By way of comparison, I'm living in Melbourne, Australia, and pay $55/month for the Nexus S w/ unlimited calls within Australia (including to other mobile phones), unlimited texts (IIRC) and 500 MB of data. That's for a one-year plan w/ Vodafone, and I didn't pay anything up-front for the phone. Needless to say I'm looking forward to upgrading to the Galaxy Nexus soon. :) My wife has the the same phone and same plan for two years and pays $45/month.
The Australian mobile phone market is very competitive, and it has a number of foreign players (e.g., Optus, Vodafone, Virgin). Australian fixed-line telecommunications are much less competitive due to the legacy stranglehold of the former government monopoly, Telstra.
IMO Canadians are far too complacent about government sanctioned monopolies or oligopolies (e.g., car insurance in BC, alcohol sales are provincial government monopolies, dairy product quotas, wheat board monopoly) that means they pay more for less choice, supposedly for their own good, when in reality it just enriches an old-boys network of politically well-connected players and condemns the protected industries to being being unable to compete internationally.
BC insurance, from my experience, isn't really a problem. Most quotes I've received in markets where there is a free(r) market for insurance often are considerably higher than what BC drivers pay through ICBC, especially if the driver is under 25.
Case in point, I renewed my auto insurance today with ICBC and paid $1470 for 12 months of insurance for a 2007 Mazda 3. The policy includes $2,000,000 liability, collision and comprehensive coverage with $300 deductibles, plus rental car coverage. In the last five years I was rear-ended at a stop light and my car was vandalized once. The equivalent quote from Geico was $2385 which only included $500,000 of liability insurance.
The reason you are paying lower rates is because the gov't has stepped in and ensured it. Well that and the gov't pays out insurance claims, so it can often limit the huge payouts.
The problem is is that when you benefit one group (young drivers), you're usually making someone else pay the difference (lower risk drivers).
As it stands now I should be in a low(ish) risk category -- I'm 29, my driving record is clean, I've never been at fault in any accidents, and I drive a boring car. And yet, still, my insurance is considerably lower than if I was buying it in the US.
If anyone else has moved from BC to someplace else and is paying less on insurance compared to ICBC for the same services I'd would honestly like to hear it because I haven't yet seen it.
I've heard horror stories but I've never had any problems with them, rate-wise or service-wise.
my insurance is considerably lower than if I was buying it in the US
How did you come up with this conclusion? In US I paid a little more than a half of what you paying (~$800/year) when I did not have any driving history. I am paying ~$800/year for two cars/two drivers now.
Online quotes through Geico and Progressive, matching the same coverage and deductibles as my current policy for liability, comprehensive, collision, underinsured motorist, rental car coverage, etc.
Hmm... I just tried Geico online quote and got some ridiculously high estimate (2x my current premiums). I guess old-fashioned phone call to the agent is still a way to go.
The typical Canadian will irrationally defend any policy that differs from the equivalent policy in America, because the typical Canadian's sense of national identity is 10% hockey and 90% 'we're different from the Americans'.
We're never going to deregulate and allow a little free-market competition to lower prices as long as these proposals can be criticized as 'Americanization' or 'the American way'. It's not complacency that ties Canadians to our goofy oligopolies, it's our own misguided nationalism.
This is so laughably wrong as to be absurd. Your explanation for Canadian telecom entrenchment and protectionism is that it's anti-American? Canada and its provinces have imported America's love of faux-competition in media, telecom, electricity, non-health insurance, and other areas nearly whole hog.
Anti-Americanism also runs contrary to Canada's: plans to imprison more of its population; paying extra for ill-performing military hardware; treating its First Nations like shit; increasing gap between rich and poor; busting of unions; beating the hell out of protestors; resisting all meaningful measures against climate change; and fighting pointless wars.
Canada could use some of this "we're different from the Americans" attitude that you claim pervades the nation. Sadly, I don't see much evidence of it in any of several areas of society, especially the telecom industry.
