Biggest rip off in Mobile Tele communications or daamn close to it!

[P-Flipp]

The iPhone's arrival in Canada July 11th.The cheapest plan starts at $60
and gives you 150 anytime minutes,"unlimited evenings and w.e" (evenings start at 9:00 pm you're reading right until 7:00 am)Internet data,get this a whopping 400 mb (this can be consumed in 2 days)All of this does not included $6.95 a month system access fee,voice mail,text message,Goods and Services tax etc all that is extra.This is just unreal!

[TAC]

No one said you have to buy it.

[P-Flipp]

No one said you have to buy it.

iPhone is just an example.In general Canandians are gouged more for wireless services than most countries in the industrialized world.The CRTC stifles competition and ensures that choice is limited to 3 magor carriers who charge more for less.

[MarkK]

You are subsidizing service in the hinterlands.

[P-Flipp]

You are subsidizing service in the hinterlands.

That is what the monthly $6.95 system access fee is for.

[MarkK]

Canada has always been a problem. Pretty tight government regulation and its not really the most profitable market in the world. Sorry!

[The Good Reverend Rollo Goodlove]

No one said you have to buy it.

That is the first thought that came to my mind as well.

[The Good Reverend Rollo Goodlove]

Canada has always been a problem. Pretty tight government regulation and its not really the most profitable market in the world. Sorry!

And the US is better? Deregulation led to a boom in competition only to see all the smaller players unable to compete and being bought out(Verizon buying Alltel is not going to be the last aquisition). We went from duopoly to competition and we are headed 100mph back to duopoly. Once that occurs prices will rise. Canada is just saving itself the roller coaster ride.

[MarkK]

And the US is better? Deregulation led to a boom in competition only to see all the smaller players unable to compete and being bought out(Verizon buying Alltel is not going to be the last aquisition). We went from duopoly to competition and we are headed 100mph back to duopoly. Once that occurs prices will rise. Canada is just saving itself the roller coaster ride.

Smaller players? Like BellSouth, Ameritech....these were huge companies. Wiresless was never about the small player becuase there was never any network that was going to be unbundled for a new entrant to use.

The Alltel purchase was about Verizon buying subs, nothing more. They were not really major competitors in the first place so it should not implact price that much anyway.

When the Bells started eating themselves, was the time to make this complaint. Way too late now.

[P-Flipp]

And the US is better? Deregulation led to a boom in competition only to see all the smaller players unable to compete and being bought out(Verizon buying Alltel is not going to be the last aquisition). We went from duopoly to competition and we are headed 100mph back to duopoly. Once that occurs prices will rise. Canada is just saving itself the roller coaster ride.

The U.S is still better Trust! notwithstanding the issues on your front as well.However you have given something to ponder about.

[The Good Reverend Rollo Goodlove]

Smaller players? Like BellSouth, Ameritech....these were huge companies. Wiresless was never about the small player becuase there was never any network that was going to be unbundled for a new entrant to use.

The Alltel purchase was about Verizon buying subs, nothing more. They were not really major competitors in the first place so it should not implact price that much anyway.

When the Bells started eating themselves, was the time to make this complaint. Way too late now.

You are missing the point. There were tons of small and midsized players that have been gobbled up into the larger guys. Verizon was originally Nynex, GTE, Bell Atlantic, Primeco, Alltel and a bunch of other small companies gobbled up along the way(AT&T has a similar make up). I worked at Verizon when it was first formed and remember the issues around intergrating all of the different internal systems. There were like 17. Anyway my point was that if you look around the globe most countries have only 2 or 3 (p-flipps complaint and explanation for "price gouging")wireless companies. Even in the US where deregulation and growth explosion happened we are still headed towards a 2 or 3 carrier environment.

[Moksha]

iPhone is just an example.In general Canandians are gouged more for wireless services than most countries in the industrialized world.

huh?

that's way cheaper than the UK (and, the rest of Europe, I assume).

Cheapest plan is also at $60. 75 minutes (no nights and weekends, which is when most people make most of their calls)

[P-Flipp]

You are missing the point. There were tons of small and midsized players that have been gobbled up into the larger guys. Verizon was originally Nynex, GTE, Bell Atlantic, Primeco, Alltel and a bunch of other small companies gobbled up along the way(AT&T has a similar make up). I worked at Verizon when it was first formed and remember the issues around intergrating all of the different internal systems. There were like 17. Anyway my point was that if you look around the globe most countries have only 2 or 3 (p-flipps complaint and explanation for "price gouging")wireless companies. Even in the US where deregulation and growth explosion happened we are still headed towards a 2 or 3 carrier environment.

points well taken however even if the Wireless service industry is wittled down to 3 carriers ,there is no way they would get away the shit we have to endure.There would be such a firestorm in the media,the web etc.As flawed as the U.S situation is at least AT&T packages make more sense!

