadian providers. Why is the country so backward? They had Nortel and Blackberry not long ago.

voisin 4y ago
> At this point why not switch to a US one? As a Canadian I offer two things: 1) it is a pain for people to call you and have to pay long distance every time they call. Yes, long distance to the US is still a major thing in Canada. 2) I recently moved but kept my old phone number / area code. The number of times I call people and they don’t answer but then call me back right away and say “oh I saw an Ontario number and thought it was spam” is probably 4 out of 5 calls I make. People aren’t as accepting of non-local area codes as in the US. Probably because of the ridiculous number of scam calls we get. Edit: > Seems every thread about telecom ends up with a rant about Canadian providers. Why is the country so backward? They had Nortel and Blackberry not long ago. Because Canadian providers are in bed with the competition bureau and other regulators that essentially allow them to twist the rules to ensure the current oligopoly is permanent and allows them to charge the highest mobile rates in the world, by far. Canadian consumers by and large hate the situation but politicians don’t listen and it isn’t a big enough issue for a complacent populace to vote on.
BeefWellington 4y ago
Seems every thread about telecom ends up with a rant about Canadian providers. Why is the country so backward? They had Nortel and Blackberry not long ago. Of the major telecom providers, 3/4 of them control news media of various kinds (print, radio, television, streaming services). Politicians seem to bend the country over on behalf of these companies because if you say you're going to do anything else you get relentlessly attacked by the press. The telco regulator (CRTC) has had essentially former execs from one of the major telcos over the past thirty years except for a couple of people who actually tried to make changes. The lowest telco rates in the country are in the one province that has a provincially-owned provider: Saskatchewan. Previous governments at the federal and various provincial levels essentially de-incentivized a ton of tech investment that the country used to excel at. Nortel's story is one of espionage being their undoing and I'm not sure anyone could have done anything about that. Blackberry I think just represented a business unable to pivot fast enough when the tides shifted.

voisin 4y ago

> At this point why not switch to a US one? As a Canadian I offer two things: 1) it is a pain for people to call you and have to pay long distance every time they call. Yes, long distance to the US is still a major thing in Canada. 2) I recently moved but kept my old phone number / area code. The number of times I call people and they don’t answer but then call me back right away and say “oh I saw an Ontario number and thought it was spam” is probably 4 out of 5 calls I make. People aren’t as accepting of non-local area codes as in the US. Probably because of the ridiculous number of scam calls we get. Edit: > Seems every thread about telecom ends up with a rant about Canadian providers. Why is the country so backward? They had Nortel and Blackberry not long ago. Because Canadian providers are in bed with the competition bureau and other regulators that essentially allow them to twist the rules to ensure the current oligopoly is permanent and allows them to charge the highest mobile rates in the world, by far. Canadian consumers by and large hate the situation but politicians don’t listen and it isn’t a big enough issue for a complacent populace to vote on.

BeefWellington 4y ago

Seems every thread about telecom ends up with a rant about Canadian providers. Why is the country so backward? They had Nortel and Blackberry not long ago. Of the major telecom providers, 3/4 of them control news media of various kinds (print, radio, television, streaming services). Politicians seem to bend the country over on behalf of these companies because if you say you're going to do anything else you get relentlessly attacked by the press. The telco regulator (CRTC) has had essentially former execs from one of the major telcos over the past thirty years except for a couple of people who actually tried to make changes. The lowest telco rates in the country are in the one province that has a provincially-owned provider: Saskatchewan. Previous governments at the federal and various provincial levels essentially de-incentivized a ton of tech investment that the country used to excel at. Nortel's story is one of espionage being their undoing and I'm not sure anyone could have done anything about that. Blackberry I think just represented a business unable to pivot fast enough when the tides shifted.