I'll agree that the current federal government is a bit of an aberration compared to past Liberal and Conservative governments, but playing up differences from the Americans to justify political policies (good or bad - I suppose that depends on your personal politics) has been a big part of Canadian political life since Trudeau's first term in the late '60s.
Whether Canada is actually all that different from America or whether 'different from America' is just used as a cynical political tool is another question.
People are driven to play one side of the fence or the other. As an example, many had fought to deregulate our banks. Now, after the recession, where are all these people? crickets Our banks in Canada were one of the only in the world to not suffer serious hardship coupled with millions of dollars lost in foreclosures, lost benefits and savings. This was, without question, due to regulation. Canada would not be in the position it is today had it deregulated the banks. This is a fact served by many, many examples throughout the world.
Admittingly, not all regulation is good. Matters like these should be investigated on a individual basis with due process. It isn't a matter of deregulation vs. regulation. Or Canada vs. USA. These mindsets are dangerous as they rubberstamp behaviour without consideration to the influences these actions may or may not have.
The CRTC needs good reform, but full deregulation is not my preference. The CRTC must encourage (require?) innovation for Canadians. That's the problem. We're unhappy because we don't have the innovations we should - and we pay top dollar for archaic services.
Deregulated media only means Bell/Rogers/Shaw will eventually be in the hands of conglomerates. There are financial advantages to this, but a boat-load of disadvantages not seen immediately. Do you think Comcast or AT&T would continue to employ 50,000+ people in Canada to uphold their Canadian operations had they the opportunity to purchase our telcos? Doubtful. What about our programming? What about censorship in the media - would we eventually adopt the American model if it's less work for them to uphold our model with theirs? With SOPA, we'd essentially inherit American policies without force. Not something I'd consider an improvement.
Yep, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.
A few decent regulations around underwriting mortgages, and most Canadians will conflate that into 'the banking industry shouldn't be touched' -- even though there's only six banks and they charge more in fees than American banks. (Which is saying a lot.)
And god forbid anyone say anything against the CMHC, which is a secretive time-bomb more leveraged than Fannie Mae ever was. Canada might have better underwriting rules for mortgages, but the mortgages themselves are 100% guaranteed by the Canadian taxpayer - for all we know, our housing crisis might still be ahead of us.
> Canadians will conflate that into 'the banking industry shouldn't be touched' -- even though there's only six banks and they charge more in fees than American banks. (Which is saying a lot.)
There is a bigger picture here. Our fees may be more (I have no idea), but our interest rates are higher for deposits most of the time. You're not considering any other factors for the higher prices. Personally, if our banks are making a lot of money, not putting everyone in the poor house and offering some of the best financing rates and deposit interest rates in the world, why do they need to be touched? I don't understand the motivation to make changes to something that isn't broken. The banking industry will never be perfect. If you're hoping for this utopian world of low/no bank fee, open market, low interest, high deposit interest, I think you're going to be disappointed to find out that it doesn't exist. Proof of such is in abundance.
> And god forbid anyone say anything against the CMHC, which is a secretive time-bomb more leveraged than Fannie Mae ever was.
CMHC also needs restructuring, but again, not deregulation. Why do we have it in our heads that corporations are less evil than the government? The government and corporations should exist with a set of regulations so that decisions made are for the benefit of the world, not just investors. The government and corporations both fail miserably without intervention and debate. It's not okay for the CMHC to be in secrecy, but it's also not right for Fannie Mae, either.
> for all we know, our housing crisis might still be ahead of us.
Australia isn't exactly America. In most ways we are much closer to Canada than the US.
For example, we have strong financial sector regulation, a public health care system etc etc.
In the telecommunications sector we have a powerful regulator (the ACCC) to enforce competition policy (usually against the old incumbent telco).
Another difference to the US is that the incumbent telco (Telstra) is legally obliged to give access other players access to its exchanges. That has enabled other players to do things Telstra said were impossible or uneconomic (for example, smaller players rolled out ADSL2 much quicker than Telstra said was possible using this access).
> That has enabled other players to do things Telstra said were impossible or uneconomic (for example, smaller players rolled out ADSL2 much quicker than Telstra said was possible using this access).
