5 ms·

Oh man, we really need this for telecom too. And even more important than their collusion is their political corruption, so the government protects them from co

Oh man, we really need this for telecom too. And even more important than their collusion is their political corruption, so the government protects them from competition and funnels endless billions in taxpayer money to them.

arcticbull 2y ago
You know what actually works great for reducing the price of cell plans in Canada is a public option. There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Manitobans should be absolutely up in arms over the privatization of Manitoba Telecom. Canada has a ton of land and just not that many people. There's 3 + Videotron major telecom operators servicing a population the size of California spread out over a land area the size of the United States. The Capex and payback period for spinning up a new, competitive, national carrier is wild (there's a pile of bodies there proving my point) which makes this a perfect job for the government.
- gruez 2y ago
  >There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Source? Looking at sasktel's website and rogers' website, this claim does not pass the sniff test. Their "basic" plan is $60/month (BYOD) for 15GB of data, whereas rogers gives you 75GB for $65. Even if you don't use 15GB of data and that extra $5 brings you no benefit, the price difference is nowhere near high enough to justify the claim "people pay roughly half the national average".
  - arcticbull 2y ago
    Probably marketing/promos for new customers vs. actual realized, and I strongly suspect if you click through those Rogers plans you'll land on a much higher total cost. https://hellosafe.ca/en/telecommunications/cell-phone-plans/data-price-map https://hellosafe.ca/en/telecommunications/cell-phone-plans/...
    - gruez 2y ago
      I clicked through and see no time limited discount, only a $5 "automatic payments discount", whatever that means.
      - arcticbull 2y ago
        I looked again after your response, the Rogers plans all state "for new customers only" which is probably the discrepancy. Every time I speak with my parents I'm shocked how much they're paying and I have to spend an hour renegotiating.
  - Marsymars 2y ago
    A few years out of date, but the competition bureau has this review from 2019 comparing pricing between provinces: https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/how-we-foster-competition/promotion-and-advocacy/regulatory-adviceinterventions-competition-bureau/review-mobile-wireless-services https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/how-we-foster-competiti... My takeaway from that is that Sasktel/MTS were much cheaper for a comparable plan, but the average revenue per user is near-identical - so the effect is mostly just that Sasktel/MTS users got more data with their plans. (Which tracks to me, if you halved the revenue of a provincial-scale carrier, they'd be a huge money loser regardless of how many executive salaries got cut or efficiencies got discovered.)
  - nightowl_games 2y ago
    I live in Saskatchewan and pay ~50$ for 10GB of data/month. I'm not on a Sasktel plan, as I found a cheaper option through one of the privatized networks, however Sasktel has a new subsidiary: Lum Mobile, to compete with the cheap plans like what I'm using. I know someone who has some discount at Sasktel and pays ~50$/month for 75GB(!) of data. When I was in toronto the guy at the hotel had a 306 (saskatchewan) phone number because it was cheaper. Sasktel is a great provider. I have fiber to the home in my house, for instance.
- mewse-hn 2y ago
  > Manitobans should be absolutely up in arms over the privatization of Manitoba Telecom. There are a lot of us in Manitoba who know this was a crime and we can do fuck-all to change it
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Scoundreller 2y ago
  > there's a pile of bodies there proving my point They make great organ donors though! (Not all were economic failures: you can also be a successful and scrappy going concern and that gets you acquired by bigger pockets with a rubber stamp from government that thinks bigger firms are better for all)
- TeeMassive 2y ago
  You know the collusion is bad when a government enterprise can be two times cheaper.
  - dfxm12 2y ago
    You seem to be implying that a public enterprise can't compete so well against private enterprise on price by definition. Why do you think this?
    - VancouverMan 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - arcticbull 2y ago
        > Canada Post is certainly not cheap for the type and quality of service that's provided. Can you pay less to send something via UPS or FedEx? I'm pretty sure you can't. Remember Purolator is a Canada Post subsidiary so probably don't count them.
        VancouverMan 2y ago
        I'm not sure. But I also don't consider Canada Post to be offering comparable service to FedEx and UPS these days, too. For example, based on my experience and the experiences of other people in Canada I've talked to, Canada Post seems to just deliver a pick-up notice slip, rather than the parcel itself. It's particularly annoying when the recipient has been available to receive the parcel, but Canada Post doesn't even appear to make an attempt to deliver, although the slip is left behind. The recipient then has to go down to a Canada Post outlet with the slip to actually receive the parcel. On the other hand, FedEx, UPS, and other private sector (I, too, would exclude Purolator) couriers consistently manage to deliver parcels directly to me, right into my hands, even if it might occasionally take a second attempt. I haven't had to go to a UPS or FedEx depot in well over a decade. In my opinion, delivering a parcel directly to the recipient is a different service than delivering the parcel to the same city and then requiring the recipient to complete the job.
nazcan 2y ago
Prices have come down a lot. I have reasonable plans from black Friday at like $30ish/month.

