06-22-2007, 01:30 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Bell Canada and Telus to Work Together
"Bell Canada (BCE) has just published one to communicate of press which announces that Telus Corporation began from the discussions to discuss a future fusion the 2 giant�s telecommunications in Canada. ECBS and Telus signed a mutual agreement of not-disclosure of the offers suggested. A fusion of the 2 groups would be nevertheless surprising since Telus had already announced that a fusion would be not very probable since Telus should probably demolish its cellular division, which was not possible a few months ago. It should however be said that a fusion would be also possible since Bell cannot pass to more than 50% in the hands of a foreign company and Telus was founded in Quebec."
Parsing through the broken English above, it seems that Canada's two biggest CDMA carriers (Bell and Telus) are going to work together...somehow. No real specifics are given, but I can't help but think this is nothing but bad news for Canadians. Why? Because when companies cozy up to each other there tends to be more cooperation and less competition, and Canada's wireless market is in dire need of competition. When the two big GSM providers in Western Canada (Fido and Rogers) merged, it was nothing but ugly for customers: Fido stopped offering the flat-rate GPRS plan, and prices went up until both companies were essentially offering the same plans. I heard it said that Rogers bought Fido because it was cheaper to buy them than to compete with them. That disgusts me. We're held hostage by a lack of competition in the wireless industry in Canada, and things look to be getting worse.
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06-22-2007, 03:23 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 41
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Jason,
These might be a little easier to read:
Telus press release and a story on the CBC web site.
I agree that this does not bode well for Canada. We'll just continue to watch the rest of the world roll out cool new stuff...
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06-22-2007, 07:21 AM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 1,043
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Soon it'll all be just one big Phone Company... and then the words of Lily Tomlin will ring more painfully true for Canadians than ever before:
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We're the phone company. We don't care. We don't have to.
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I've had little besides terrible service from Telus for my landline, and finally tossed that last month after 17 years as my number at last became 'portable.' I took it to my Rogers cellphone... oooh, nice, now I get static and cut-outs, pay more than ever for local service, and have to be careful not to go over my 500 daytime minutes. Choice would be nice. Too bad we don't really get one. So far, Rogers has at least not been overtly evil towards me. I'll not be surprised when the day comes though.
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06-22-2007, 03:43 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 200
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I couldn't believe that a Telus VP was on CTV National News last night, telling people with a straight face how the merger would be great for consumers.
The government needs to drop the foreign ownership stuff on mobile phones and allow a foreign company (T-Mobile? Vodafone? O2?) start up a network and provide more competition. I'd prefer to see a non-US mobile phone company enter the space (because of issues with cross-border roaming - they could dominate the roaming space and put the others out of the running for those who do cross-border business), but I'd take any company wanting to set up shop.
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06-22-2007, 07:01 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 2
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East and West a little confused
TELUS was not "born" in the East. TELUS was originally the privatization of AGT (Alberta Government Telephone). Then they bought BC Tel. They bought ClearNet in 1999 which became TELUS Mobility and they bought Quebec Tel in the East sometimes around 2001.
Rogers and Fido are not from the West. Both were predominant players in the East, especially Fido which got founded in Montreal.
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06-22-2007, 07:50 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 1,466
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Re: East and West a little confused
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Originally Posted by maximegousse
TELUS was not "born" in the East. TELUS was originally the privatization of AGT (Alberta Government Telephone). Then they bought BC Tel. They bought ClearNet in 1999 which became TELUS Mobility and they bought Quebec Tel in the East sometimes around 2001.
Rogers and Fido are not from the West. Both were predominant players in the East, especially Fido which got founded in Montreal.
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You forgot the part where VZW is the largest shareholder of Telus. 
In relation to the article: I fail to see how this qualifies as "All Canadian"
Edited: for clarity.
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