Not if those other players are rolling out ADSL2 on Telstra owned lines that have to be pre-configured by Telstra technicians, as I discovered when I attempted to order ADSL service from Adam in Adelaide. The Telstra technicians flat-out lied about their first no-show to my house, messed up the connection on their second visit, and only get things working on their third visit. And they billed Adam for each of those visits. Total turnaround time was almost three weeks.
Turnaround time for 18 Mbit cable from Optus in Melbourne? Two days. Those guys wanted my business and they hustled to get it.
And when I attempted to complain about Telstra's behaviour to the "powerful regulator" they threw it back at Adam since pedantically speaking they were my provider!
This kind of monopolistic arrogance explains why Australia's fixed line infrastructure is a joke. The best way to enforce competition is to create a completely level playing field for all competitors.
I've never understood why in many western industrialized countries telecommunications has not been regulated the same as sewage, roads, electricity, etc. It is a vital piece of infrastructure in the 21st century and it should be the responsibility of the government to manage such infrastructure.
we used to have that, and while the service of providing roads, electricity, or sewerage hasn't changed much in the last 100 years, telecommunications certainly has. while networks might lend themselves to natural monopolies, government sponsored telecommunications monopolies couldn't keep up with the pace of innovation these days and as a result consumers would be left paying high rates for antiquated service.
This is going to sound like trolling, but compared to the European mobile telecoms services, you in the US are paying high rates for an antiquated service (specifically, non-GSM use is still common, everyday data speeds are slower, dropouts are higher, call quality is lower).
Judicious government investment into telecoms infrastructure in certain European countries has led to fast, cheap and stable communications. Government investment doesn't always equate to bad; if it's bad it means that particular government body did a bad job in that particular case, that's all.
There has not been significant investment into mobile, there was regulation that forced carriers to cover even the areas that would otherwise prove unprofitable, if they wanted the frequencies that is.
And mobile network is also heavily dependant on landlines, which were built by government owned telcos.
I didn't know that. Thank you for clarifying - this project would be probably taking place in Finland?
However 20 years ago the ubiquity of state sponsored infrastructure is what enabled fast and competitive coverage of Europe with mobile telecommunications.
It's just an example of how what our US colleagues would call "socialsim" can provide better results than "free market".
There is a point I just realized. Whenever there is a state sponsored monopoly in Europe - it is forced to provide a service to all, even if it means loss in some cases. However whenever there is a state sponsored monopoly in US it just removes competition, while internally the organization still sticks to the "profit first" doctrine.
Can you provide some examples of these European state owned monopoly telecommunications companies or does government investment signify something else?
I'm not sure about European tel-cos, but i can tell you of a north American telco that is a virtual government monopoly (no other private company has comparable rates and service), Sasktel, they have an interesting history.
They were the first, or one of the first companies in north america to offer: Video-On-Demand, Fiber to the home, IPTV, HDTV over IPTV, HSPA, ADSL, etc.
This is while servicing a province with roughly half a million people and is larger than every American state minus Alaska and Texas. While at the same time serving hundreds of small communities with full speed access.
This is at the same time as offering plans and service that is much better than what you can get in the surrounding provinces that have cities that have more people than the whole province.
In some ways, privately owned companies that only have to compete with 2 or 3 other entities is far worse than a government monopoly.
Right now in Canada I am paying high rates for antiquated service. There is still long distance, I have to pay extra for voicemail + caller id, etc.
I agree that government sponsored monopolies probably could not keep up with the pace of innovation. However in industries where natural monopolies occur, I think they are the better solution then private enterprise.
In Canada, it used to be that receiving text messages was free. However, one of the three carriers decided to charge for incoming texts. Sure enough, in less than a year, the other two carriers followed and also charged for incoming texts. I have a strong feeling to say that sort of behavior would not occur if there was a government sponsored monopoly.
The obvious solution is better regulation, but I don't think anyone has found a solution to regulatory capture yet so I'm not banking on anything there.