[P-Flipp]

huh?

that's way cheaper than the UK (and, the rest of Europe, I assume).

Cheapest plan is also at $60. 75 minutes (no nights and weekends, which is when most people make most of their calls)

Are you kidding me?Never actually compared!

[TAD]

The CRTC stifles competition and ensures that choice is limited to 3 magor carriers

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2007/11/28/auction.html

Ottawa opens up wireless industry to more competition
Last Updated: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 | 6:31 PM ET
CBC News

The Conservative government on Wednesday paved the way for new cellphone companies by announcing new rules for an auction of radio airwaves designed to spur competition in the wireless industry.

About 40 per cent of the spectrum will be reserved for new entrants, with the remainder open to all bidders, including Canada's big three providers — Rogers, Bell and Telus.

'This is a grand slam for consumers.'— Telecom analyst Eamon Hoey

The government will also mandate roaming agreements, which will force existing carriers to share their networks with newcomers for five years, plus another five if the new entrants can build up their own networks nationally. If a new carrier is unable to reach a "reasonable" roaming agreement with an existing provider, an outside arbitrator will be brought in, Industry Canada said.

The government is also forcing existing carriers to rent space on their cellphone towers to newcomers, again at "reasonable" rates, or risk having an arbitrator come in.

In handing down the rules, Industry Minister Jim Prentice gave potential newcomers, including Quebecor, MTS Allstream, Shaw and Eastlink, virtually everything they asked for.
Key numbers
Bell, Rogers and Telus wireless revenue: $11.8 billion (2006 data)
Cellphone subscribers in Canada: 19.3 million (Sept. 2007)

Prentice told a news conference that he agreed with their assessment that prices are too high and the wireless industry needs more competition. "Our goal at the end of the day is lower prices, better services, and more choices," he said.

Those who had been arguing for more competition were delighted with the ruling. "This is a grand slam for consumers," telecom analyst Eamon Hoey told CBC News. "It really puts a heavy knife into the oligopolic style of structure we've had in the cellular business."

Chris Peirce, chief regulatory officer of MTS Allstream, was pleased as well.

"They have really gotten their policy right and it's good to see they were able to resist the arguments" of the incumbents, he said.

But Liberal industry critic Scott Brison was not pleased. "There's no proof it will lead to lower prices," he argued, saying regulation would have been better. Brison said the auction decision will result in a $200-million windfall for the new entrants.

Lawson Hunter, executive vice-president and chief corporate officer of Bell, agreed with Brison and said the government was costing taxpayers money by subsidizing new entrants. The spectrum could go for up to 40 per cent less than what it would have if the auction were open to the highest bidder, he said.

"Basically you've sold an asset of Canada at well under market price."

He also said the auction rules were a direct reversal of the government's previous stance on the telecommunications market, which advocated deregulation and determination by market forces.

The other two major players were also disappointed by the announcement, with Telus saying that new companies are sufficiently large and have enough resources to bid in an auction without government aid.

Rogers head of regulatory affairs, Ken Engelhart, said the decision was about as bad as it could have been for the big three cellphone companies.
New entrants could launch by late 2008

The auction process is to begin on May 27, 2008, and is expected to last several weeks. Industry Canada expects new players will start up by the end of next year, at the earliest.

Attention will now turn to who the new bidders will be, with analysts expecting Quebecor, MTS, Shaw and Eastlink to enter the auction. Prentice said the amount of spectrum reserved for new entrants, or 40 megahertz, is enough to facilitate a new national carrier.

"It's reasonable to assume that will happen," he said.

Peirce said the MTS board will now have to decide on what portions of spectrum to bid on. Industry Canada stopped short of applying its set-aside rule on a national spectrum licence, which MTS had asked for, opting instead to apply the special condition only on regional licences.

Prentice said a number of regional players could, however, band together to form a new national cellphone provider.

Foreign companies, although faced with ownership restrictions, could also bid on the spectrum in partnership with a Canadian company.

The auction traces its roots to April 2005, when the Liberal government put together the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel to look at the state of the industry and the Telecommunications Act.

The panel submitted its report in March 2006 to the newly elected Conservative government and, among its broader telecommunications recommendations, suggested several changes to the wireless industry to make it more competitive.

