Damn the Man
The CRTC really needs to start opening up the market for cellular communications a little bit more. Why? Because simple economics and this example show that increased competition in this realm can only help the consumer.
For some reason the Rogers-Fido acquisition was approved at a time when Fido was aggressively cutting prices to gain market share. Wikipedia excerpt:
As an example, Fido canceled their flat rate data plan shortly after the acquisition, and with the Rogers/Fido GSM monopoly, wireless data access is very expensive in Canada ($100 / 200 MB at the “best” rate).
This left the Canadian market with only 3 major players—a similar thing happened with Clearnet back in the day. I’ve also heard down the grapevine that Rogers has an exclusive contract that locks down GSM until 2012. Way to screw the consumer.
You should read the competition bureau report on that merger. They decided that Fido wasn’t a mover and shaker in the cellular market, and that there’d be effectively no competitive difference between 3 and 4 carriers. Total bullshit.
[...] My Rogers bill was $103 this month before adding on things like long-distance charges and trust me, I don’t get unlimited anything. How much longer must consumers bare this type treatment? We aren’t stupid, we know we’re getting screwed and none of the “powers that be” seem to want to take action to change it. In fact, the generally seem to want to continue to see consumers get screwed. [...]