There are many aspects which the government should regulate (common carrier status for internet, anyone?) but I think that in this aspect our biggest problem is that the barrier for entry in the Canadian market is too high, and so it's exceedingly difficult to disrupt.
Because there's such a lack of competition the big telcos get to basically collude with each other.
You're evidently too young to remember when AT&T had a government granted monopoly. Suffice it to say that it was not an era that was known for innovation and value.
I've never understood why in many western industrialized countries telecommunications has not been regulated the same as sewage, roads, electricity, etc
Because the technology required for telecommunications changes quicker than that required for sewage, roads, electricity etc.
Highly regulated markets are slower to react than less regulated markets, and government owned monopolies are usually the slowest of the lot.
In general the model that seems to have generated the best outcome for consumers is government-mandated competition. This takes many forms (eg, local-loop unbundling in the UK and Europe, partial forced access regulation in Australia), but enables companies to compete on services, innovation and price whilst keeping the government involved to enforce consumer interests.
The issue is precisely that regulators are in bed with monopolizers. More regulation will only strengthen their stranglehold on this market. The proper response in this scenario is complete deregulation, allowing international players to drive competition in the currently stagnant market.
I doubt anyone who has ever had to deal with one of the big 3 in Canada (Rogers, Telus, or Bell) would argue against this point. Canadians really need to push for an open system that allows foreign competition to enter the marketplace. Until we do, the status quo is simply going to continue to press the advantage they have at the expense of the Canadian consumers.
This is the one thing in my life where I can't vote with my wallet. I only really have three viable choices for wireless right now: Rogers, Bell, and Telus.
Have you tried one of the small guys struggling to compete against the big 3? Mobilicity, Wind or Public Mobile. I am with Mobilicity and pay $35 for unlimited everything (one of the amzing early plans they had.. you can still get he same for $40 or so) and that includes data, global text messaging and North American long distance.A couple of caveats are that plans are metro-area limited so if you go out of any of their zones (Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary...) you are roaming at about 25 cents per minute and if you need fast data forget it (highest I get is about 3Mbit/s). Some changes are coming though so all of us with the little carriers are kinda unsure what's going to happen - Mobilicity's CEO was just fired, CRTC declared that the small guys have to bid for the same LTE spectrum along with the big 3 (which is what the main Wind investor in the article above is complaining about).
I really wanted to go with Wind when they came out, but none of the new providers would let me use an iPhone on their system, which meant that they were instantly out of the running.
Sounds silly I know, but I want to keep using the phone I'm using.
I would propose opening up your wireless network, adding to the mesh, and creating more networks. Build out as much fiber and cable locally, close to home. Link up your community with like minded individuals seeking another choice for internet. With enough big community networks in place, there is no need to pay big phone/cable corporations.
The problem is so many of those inclined to oppose the government-protected big 3 cartel are also the same sort who think the solution to every problem is a government monopoly. Any push for change would not move to a more open system, but would at most replace it with a Crown Corporation.
I have cell service with Bell Aliant (eastern Canada) and my data is horrible!
My phone a Samsung Galaxy SII on Bell's HSPA+ network which from what I understand can be anywhere from 21Mbps to 42Mbps but my phone is only capable of a max of 21Mbps. I don't expect to get 21Mbps or even 15Mbps but most days it's 0.3 or 1Mbps maybe 5Mbps to 9Mbps on a good day. Outright lies or incompetence or both to say such a thing and not have anywhere near what they promise.
Bell's excuse is the network is busy with other users but I test it at all hours of the day and each day and weekend but it's never consistent. They advertise "HSPA+ 21Mbps" but make excuse after excuse once you're a customer that you'll never ever see that.
I complained to the CRTC Donna Shewfelt Client Services wrote back to me gave me a case number 'CRTC Case ID: 548491' but then "The telecommunications industry has established an independent consumer agency, the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS)"
and
"Given the concerns you have raised, we believe this complaint is more properly within the scope of the CCTS and have forwarded your complaint to them."