Industry Canada, under then Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, launched a public consultation in February 2007 that incorporated some of the panel's suggestions.

The ministry asked whether special conditions should be imposed on the auction, including whether some spectrum should be set aside for potential new entrants and whether caps should be installed on how much any one company could own.

The framework also asked whether government intervention was needed in the commercial negotiation of roaming deals between cellphone carriers. Roaming agreements allow customers of one provider to connect to the network of a different provider, which allows subscribers to use their cellphones where their carrier doesn't have infrastructure.

About 90 submissions were made from various industry players, including incumbents Bell, Rogers and Telus, potential new entrants Quebecor, Shaw and MTS Allstream, the Competition Bureau and various consumer and business groups.
Dominant companies wanted free-market auction

The incumbents argued that no special rules should be imposed and that spectrum should go to the highest bidder.

The potential entrants argued that special rules were needed because the incumbents had every incentive to bid up the price of the spectrum to keep new competitors out of the market.

They also said mandated roaming deals were necessary because the incumbents had no incentive to sign reasonable agreements with newcomers. Without the ability to offer roaming onto other networks, the new entrants would have a difficult time attracting customers, they argued.

The potential new entrants cited high prices and the lack of competition between the incumbents as the reason for Canada's poor showing among developed nations in mobile phone adoption.

Canada's rank of 29th out of the 30-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development was justification for the government to get involved in the otherwise unregulated wireless industry, they said.

The United States held a similar advanced wireless spectrum auction in September 2006 that netted the government $13.9 billion US. The Federal Communications Commission is holding another auction in January of spectrum that will be vacated when analogue television broadcasting is shut down in 2009.

The U.S. wireless industry is moving toward a more competitive framework, with the FCC imposing a number of open-access rules on its upcoming auction. Winners in the auction will be forced to make all cellphones, including those from rivals, work on their networks.

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

Mysterious company heads up spectrum auction list
Last Updated: Friday, March 14, 2008 | 7:11 PM ET Comments9Recommend65
CBC News

By Peter Nowak — The process of introducing new cellphone companies to Canada got off to a surprising start on Friday with unknown Niagara Networks Inc. emerging as the most aggressive player so far.

The company led 30 applicants in jockeying for position for the federal government's upcoming auction of airwaves, scheduled to begin on May 27.

Canada may soon have a proliferation of cellphone carriers, if the number of applications to build on new wireless spectrum is anything to go by.Canada may soon have a proliferation of cellphone carriers, if the number of applications to build on new wireless spectrum is anything to go by.
(Associated Press/Fabian Bimmer)

Niagara Networks is seeking 6,510 bid points — slices of spectrum licences — for various parts of the country, more than enough to launch a national cellphone network, requiring the company to make a credit deposit of $881 million with Industry Canada.

Niagara's application outdid the second largest, filed by the country's biggest cellphone provider, Rogers Communications Inc., which is looking for 4,030 wireless bid points with a required deposit of $534 million.

Douglas Evashkow, president of Niagara Networks, declined to comment on any details of the application. He would not say where the company's funding was coming from.

"It's tied into confidentiality agreements," he said. "But we're very excited to be a part of the auction and delivering those services. But that's about all I can give you. We have significant financial backing behind us."

Industry analysts were puzzled as well, but speculated that the funding may be coming in part from a foreign cellphone company such as Britain's Vodafone Group PLC or Germany's T-Mobile. The licences would be more than enough to start a full national cellphone provider.

"Somebody's got an appetite to be everywhere at once," said Iain Grant, president of telecommunications consultancy The SeaBoard Group.

The applications are not indicative of how companies will fare in the auction, analysts said, but do show the enthusiasm of the various players for getting into the lucrative $13 billion-plus cellphone business.

Industry Canada will examine all of the applications, perform credit checks and announce which ones qualify for the auction on March 31.

New entrants have an advantage in the auction because the country's three cellphone providers — Rogers, Bell Canada Inc. and Telus Corp. — are prohibited from bidding on 40 per cent of the airwaves being sold. The government announced that rule in November in an effort to encourage new carriers, and thus more competition through lower prices. The remaining 60 per cent of spectrum is open to bids from everyone.

The third-largest application came from Calgary-based Shaw Communications Inc. through a numbered company, for 3,076 bid points with a deposit of $400 million. Shaw earlier this week confirmed it had applied to bid, but said doing so did not necessarily mean it would build a cellphone network. The number of bid points Shaw is seeking is also more than enough for a full national network.

