391–400 of 403 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What actionable steps can Canadians take?
Well, elect politicians who encourage free markets, and have the least govt in our personal life as much as possible. Easier said than done. Canadians (like most other people) are too stupid to gauge what policies/politicians are good for them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not about vancouver. Everyone who wants to live in vancouver knows what they're getting into. It's the fact that at the current rate of immigration they're adding a small city worth of people every single year into the middle of a healthcare service crisis, a housing crisis, an infrastructure and services crisis, etc, and there are no plans to deal with any of those issues. Of course there's a brain drain going…
that's an awful long winded way say you blame immigrants for problems that have long existed before their arrival
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And airlines. Rather, Airline. I would dispute this one, only because in addition to Air Canada (fleet size 312), Westjet does exist (fleet size 162). And the other regional airlines offer (-ed, prepandemic) some price/service competition. Comparisons to the US aren't as useful with airlines as with some other industries due to population differences.
Yeah, I thought about Westjet and decided that I wouldn’t quite call them a national competitor. I hope they continue to grow, both because I like Westjet and competition helps everyone. There’s a reason Air Canada’s unofficial slogan “we’re not happy until you’re not happy” is widely known.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can, but profitability is limited. You can have 5/6 maybe max in a dense country. With 4 in France, they each slowly fibered the whole country reaching an approximate 25% coverage each and compete in wave: one day they are at 20MBps and suddenly one explodes at 100 and the rest run after to restabilize market share. If they dont they all get fined by the regulator looking at european average speeds.
Yes and: Profitability is predetermined. Converting public goods and services into securities. Ideally. So a public utility issues bonds, instead of stocks.
A security-emitting entity doesnt need to pay back the debt too much (it should but doesnt have to, via dividend) and therefore can afford to try things to raise returns for both shareholders and management and absorb failure.
The worst situation is when a state utility tries to innovate and fails: this leads to privatization which actually transforms it in a public companies (the words are weird: state companies are not directly publicly owned by the citizens, private companies on the public market can be). If a public market private company fails to innovate and just produces riskless cashflow forever, it becomes a good candidate for state private ownership.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely not comparable. Openreach has significant marketshare but is also extremely tightly regulated. It has to allow other providers access to basically every element of its offering, now including its physical ducts and poles. Hence you have a very competitive market landscape in the UK. There are at least 5 major national retail players using various wholesale products (BT, VM, TalkTalk, Sky, Vodafone), plus d…
>> London Yip, things in London are quite different than the rest of the UK. While Openreach has to allow access to other providers to its infrastructure, most infrastructure is owned and controlled by BT. If you want FTTP, the underlying service is still BT Openreach. Openreach is very profitable. At my previous employer it cost us £30K to have BT put in 3000m of fibre that took them 1 afternoon, then it cost £1K a…
If you have a new-build flat in a major UK city you probably have a similar decent choice but the rest of the housing stock (the majority by far) is stuck with BT/Virgin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the smaller providers have either been acquired (e.g. Public Mobile) or downright always been run by the larger telcos (e.g. Virgin Mobile). For both mobile and ISPs, very few companies actually own the infrastructure, most are just leasing bandwidth.
And since you can't count on them to stick around, it's not worth it for many of us to go through the hassle of switching only to have to switch again a year or three later when the company goes under. Plus the risk of poor service compared to the known mediocre service you get from the major telcos.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> London Yip, things in London are quite different than the rest of the UK. While Openreach has to allow access to other providers to its infrastructure, most infrastructure is owned and controlled by BT. If you want FTTP, the underlying service is still BT Openreach. Openreach is very profitable. At my previous employer it cost us £30K to have BT put in 3000m of fibre that took them 1 afternoon, then it cost £1K a…
You don't even have to leave London to see a night and day difference. I currently live in a new-build flat and have multiple choices for fibre (Hyperoptic are great). I am hopefully soon to be moving less than a mile down the road into a house where my choice is either an offensively slow BT-backed service or an offensively unreliable (so I have heard) Virgin Media service. If you have a new-build flat in a major UK…
VM can be ok or can be congested depending on the area. BT FTTH doesn't suffer from congestion issues (nor does the FTTC).
Check https://bidb.uk/ for more information. It collates all the altnets and planned roadworks into one dashboard.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely not comparable. Openreach has significant marketshare but is also extremely tightly regulated. It has to allow other providers access to basically every element of its offering, now including its physical ducts and poles. Hence you have a very competitive market landscape in the UK. There are at least 5 major national retail players using various wholesale products (BT, VM, TalkTalk, Sky, Vodafone), plus d…
>> London Yip, things in London are quite different than the rest of the UK. While Openreach has to allow access to other providers to its infrastructure, most infrastructure is owned and controlled by BT. If you want FTTP, the underlying service is still BT Openreach. Openreach is very profitable. At my previous employer it cost us £30K to have BT put in 3000m of fibre that took them 1 afternoon, then it cost £1K a…
Not always. There are many altnets now (cityfibre etc).
> TT and Sky use BT OR infra, and EE, Plusnet, and BT Retail are all owned by the BT Group.
TalkTalk also use cityfibre.
> The telecom market in the UK is very consolidated and controlled by BT.
If you mean physical infrastrure, yes it is (though changing rapidly). Consumer level pricing is competitive though and the services are reliable in the large. It is a different planet compared to the US and especially Canada.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must know that it'd run on Rogers infrastructure though.
Not those kind, I'm wondering if any city has considered making their own infrastructure. The Ebox and Teksavvy are great, but like you say it's hard to survive on other people's infra, that's why big cities need to make their own.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, elect politicians who encourage free markets, and have the least govt in our personal life as much as possible. Easier said than done. Canadians (like most other people) are too stupid to gauge what policies/politicians are good for them.
Good intention. How do you keep markets free?
Yes, I'm being pessimistic, but it's the way things are.