That was September 22 of this year (2011) and not one reply since then from any of them.
new zealanders have a rough go with their telecommunications as well. I recall seeing the vodafone CEO on the news saying they made 3-4x as much profit in new zealand as anywhere else (per customer probably). The only competion was the ex-public telecom.
canadians don't have it quite so bad as the new zealanders, but they get a worse deal than the americans for sure.
Hah. For the exact same price, Vodafone NZ provides the same 200mn and half the data[0]. 2500 texts though, I don't know what you get on the plan you quoted.
Although technically, to qualify for any phone rebate you need 24 months, which includes a rebate on the plan as well, so you would take the $85 plan for 24 months ($400 off of the phone and $15 off of the plan), yielding a $60 plan (same as the $65 one previously quoted but 300mn voice) and a free iPhone 4 (a 16GB 4S would be $150).
Belgium has cheaper prices (e.g. 40€ prepaid with 285mn, 2000 SMS and 2GB data[1]) but absolutely no phone subsidies (they're pretty much illegal) so an iPhone costs you the full price, 529€[2] (~730 CAD)
> 2500 texts though, I don't know what you get on the plan you quoted.
You get zero texts in the plan he quoted. A texting add-on is a minimum of $5 for... wait for it... 125 texts. Oh, and unsolicited/solicited incoming texts are subtracted from that total, if you don't have a texting plan you pay for them at a rate of 15c each.
No, I'm not kidding.
> Belgium has cheaper prices (e.g. 40€ prepaid with 285mn, 2000 SMS and 2GB data[1]) but absolutely no phone subsidies (they're pretty much illegal) so an iPhone costs you the full price, 529€[2] (~730 CAD)
I'm only a year and a half into my 3G contract, which is three years long and provides no early upgrade. I had to pay $750CDN for my iPhone 4 anyways. Upgrading in Canada is a joke.
Everyone wonders why Canada was one of the first countries to get officially unlocked iPhone 4s without a law in place requiring it. It's no big mystery, Apple saw the situation and realized that without the unlocked option on the table, many people would simply refuse to upgrade because their carrier wouldn't let them for another couple years.
I'm sure someone else already covered the fact that mobile long distance is a concept exclusive to Canada and still exists in the year 2011.
Honestly, besides some token niceties (the 6GB/$30 plan, free tethering, and one of the lowest subsidized prices for the iPhone in the world, $159) we are completely screwed. It's genuinely sad.
However, on the flip side, I have little sympathy for the guy who also owns and operates the North Korean cell network for the political and business elites in that country. WIND is not exactly the moral choice in my eyes IMO.
That graph doesn't even give justice to the true cost. Canada plans are almost always regional, so to call another city, even one nearby is a long distance call. VOIP phones are also rare because numbers are restricted, Skype and Google Phone do not exist here.
Canada's telecom industry can accurately be described as a mafia-style public cartel.
> Canada has BY FAR the most expensive cell phone rates in the world. New Zealand is 19th according to this list.
Technically, the graph is not about rates though, it's about average bill. So countries with higher prices who don't use cells much (on population averages) would have a "better" ranking than countries with lower prices where cell phone use is ubiquitous and permanent.
> Canada plans are almost always regional, so to call another city, even one nearby is a long distance call.
The fuck? The concept of "long-distance" call still exists in canada? I'm shocked.
From the bell website: "Additional local minutes and Canadian long distance minutes are $0.45/minute"
And yeah I'm paying that for any call made to outside the current city in which I am located. Cell to cell its both ways (so I'm told), and the fact that I have a number from a different city means OH WAIT -- Everything is long distance.
I don't change my number because I'm a student and to change my number is $20 at the store + $35 on my bill, twice a year since I go home for the summers. Which basically means I make very few phone calls outside of my unlimited nationwide. Yeah I'm paying out the a to have a plan with unlimited text and nation wide fab 5.
Something else cute -- its $12 to add voicemail and caller id to that $50 package. Is this the same in NZ or do packages come with this sort of thing?
