Sign in / up

back to article Telcos in Canada: Ethics, monopolies and regulation

Telecommunications Politics in Canada is pretty standard. There are people worried that our regulator – the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) – has succumbed to regulatory capture. There is the common burden of institutional inertia and there are the usual sorts of shenanigans involving various …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CCTS win

    We have about an acre of tropical paradise that was fully funded by the outcome of the CCTS process. The complaint was related to false advertising, etc. After some back and forth, a satisfactory settlement was offered by the lying, cheating wireless telco.

    0 0
  2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    It's great here - eh

    In return for both of the TV/phone/cell companies promising to listen to a toothless government regulator the government guarantees that there is no competition to the two TV/Phone/Cell companies you get to choose between.

    They are currently trying to ban an upstart cheap cell phone carrier (windmobile) on the basis that is partly Chinese funded!

    1 0
    1. Rippy
      Reply Icon

      Re: It's great here - eh

      I knew about the Egyptian connection, but Chinese?

      0 0
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    OFCOM

    Are you reading / listening?

    0 0
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: OFCOM

    That's in theory anyway. The real truth of it the duopoly is extremly hard to chalenge. The CRTC as also failed miserably at preventing what now ammounts to illegal consolidation of media. (Videotron and it's parent compagny owns almost all the cable distribution/TV stations/radio stations/newspapers in the province of Quebec, via a serie of subsidiaries) and even after everyone came to realize what happened, they are now completely powerless to fix it.

    And let's not get started on how well the CRTC as done on the connectivity front. After all, Canada is only one of the most expencive places in the world to buy high speed internet, that is, if you can get it. In some cases, it would actually be cheaper to use TRUCKS to carry the data ...

    0 0
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    On the bright side...

    We should have affordable fiber (fiber optic, 100+ Mbps, phone, TV) to the home within the next year or so. I could put up with that, eh?

    0 0
    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: On the bright side...

      Out east, it is already installed. I have clients in NB with FTTH deployments. Greenfield deployments are active in ON and QC already, with actual investments in brownfield by major carriers (and some indies!)

      The west is another story. FTTH exists in many greefield deployments here, but the majors have little reason to light them. In some rare cases, indies have lit up towers in V-town and Cow-town. Shaw claims that any day now they will do the same.

      Those of us in brownfield neighbourhoods are boned; Shaw shuffles their feet around awkwardly and stares at the wall whilst Telus just starts laughing in an uncomfortable fashion.

      On the other hand, we don’t have the ridiculous uber-UBB out west that seems to be the norm out east. So…the choices seem to be “slow, but you are allowed to actually use it” or “really, really fast, but pointless because the caps are low enough to hit them with a work-from-home RDP session.”

      Charming.

      0 0
This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like