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Why can't the CTRC just mandate that the subsity and the plan are kept separate... For example I want a 700 dollar phone, but only pay 150 upfront, I pay 23 bucks a month for the remaining balance for 24 months on top of my 40 bucks a month for voice and data, everything is clearly presented to the consumer and I understand why I'm paying 63 dollars a month... It's not like my plan gets any cheaper when my contract is up right now anyways.
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Jul 18, 2013 05:29
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Because then people will realise how much they're actually paying for their phones, stop upgrading every year and start buying used 
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Jul 18, 2013 08:11
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Good article from Michael Geist: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6910/125/quote:The narrative behind these cost increases is that consumers are amortizing the cost of their device over a shorter period of time and therefore can expect higher monthly fees. This argument is perfect for the carriers as they get to blame the CRTC (and by extension, the Competition Bureau, consumer groups and consumers themselves) with an "I told you so" for the increased prices. Yet the higher costs are not strictly a function of shorter contracts, but rather a product of Canada's uncompetitive marketplace
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Jul 18, 2013 18:50
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Ok, I'm going to rant a bit here but hopefully someone has some advice for me. At the beginning of May I went to WIND Mobile on Thurlow to send my phone in for repairs. It was chronically resetting and turning off on its own. They sent it to a repair shop called Futuretel. I got it back only to have it freeze when I tried to update it. I don't know why Futuretel wouldn't send it back already tested and updated. I sent it away again, got it back and the same thing happened. I asked Wind to replace the phone but they would not. I sent it away again. This time, I didn't update it but I contacted Samsung Mobile about getting a replacement. While I worked out the logistics of getting another loaner from Wind and sending my phone to Samsung, the phone was back to it's old tricks of resetting on it's own. I told the Samsung rep that I had sent the phone away three times already and would like a refund or replacement. He gave me a mailing label to send it off. I THOUGHT I would be sending it to Samsung but they sent it Futuretel AGAIN. The company that failed to fix my phone three times already. I got my phone back today. Yet again, it froze when I tried to update it and won't start. I called Samsung and now they want me to go to Wind, get the print outs of all my previous repair orders, find a scanner somewhere and email it to them. Why would they send it to the same repair centre I told them could not fix my phone 3 times? This really sucks. I am stuck with a loaner phone that is ancient and has none of the features I paid for. Hopefully I can get my money back and cancel my Wind service. I really like Android and Google phones though, hopefully there's a better phone for me out there somewhere. Does anyone know, if I get a refund from Samsung, will they pay off the Windtab too? Or will I have another fight on my hands?
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Jul 19, 2013 07:34
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Well that's a lovely experience. Unfortunately you're going to be dealing with (incompetent) Futuretel with all the carriers. It's not just WIND. When I worked at Bell we had a BB Pearl backlog of 4 months from them.
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Jul 19, 2013 08:43
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That was my experience with my Bell Galaxy S. I solved it after the 4th repair by contacting the CCTS who got Bell to replace my lemon with a HTC Desire Z, which, while still not a very good phone, at least had the good sense to boot up before it had the sleep of death, and worked most of the time.
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Jul 19, 2013 16:01
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Telus is already freaking out and starting to lobby against Verizon joining the Canadian market: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6911/125/ quote:Yesterday, Telus CEO Darren Entwistle was campaigning at the Globe and Mail and National Post, warning of a "bloodbath" if the government sticks with its commitment to allow for a set-aside of spectrum for new entrants such as Verizon. Telus is concerned that a set-aside would allow Verizon to purchase two of the four available blocks, leaving the big three to fight it out over the remaining two blocks. Telus emphasized its prior investments in arguing for a "level playing field" in the auction.
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Jul 19, 2013 16:28
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It would be such a shame if our monopolistic carriers were involved in a bloodbath.
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Jul 19, 2013 17:27
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I have no expectations that Verizon would be an amazing player in Canada, but at this point I am rooting for anything that the big three aren't in favour of.
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Jul 19, 2013 18:57
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Martytoof posted:I have no expectations that Verizon would be an amazing player in Canada, but at this point I am rooting for anything that the big three aren't in favour of. Seriously. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
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Jul 19, 2013 19:00
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Lobok posted:Seriously. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Yup. It's petty and irrational, but I'd happily funnel the same money for the same lovely deals towards Verizon (and encourage others to do the same) in the hope that the big-3 would be humbled a bit.
