Bell Canada and Telus to Work Together

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://en.mobileincanada.com/index.php?id=549' target='_blank'>http://en.mobileincanada.com/index.php?id=549</a><br /><br /></div><i>"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."</i><br /><br />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.

[Mike Temporale]

:( Not good for Canadians, thats for sure.

To make this even more confusing, Telus and Bell are already working together. They have agreements to share network towers and hardware at opposite ends of the country. So this is just taking it a step further. :?

[pgrunau]

We definitely need more competition in Canada. Here's an article that covers the recent Canadian Telecom Summit, and points to the government's next spectrum allocation auction next year. http://www.thestar.com/article/226423. It discusses the possibility of the auction being "set-aside" for new providers that want to enter the market and build out new wireless capability, as opposed to allowing the incumbents to outbid everyone.

Of course, Telus/Bell and Rogers don't want this, even though both Telus and Rogers entered the market with "set-aside" spectrum allocations. "These groups argue that the Canadian wireless market is already competitive and the government should avoid setting aside spectrum for new providers."

Perhaps a petition to Industry Minister Maxime Bernier is in order?

[peterg]

Yes, we need more competition. Specifically we need more competition in the GSM space. I am not so interested in Bell or Telus's offereings. We also have Amp'd who piggyback on Telus and Virgin Mobile who piggyback on Bell.

Where is the competition in GSM? We use to have Fido until Rogers bought them.

[Jason Dunn]

Perhaps a petition to Industry Minister Maxime Bernier is in order?

I did a bit of research when I wanted to file a complaint and the CRTC doesn't handle anything to do with wireless issues - and in fact, there's no government agency that does for wireless what the CRTC does for other telecommunications. So would Maxime Bernier be the right person to contact?

[pgrunau]

Yes, I believe Maxime Bernier is the one to contact regarding the upcoming wireless spectrum auction. Apparently, they have been trying to solicit opinions from the public since February, but only 4 individuals responded! Of course they got lots of input from the telcom companies. It seems to me that if the bidding process was limited to new entrants, then perhaps someone like Shaw or MTS would jump in and we'd have hope of a new (GSM?) wireless provider!

Here's the contact info regarding the spectrum issue from the Government of Canada web site, if anyone is interested:

Isabelle Fontaine
Office of the Honourable Maxime Bernier
Minister of Industry
613-995-9001

[Jason Dunn]

Yes, I believe Maxime Bernier is the one to contact regarding the upcoming wireless spectrum auction.

Ok then. I've sent an email. :-)

[JeanPhilippeVallee]

It's normal, just 4 person have answer to this question, i live in Canada and i publish MobileInCanada.com (http://www.MobileInCanada.com) and i have never ear anything on gouvernement ask to the population. Videotron want a news spectrum for 4G service but Videotron is not a good compagnie for thaht because Videotron is veru similar to Rogers and kill all competition. MTS or Shaw or in Radio-Actif deployed WiMax-WiFi (http://www.mobileincanada.com/news-First-wireless-network-WiMAX-Wi-Fi-deployed-in-Montreal.html), is a good thing for Canada. In USA many provider with very agressive atitude but here we pay 0.03$ for 1k of mobile transfert at any compagnies, Telus, Bell or Rogers.

Fido in the past are very agressive and want drop price of mobile data, Rogers see that and buy Fido. CRCT say "all is ok, no probleme, Canada have enought provider."

If Gouvernement want REALY make competition in mobile service, they change the law and make USA provider go to Canada.

Conclusion, YES, Canada need realy competition in Telecom service, not just mobile sector.