arcticbull 2y ago

You know what actually works great for reducing the price of cell plans in Canada is a public option. There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Manitobans should be absolutely up in arms over the privatization of Manitoba Telecom. Canada has a ton of land and just not that many people. There's 3 + Videotron major telecom operators servicing a population the size of California spread out over a land area the size of the United States. The Capex and payback period for spinning up a new, competitive, national carrier is wild (there's a pile of bodies there proving my point) which makes this a perfect job for the government.

gruez 2y ago
>There's one province where people pay roughly half the national average for all there telecom needs - and that's Saskatchewan. SaskTel's mere existence keeps all the majors in line. Source? Looking at sasktel's website and rogers' website, this claim does not pass the sniff test. Their "basic" plan is $60/month (BYOD) for 15GB of data, whereas rogers gives you 75GB for $65. Even if you don't use 15GB of data and that extra $5 brings you no benefit, the price difference is nowhere near high enough to justify the claim "people pay roughly half the national average".
- arcticbull 2y ago
  Probably marketing/promos for new customers vs. actual realized, and I strongly suspect if you click through those Rogers plans you'll land on a much higher total cost. https://hellosafe.ca/en/telecommunications/cell-phone-plans/data-price-map https://hellosafe.ca/en/telecommunications/cell-phone-plans/...
  - gruez 2y ago
    I clicked through and see no time limited discount, only a $5 "automatic payments discount", whatever that means.
    - arcticbull 2y ago
      I looked again after your response, the Rogers plans all state "for new customers only" which is probably the discrepancy. Every time I speak with my parents I'm shocked how much they're paying and I have to spend an hour renegotiating.
- Marsymars 2y ago
  A few years out of date, but the competition bureau has this review from 2019 comparing pricing between provinces: https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/how-we-foster-competition/promotion-and-advocacy/regulatory-adviceinterventions-competition-bureau/review-mobile-wireless-services https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/how-we-foster-competiti... My takeaway from that is that Sasktel/MTS were much cheaper for a comparable plan, but the average revenue per user is near-identical - so the effect is mostly just that Sasktel/MTS users got more data with their plans. (Which tracks to me, if you halved the revenue of a provincial-scale carrier, they'd be a huge money loser regardless of how many executive salaries got cut or efficiencies got discovered.)
- nightowl_games 2y ago
  I live in Saskatchewan and pay ~50$ for 10GB of data/month. I'm not on a Sasktel plan, as I found a cheaper option through one of the privatized networks, however Sasktel has a new subsidiary: Lum Mobile, to compete with the cheap plans like what I'm using. I know someone who has some discount at Sasktel and pays ~50$/month for 75GB(!) of data. When I was in toronto the guy at the hotel had a 306 (saskatchewan) phone number because it was cheaper. Sasktel is a great provider. I have fiber to the home in my house, for instance.
mewse-hn 2y ago
> Manitobans should be absolutely up in arms over the privatization of Manitoba Telecom. There are a lot of us in Manitoba who know this was a crime and we can do fuck-all to change it
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Scoundreller 2y ago
> there's a pile of bodies there proving my point They make great organ donors though! (Not all were economic failures: you can also be a successful and scrappy going concern and that gets you acquired by bigger pockets with a rubber stamp from government that thinks bigger firms are better for all)
TeeMassive 2y ago
You know the collusion is bad when a government enterprise can be two times cheaper.
- dfxm12 2y ago
  You seem to be implying that a public enterprise can't compete so well against private enterprise on price by definition. Why do you think this?
  - VancouverMan 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - arcticbull 2y ago
      > Canada Post is certainly not cheap for the type and quality of service that's provided. Can you pay less to send something via UPS or FedEx? I'm pretty sure you can't. Remember Purolator is a Canada Post subsidiary so probably don't count them.
      - VancouverMan 2y ago
        I'm not sure. But I also don't consider Canada Post to be offering comparable service to FedEx and UPS these days, too. For example, based on my experience and the experiences of other people in Canada I've talked to, Canada Post seems to just deliver a pick-up notice slip, rather than the parcel itself. It's particularly annoying when the recipient has been available to receive the parcel, but Canada Post doesn't even appear to make an attempt to deliver, although the slip is left behind. The recipient then has to go down to a Canada Post outlet with the slip to actually receive the parcel. On the other hand, FedEx, UPS, and other private sector (I, too, would exclude Purolator) couriers consistently manage to deliver parcels directly to me, right into my hands, even if it might occasionally take a second attempt. I haven't had to go to a UPS or FedEx depot in well over a decade. In my opinion, delivering a parcel directly to the recipient is a different service than delivering the parcel to the same city and then requiring the recipient to complete the job.

nazcan 2y ago

Prices have come down a lot. I have reasonable plans from black Friday at like $30ish/month.