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Jul 19, 2013 19:11
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I was on Verizon's site the other day, and as far as I can tell, an iPhone5 with unlimited nation wide talk+text and 2gb is $100/mnth, which seems right in line with the rumored 2 yr pricing we saw leaked from Telus and Bell, and the phone costs more (200 vs 180) upfront. Am I missing something? Other then the two year versus 3 year thing, which is supposedly changing soon, plans in states seem just as expensive as they are here.
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Jul 19, 2013 19:51
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From what I can tell, the logic people use to assume that Verizon will be different here is that they wouldn't be the incumbents here initially, they'd need to offer good deals to get people tos switch, and then their inner greedy dicks might just come out later if at all. More realistically I think it's mostly just to spite the Big 3 at this point, which is a perfectly reasonable goal. Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Jul 19, 2013 |
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Jul 19, 2013 19:57
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It might be naive, but I agree with the above. I hope that a new entrant would have to be a little more competitive. I'm not expecting budget-carrier competitiveness or anything, but just having some sort of gimmick that could be construed as being better than the big three. At this point I just want some sort of PROGRESS towards better carriers, even if it's incremental. Then again for all I know it could just be "the big four" after Verizon sees the dollar signs.
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Jul 19, 2013 20:50
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Martytoof posted:Then again for all I know it could just be "the big four" after Verizon sees the dollar signs. Despite the many issues with the American mobile market, their four carriers actually do compete. There's no love lost between Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile (can't say the same about Robelus). It gets really hard to maintain oligopolies once you get beyond low-single-digit participants. The temptation to defect and steal market share becomes too great.
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Jul 19, 2013 21:02
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I've got an iPhone 4 locked to Fido and want to sell it to a friend on Bell, what's the best method for unlocking these days? I know Fido will do it for $50, any other alternatives? Edit actually it looks like I can unlock the phone for $50 only after my term is up, it's currently not up til jan 2014  Edit2: turns out that was old info, unlocked it and done priznat fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Jul 20, 2013 |
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Jul 20, 2013 21:51
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 We don't want to compete with another carrier As bad as Verizon may be, they won't gain any subscribers initially without undercutting the big 3 to some extent or doing something to shake things up a little bit. It's possible we'll end up in another stagnant situation, but at least I doubt it will be worse than it is now.
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Jul 24, 2013 16:46
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quote:Mohamed said if Verizon were to enter Canada’s wireless market, large urban markets would benefit more than other markets. Thanks for clearing up why we should support Verizon's entry into Canada!
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Jul 24, 2013 16:56
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^^ I don't even understand exactly how he intends that point to support his argument that Verizon shouldn't be allowed in. After all, it's pretty much a law of the universe that: if $X were to enter $Y’s $Z market, large urban markets would benefit more than other markets.
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Jul 24, 2013 17:54
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Lexicon posted:^^ I don't even understand exactly how he intends that point to support his argument that Verizon shouldn't be allowed in. I suspect it's an appeal to the rural and suburban largely conservative voters to try and get them to complain to their party until they reverse the decision to increase competition.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:06
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Squibbles posted:I suspect it's an appeal to the rural and suburban largely conservative voters to try and get them to complain to their party until they reverse the decision to increase competition. Maybe I don't understand people, but that doesn't even make any sense to me. Do rural residents/voters get annoyed at various products/services that enter the market and primarily/exclusively focus on the urban market? If so, they must have to cope with constant disappointment.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:17
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Lexicon posted:Maybe I don't understand people, but that doesn't even make any sense to me. Do rural residents/voters get annoyed at various products/services that enter the market and primarily/exclusively focus on the urban market? If so, they must have to cope with constant disappointment. See: The election of Rob Ford
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Jul 24, 2013 18:19
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Too bad he doesn't have the balls to say that rural consumers would suffer from Verizon's entry, just that they would benefit less. Why this is a bad thing I don't know.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:21
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Christ, Rogers made almost $500 million in profit in 2Q, I think they'll be fine.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:30
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So I bought out my damned Bell contract and took my phone to Koodo. They already had a double data deal on, plus an extra 10% off if you were bringing your phone from another carrier. So now, for about $11 cheaper before tax than I was paying before, I have 4 times the data, unlimited nationwide calling/texting/picture messaging instead of fab 10, and voicemail. Been a little over a month, I'm very happy so far.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:38
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codo27 posted:So I bought out my damned Bell contract and took my phone to Koodo. They already had a double data deal on, plus an extra 10% off if you were bringing your phone from another carrier. So now, for about $11 cheaper before tax than I was paying before, I have 4 times the data, unlimited nationwide calling/texting/picture messaging instead of fab 10, and voicemail. Been a little over a month, I'm very happy so far. You're lucky you did this a month ago - Koodo's new plans catapulted them from having some of the best plans to some of the worst.
