O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Broadband > Do Bell and Rogers have too much control on Canada?

reply to Cloneman

Re: Do Bell and Rogers have too much control on Canada?

Not really, they are not hypocrites. Hypocrite is a smoker who advocates against smoking, priest who has a mistress. I am not a hypocrite when I'm complaining about air quality (and still breathe it), or do not like my transit system (with my budget I have to use it), same as TS we do not have a choice

reply to dissapbell

disappbell, over the years, murderers have used legal means legally to escape penalty. Fraud artists have used legal means legally to avoid taxes, and penalties. Just because laws can be used to achieve a goal doesn't mean the act is not morally wrong.

This is what it feels like when dealing with big corporations.

For example, if I take on XYZ Corp because they've overcharged me for some service, I can take them to court. Sure they're in the wrong, but by tying up the legal system, they can end up costing me far more in legal costs than the overcharge. What they're doing is using legal means to do something legal and in this case, to cover a wrong.

We have many consumer protection laws that were implemented by various governments over the years to protect consumers from abuse. BUT the people that implemented them are long since gone and often the laws are vaguely enough written that a lawyer can avoid implementation.

Take the competition acts ... amongst other things, they are there to allow regulation of companies that can weild their control over the marketplace. The courts in the US and Europe have done this with Microsoft several times. Right now we're in a position where the regulatory authority and the government department in charge of that authority say "Oh, there's enough competition in the telecomms industry that the market can look after itself without regulation" even though we all know that there is negligible direct competition.

You keep saying that 3rd party ISPs like TSI should build their own network and not rely on Bell. If they were to do that, no-one could afford their service. Remember that Bell is able to leverage expansion on the revenue and cash flows of other business.

Rogers, after taking on the @home ISP business themselves in their service area had their credit rating lowered to JUNK. Why? Because the numbers didn't add up. The margins were too small on their revenue stream to afford upgrades. They needed increased penetration. They needed to show the banks that they could make money and have done so.

The CRTC and DoI recognized that small businesses like TSI do not have that kind of leverage. Remember that Bell have been in the 3rd party wholesale business of providing voice and data over their networks for years and years (ever order a data line from CNCP? Guess whose line it was? Bell) The provision of GAS and HSA is only the next logical extension of those services.

The rules for GAS and HSA were set by Bell and the CRTC and now in the face of growing competition, Bell wants to have it deregulated so they can essentially eliminate GAS and HSA to eliminate the competition.