"The company plans to bid on licences as it deems appropriate, and cautions against speculation drawing direct correlation about its deposit and its ultimate intention regarding the possible purchase of licences," Shaw said in a statement Friday.

Shaw's statements have confused observers, who are unsure of the company's intentions. Shaw may be interested in building a national network, or it may want to simply sit on spectrum only to resell it a few years down the road, according to IDC Canada telecommunications analyst Lawrence Surtees.

MTS Allstream Inc. and Quebecor Inc. lodged the fourth- and fifth-most-aggressive applications, at $340 million and $317 million, respectively. Each company earlier this week confirmed its goal of launching a national cellphone provider, with MTS announcing it had formed a bidding consortium with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and New York-based private equity firm Blackstone Group LP.

Toronto-based Globalive Communications Inc. also surprised industry observers by announcing details of its application on Friday.

The privately held company, which sells telecommunications services under the Yak brand, said it was seeking 1,892 bid points with a required deposit of $235 million, making it the sixth-most-aggressive seeker of spectrum so far. The company said it was receiving funding from Egypt-based Weather Investments, which runs cellphone providers in Italy and Greece, as well as London-based Novator, which operates carriers in Poland and Iceland.

Globalive chief executive Anthony Lacavera said Yak wants to become a national cellphone provider and isn't restricted by conservative shareholders, like most of the other bidders are.

"We have at least as much financial clout as MTS or [Quebecor's] Videotron," he said. "In terms of free cash flow, we have significantly more available."

A company called Data & Audio-Visual Enterprises Wireless Inc. has also applied to bid for 972 bid points with a deposit of $106 million. The company, known as "DAVE," shares an office in Toronto with XM Satellite Radio, which is owned by entrepreneur John Bitove. A spokesperson for XM would not comment on whether DAVE is tied to XM.

Bell and Telus also applied to bid for 1,500 bid points at $180 million and 1,860 bid points at $230 million, respectively.

Other $100-million-plus deposits placed belonged to an unknown numbered Canadian company, as well as a company called Triple Five Enterprises Inc.

A number of other smaller players also applied to bid, including Yellowknife-based SSI Micro Ltd. and Toronto-based Mipps Inc.

[MarkK]

I know exactly what you are talking about as I worked on all those mergers from a market and financial standpoint in the 80s and 90s. My first client was NYT, new Verizon.

Their wireless businesses were always seperate, in a legal, network and financial sense, from the wireline side. The built their wireless networks from scratch, did not inherit a legacy network, not were they obliged to provide universal service. So these mergers were highly preditable, especially in such a capital-intensive business. I am not sure what your point is. Mine was that the US is more competitive and had lower prices compared to Canada.

You are missing the point. There were tons of small and midsized players that have been gobbled up into the larger guys. Verizon was originally Nynex, GTE, Bell Atlantic, Primeco, Alltel and a bunch of other small companies gobbled up along the way(AT&T has a similar make up). I worked at Verizon when it was first formed and remember the issues around intergrating all of the different internal systems. There were like 17. Anyway my point was that if you look around the globe most countries have only 2 or 3 (p-flipps complaint and explanation for "price gouging")wireless companies. Even in the US where deregulation and growth explosion happened we are still headed towards a 2 or 3 carrier environment.

[MarkK]

Ok I am not that old, I did not start working for NYNEX until 1991.....

[P-Flipp]

Thanx for the posts TAD.I forgot about those turn of events yet reserve the right to be somewhat skeptical pending the results of the "auction".As Huey put it these potential smaller players can will be easily gobbled up by the bigger fish in the pond.It remains to be seen whether these inroads to deregulation will lead to the desired results.

[MarkK]

Thanx for the posts TAD.I forgot about those turn of events yet reserve the right to be somewhat skeptical pending the results of the "auction".As Huey put it these potential smaller players can will be easily gobbled up by the bigger fish in the pond.It remains to be seen if these inroads to deregulation will lead to the desired results.

The other issue is very expensive for these smaller players to build a network. For some of them, they just exist in order to get purchased so the high level execs can make the bank.

THis does not help you any. Complain to your gov.

[P-Flipp]

The other issue is very expensive for these smaller players to build a network. For some of them, they just exist in order to get purchased so the high level execs can make the bank.

THis does not help you any. Complain to your gov.

True!In the same breath we don't complain just take the pain.

[Moksha]

FYI

In France, plans start at $80 and come with 120 minutes daytime and 120 minutes nights and weekends.

[TAD]