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Jul 24, 2013 19:07
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Koodo also has "decent" options for trips to the States. Just make sure you set them up when they text you after border crossing. $10 for 25 mbs instead of standard roaming charge of $5 a meg in downright un-canadian telco.
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Jul 24, 2013 22:27
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If the big 3 get their wish and Verizon doesn't get the small user base advantage in the upcoming spectrum option, won't they be kind of shooting themselves in the foot? I mean, Verizon has mountains of cash compared to them. If they get in a bidding war, suddenly the big 3 are paying way more for their spectrum than they would have just bidding against each other. I'm probably missing something though.
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Jul 25, 2013 03:04
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The CRTC isn't letting them bid on it. Which means the options are Verizon having the spectrum, or... nobody.
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Jul 25, 2013 03:33
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Lexicon posted:Maybe I don't understand people, but that doesn't even make any sense to me. Do rural residents/voters get annoyed at various products/services that enter the market and primarily/exclusively focus on the urban market? If so, they must have to cope with constant disappointment. You're right you don't understand people.
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Jul 25, 2013 05:19
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ante posted:The CRTC isn't letting them bid on it. Which means the options are Verizon having the spectrum, or... nobody. Not precisely true. Industry Canada is, at last recollection (the rules are kind of in flux right now), letting incumbents bid in the auction on spectrum that isn't set aside - it's just not letting them buy it off new entrants outside the auction (which is why TELUS couldn't buy Mobilicity).
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Jul 25, 2013 14:41
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Is the new spectrum even needed by the incumbents or is it just a way for the government to make money and the incumbents buy it for anti-competitive reasons?
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Jul 25, 2013 16:52
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I don't think you understand what spectrum is? An incumbent would need to buy (license/register/reserve/whatever) a portion of the spectrum (frequency) that their phones and towers would communicate on without interfering with other providers(/aircraft/whatever uses radio frequency). ante fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jul 25, 2013 |
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Jul 25, 2013 21:39
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ante posted:I don't think you understand what spectrum is? I don't think you understand what incumbent refers to. Telus/Rogers/Bell are the incumbents as they already hold an established position in the market. Cowofwar's question was if they really need more spectrum or do they just buy it up to keep new entrants out.
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Jul 25, 2013 22:35
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Yes sorry I lost my english there i am dumb In that case, more spectrum means more capacity, and depending on the frequency, better building penetration and range. In addition to the whole monopoly thing ante fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jul 25, 2013 |
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Jul 25, 2013 22:44
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I don't get how anyone in their right mind can oppose Verizon aside from the carriers.
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Jul 26, 2013 01:53
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Godinster posted:I don't get how anyone in their right mind can oppose Verizon aside from the carriers. Agreed, but never underestimate that pernicious element of Canadian society that has an unyielding suspicion and dislike of anything American, no matter the circumstances. edit: and the FUD begins: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/verizon-entry-would-put-rural-markets-at-risk-bce-says/article13445957/ Lexicon fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Jul 26, 2013 |
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Jul 26, 2013 02:17
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Lexicon posted:edit: and the FUD begins: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/verizon-entry-would-put-rural-markets-at-risk-bce-says/article13445957/ Oh no, we'll have to focus on urban centres to compete, then rural users will complain about lower prices and we'll be forced to reduce our ~mad ARPUz~!
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Jul 26, 2013 03:45
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"BCE Inc. says it is likely to scale back efforts to bring advanced cellphone services to rural Canada if large foreign telecoms like Verizon Communications Inc. are allowed to enter the Canadian market under preferential rules." -- a threat
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Jul 26, 2013 04:01
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They made similar threats when Wind and Mobilicity came in (remember the camel?). They are also playing ads all over the radio stations that they own, and I wouldn't be surprised if they started playing ads on their TV stations as well.
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Jul 26, 2013 04:23
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