> From the bell website: "Additional local minutes and Canadian long distance minutes are $0.45/minute"
Heh. That's close to what I pay to call other EU countries (exact rate is 0.50€/mn, or 0.69CAD) (not that the rates are entirely sane, I pay less to call from an other EU country to an other EU country than from my "home" country to an other EU country: falls to 0.42/mn — 0.58 CAD)
> I don't change my number because I'm a student and to change my number is $20 at the store + $35 on my bill, twice a year since I go home for the summers.
I guess you can't get a prepaid SIM for when you're home or something? (that's what I do, although I change country so it makes sense that I have to, especially if I want to keep a data connection as roaming data is NOPENOPENOPENOPE)
That's what I'm saying, its worse than those numbers make it look. Canada has the highest average cost, and because a Canadian regional plan is more expensive than a nation-wide long distance plan in the US it is masking the true cost. Canadians can't afford to use their phones, so they typically don't make anything but quick calls or text messaging.
Thank the CRTC for that, there's a lot of complicated regulations regarding the telecom industry and the requirement for Canadian ownership. Which is ironic because we welcome foreign entities to setup and drill our oil but opening up the telecom industry to foreigners is a big no-no.
Well, how do you get access to the canadian POTS ? You'll need to inter-connect with the telephone network , and likely they won't let skype do that easily.
skype or other voip technologies is an option, but they're often much more incovenient. And I would be surprised if the teloc operators do deep packet inspection to block skype on their network.
> Data costs in canada are even higher than voice costs!
Most carriers have introduced a data-only plan, technically specifically to make iPad 3Gs work, that isn't nearly as gouging as the data plans for phones. You can get it set up for an arbitrary SIM card, then put that card into a phone: http://www.wifitalk.ca/iphone/ipad-3g-sim-gives-iphone-data-...
I had a t-mobile blackberry flip phone in the USA that could make calls over wifi. when it was connected to an access point I could turn off the carrier connection and just use the wifi, but it did still use my minutes and the quality was not good.
Does anyone know if a SIP soft phone app like X-lite and a smartphone that can use a wifi connection to so that at least outgoing calls could be made over data without long distance charges or ridiculous data rates?
I'm not sure if this is what you're asking about, but the Nokia business-oreinted phones E-series come with SIP capabilites natively (or one can use a third party client). I've used it on my E73.
FWIW, I pay $90 all in for unlimited North American Long Distance, 6GB of Data, Unlimited calling anytime, and all the "other" features. Basically an unlimited plan (iPhone 4S w/ Fido) - Good plans ARE available, you just have to work to get them.
Seriously? I have yet to meet a single person who has gone over 6GB on a mobile plan (even with tethering). In fact Rogers put out a statistic that something like only 3 people went over 6GB in the first month they offerred it.
As I said, I literally have streamed entire leafs (NHL) games and had plenty of space left to do normal things. If I'm not mistaken, Youtube data rate is 300kbps, which is 132 MB/hour. So 6GB would give you theoretically 46.5 hours of youtube videos. You're trying to tell me that that isn't "basically unlimited"? Seriously?
Hell, basic wired internet in Canada starts with a 25GB cap. 6GB is more then 99% of people need for mobile.
I don't doubt that Rogers embellishes things like that. I'm still happy with $30 for 6GB.
I'm equal to any "power" user, I work on the road and tether daily while using the iPhone for basically everything. I'm still not getting anywhere near 6GB. You'd literally have to use the iPhone connection as your main internet source to get above 6GB. I'm not torrenting or streaming a TON while on my phone, but I watch mobile streamed hockey (they are at 400 kbps) fairly often.
HD video is indeed more then 300kbs - but are my Youtube videos on the iPhone 1080p? Hell no. Even netflix for mobile is severely compressed and still looks OK.
You may use more then 6GB of mobile data a month, but as I said before, I'm willing to bet you're in an extremely small percentage there.
I'm on Fido with the 6GB plan. I've never gone above before, but might this month; on the 7th of November I received a notice saying I had used 75% of my data for the month.
My circumstances are pretty odd, though. I'm moving and sold my previous home at the end of October and don't get possession of the next till early December, and the space I'm in in the meantime has no internet, so all my internet usage is through my tethered iPhone. So it's possible; just really really hard.
