171–180 of 200 posts
Canadians don't realize how high their telco bills are because that's their reality they don't know prices elsewhere and the closest neighbour have also high prices
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> Just goes to show that Canadian telecom policy is controlled by telecoms, not by the government. It's very cozy and regularly functions to discourage competition. It's easy to say that, but Canada has a smaller population than California, but spread over the surface area larger than that of the United States. How many carriers, and how much competition, can you possibly expect in that environment? Especially in an…
> It's easy to say that, but Canada has a smaller population than California, but spread over the surface area larger than that of the United States. That is an extremely misleading statement. Approximately 75% of Canada's population lives within 150km of the US border, and even that is not a uniform distribution , there are dense urban population clusters.
Around 30% of the total Canadian population is in the Greater Toronto Area, and if you toss in the most populous Quebecois (Montreal-Trois-Rivieres-Quebec) cities that number is around 50%.[1]
You see the same thing in the US and Australia as well -- the Eastern coasts were settled first, and that's where the population is to this day.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada_by_provin... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_megalopolis
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Just goes to show that Canadian telecom policy is controlled by telecoms, not by the government. It's very cozy and regularly functions to discourage competition. Canadian telecom policy still revolves around "facilities-based competition", where it's believed that new entrants should build out a new network. It's designed to fail. Even the incumbents, Bell and Telus, share a 3G/4G mobile network to avoid redundant i…
People complain about the lack of cell phone providers here in the US, but damn! Canada is way worse. The cost of phone plans is outrageous and the major telecoms do everything in their power to stop new entrants from messing up their gravy train.
In the US* the connections aren't great, either. Not as bad as Germany, but in general I got slower practical speeds almost all over the country (and the big cities like NYC were terrible).
In Canada I got excellent 4G performance when driving the whole way between Saskatoon and Calgary as well as any time I take the train between Toronto and Montreal.
* I've been told Verizon is the best quality network in the States, but I have only been able to get prepaid plans from AT&T and T-Mobile.
Can somebody articulate why using huawei a bad idea beside it’s a Chinese company and using those equipments gives China backdoor access into critical systems and everything it connects to. Or is that basically it? I am trying to understand this objectively as if sitting on mars why this is a good or bad idea.
I am sure if Canadians can develop their own smartphones, space mission components (Canada arm) and airplanes, they can develop 5G network equipment.
Can somebody articulate why using huawei a bad idea beside it’s a Chinese company and using those equipments gives China backdoor access into critical systems and everything it connects to. Or is that basically it? I am trying to understand this objectively as if sitting on mars why this is a good or bad idea.
has anyone had to hear their crazy relatives go on about the dangers of 5G? Is there some penultimate youtube video or resource to point people to to assuage their fears?
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Does ARM count as an alternative? I guess not since it's still mostly American companies actually producing products with the designs.
ARM was entirely bought by Japans Softbank during the currency slump that followed the brexit referendum result[0], since then softbank has sold majority shares to Chinese companies[1][2]. ARM Holdings is predominantly Chinese now. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/5/12798302/softbank-arm-acqu... [1]: https://www.theregister.com/2018/06/06/softbank_offloads_51_... [2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-39204744
But I didn't realise Softbank had sold on their $31bn stake. The BBC article states a $8bn chunk went to a Saudi-backed investment group, and the other sale was the majority stake of only ARM's Chinese subsidiary (worth $775.2m). From that it doesn't seem accurate to say ARM is now predominantly Chinese but maybe there are some other deals I also missed. To be honest, I lost interest once they sold to Softbank - 'in the country's interests' ha!
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I have 4 lines with TMobile and pay $140 a month. https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/magenta Unlimited everything... Even 5 gig of data when in Canada. I don't think Rogers, Telus or Bell have anything close to that.
I was running the numbers based on a single line. Didn't bother doing the family plan options, but I do know the big3 in Canada have family plan options too. TMo is even in the US as huge outlier. I too enjoy a $40/mth unlimited plan with 5 of my favorite loose affiliates.
Or at least that's what the rogers rep told me.
However, with the extradition situation with Meng and the threats from the CCP, it is clear that it isn't possible to do business with the company. The risk of a future need to tear out and replace Huawei product due to geo-political/ cyber-warfare in the future outweighs the savings from dealing with Ericsson or Nokia.