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Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

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Re: Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

#81

Post by snowwindwaves »

throwaway64 wrote: post #69
snowwindwaves wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasktel 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…

what has made the difference there then? good management? down to earth hard working employees? reasonable cost of living?

Re: Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

#82

Post by jbarham »

nl wrote: post #78
gyardley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 comp…

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 giv…

> 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.

Re: Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

#83

Post by earlyresort »

tomlin wrote: post #75
gyardley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 comp…

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 th…

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.

But hey, at least it's not America!

Re: Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

#84

Post by gyardley »

nerfhammer wrote: post #72
gyardley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 comp…

You think American markets aren't oligopolistic, especially telecom?

Of course they are, in absolute terms.

That said, I was making a relative comparison to Canada.

Re: Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

#85

Post by nolanw »

gyardley wrote: post #60
jbarham wrote: post #50

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…

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 comp…

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.

Re: Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

#86

Post by lucisferre »

gyardley wrote: post #60
jbarham wrote: post #50

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…

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 comp…

As a Canadian I can honestly say I have no idea what you are talking about.

Re: Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

#87

Post by DuncanIdaho »

nl wrote: post #80
teamonkey wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Go…

I don't think there has been significant government investment in mobile telecoms in Europe (citation requested if I'm wrong). There is much higher levels of competition, enforced by government regulation though.

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.

Re: Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

#88

Post by jackvalentine »

napierzaza wrote: post #56

That is indeed Canada. Try and get DSL or cable internet here too. It's terrible. Bad service, bad price.

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.

This guy: http://www.politicalscience.com.au/ http://www.politicalscience.com.au/p/my-media.html

Re: Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

#89

Post by com »

DuncanIdaho wrote: post #87
nl wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there has been significant government investment in mobile telecoms in Europe (citation requested if I'm wrong). There is much higher levels of competition, enforced by government regulation though.

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.

Just to add nuance: mobile was heavily dependant on landlines. In my experience, not any more.

Recently began (2009) a national gigabit to the mast rollout project in a medium-sized European country which is almost complete now.

This didn't use a legacy copper investment (or even legacy fiber, not that there was a lot of that).

Re: Canada's Telecom Market is Rigged, says Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris

#90

Post by DuncanIdaho »

com wrote: post #89
DuncanIdaho wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just to add nuance: mobile was heavily dependant on landlines. In my experience, not any more. Recently began (2009) a national gigabit to the mast rollout project in a medium-sized European country which is almost complete now. This didn't use a legacy copper investment (or even legacy fiber, not that there was a lot of that).

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.

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