It's a secondary internet connection. I just don't watch that many youtube videos during my morning coffeeshop rounds; I've yet to go past 4gb, and I stream an hour or two of video off the cbc website during the election.
This definitely sucks for Canada. The Telco's and the antiquated regulation that protects them are big gatekeepers to progress and innovation. How do we break out of this deadlock?
One has to fix the prime example of regulatory capture that is the CRTC. This can be achieved by either changing the current management or drafting more legislation.
IIRC, there are only a few commissioners who don't come from Canada's media/telco industries. i.e. the commission is mostly populated by insiders from the industries that the CRTC purports to oversee and regulate. Fox, henhouse, etc.
The question that I always have is, how can we find people who have the knowledge to regulate the telco industry but who have not worked in the telco industry in a large capacity before?
Research in Motion employees, other electronics companies. How about just business people? People who've worked for foreign cell/telecom companies who want to move back to Canada. IT experts who've worked with the infrastructure. Lawyers in the industry who work for private law firms (biased, but less so probably).
There are plenty of people who would be a better choice than someone who's worked for an incumbent player.
BC only has one car insurance provider so they're free to set the prices as they see fit. They even try and pretend that they're doing it to help keep prices low as competition would only raise the prices for everyone (yes, they really said this).
It's fascinating that ICBC is so bad. In Saskatchewan, we've got SGI (another government car insurance monopoly), but their prices are quite good, and they run it such that they don't really make a profit (if there's a surplus, they write cheques back to people).
From what I can tell from other peoples' comments throughout this thread, SaskTel seems to be in a similar boat. The population and economy of Sask. doesn't really support, imho, a business case for the level of service SaskTel provides, but the government provides it anyway. I've been extremely happy with my SaskTel service for years, and now that they've moved to GSM, things just keep getting better.
They did it because they made motor insurance mandatory and it would be unfair to force someone to have something that the market didn't have to provide.
In europe it's essentially impossible for anyone under 21 to get insurance ( without tricks like being listed on parent's cover ) even though the law says you can drive at 17. Typical rates for liability-only on a 17 year old are $10K/year
Imagine living in a rural part of BC where work and shopping is 20 miles away and the insurance companies all charge $10K for drivers under 21.
Yes it's unfair that as a middle age driver I pay 2-3x as much as I would in europe in order to cover a west vancouver millionaire's kid in a ferrari. But it's also unfair that I'm paying for elementary schools for someone else's kid or subsidizing somebody else's cancer treatment.
The difference in car insurance from vancouver to victoria is 50%. People drive more expensive cars in vancouver and apparently are more likely to have accidents.
For the most part, maybe. Tell that to the Bell customers who deal with Indian call centres when they need tech support. I know I did, years back (haven't dealt with Bell in a while).
This is meant to be a legitimate question, not sarcasm: Are there any countries where telecom is not "rigged"? That is, places where an entrepreneur could enter the market and the incumbents by and large would play "fair"?
Can you give me some concrete examples of this? I have a lecturer at university who constantly harps on about "canada doing it right" with broadband access and I've always had the feeling that he has no idea what he's talking about. I'd love to go head-to-head with him next year over the topic.
Even worse in canada - all incoming firms have to be Canadian owned and financed. Try raising the money for a nation wide set of phone masts if you aren't allowed overseas investors
The Australian mobile phone market is very competitive, and it has a number of foreign players (e.g., Optus, Vodafone, Virgin). Australian fixed-line telecommunications are much less competitive due to the legacy stranglehold of the former government monopoly, Telstra.
IMO Canadians are far too complacent about government sanctioned monopolies or oligopolies (e.g., car insurance in BC, alcohol sales are provincial government monopolies, dairy product quotas, wheat board monopoly) that means they pay more for less choice, supposedly for their own good, when in reality it just enriches an old-boys network of politically well-connected players and condemns the protected industries to being being unable to compete internationally.
FWIW I'm Canadian.