The only Canadians that will benefit from this deal are the Shaw and Rogers families. We need more competition in telecoms, not just the 3 big boys cartel/monopoly we have had to put up with.

Shorty Wave wrote:

The only Canadians that will benefit from this deal are the Shaw and Rogers families. We need more competition in telecoms, not just the 3 big boys cartel/monopoly we have had to put up with.

The shareholders will benefit too.  Having three or four main players for telecommunications isn't that rare.  Look at the US. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile control the market. Sprint was gobbled up by T-Mobile two years ago. These three companies have 98% market share.   Americans enjoy lower prices simply because the market is so much larger and it is easier to make a decent profit.  Also having a better climate, and more even population distribution helps.   Here is the market share for the big three US telecoms courtesy of LightReading...https://www.lightreading.com/4g3gwifi/us-wireless-snapshot-subscribers-market-share-and-q3-estimates/d/d-id/764688

Last edited by paterson1 (June 19, 2022 2:47 pm)

betaylored wrote:

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/rogers-set-to-sell-freedom-mobile-to-quebecor-for-2-85b-1.1780569

Haven't the foggiest as to how this changes the landscape, or if it does, but one of these days, someone like Ryan Reynolds with his Mint Mobile could come along and shake things up for the better.

We're okay with Bell or Rogers until then, right?

Given that Ryan is Canadian, one could be forgiven for hoping that he can transfer his American success with Mint Mobile to a Canadian start-up. Hey, I can wish can't I?
 

torontostan wrote:

betaylored wrote:

one of these days, someone like Ryan Reynolds with his Mint Mobile could come along and shake things up for the better.

To be fair, Mint Mobile isn't really a network. It's the equivalent of Virgin Mobile, Fido, or PC Mobile here. Freedom actually has a mid-sized network of its own instead of piggybacking off a major carrier like Rogers or Telus. 

Freedom is also the ONLY choice one has in the Toronto subway system. 
 

If it gets approved, I'd wager on them keeping the Freedom brand. They've done quite well, especially in Toronto.

Sometimes the logic that people who run the big cable and telcos use to justify their monopolistic behaviour is simply mind numbing. Take the case of Quebecor, the Quebec-based telecommunications giant currently trying to buy Freedom Mobile as part of the pending Rogers-Shaw deal. 

The head of Quebecor, Pierre Karl Peladeau, says he's baffled why the CRTC is delaying approval for his company to acquire the cell phone entity. Why? It would be good for competition!

[rant] Get a load of this quote from a Canadian Press article:

“For us, it is incomprehensible that the Competition Bureau believes that competition will be stronger if the Shaw acquisition is rejected and Freedom Mobile operates alone. It (Freedom Mobile) will be a much weaker competitor...”

“With all due respect, we believe that the longer the Competition Bureau and the CRTC wait to act, the longer they encourage an oligopoly that limits competition outside of Quebec.”

So let me get this straight. Having another huge telco control yet another phone company will encourage competition? We truly live in Bizarro world if anyone buys this argument, especially when a private operator (Globalive) bid $900 million more for Freedom than Peladeau's people did - and Rogers turned them down!

That operator suspects the reason is obvious - Big Red didn't want someone who might offer truly lower prices in the mix, which would force their own prices down. But allowing one of their own to have it would ensure the anti-competitive system continues merrily on in Canada. 

What we need is Freedom from Rogers and its ilk. Not adding Quebecor to the mix. As comedian Yakov Smirnoff used to say, "What a country!" [/rant] 

In addition to the five day credit coming on my August bill. I got a text from Rogers yesterday telling me I will get five free GB of data for each of the next six months because I have been such a loyal customer. So now I get 20GB for the price of 15. The most data I have ever used in one month is 11.5GB.

RadioActive wrote:

Notice that "competitive" doesn't necessarily mean lower. 

Price fixing is illegal. 

radiokid wrote:

Unless they keep Freedom as the budget brand or change their ways, I predict we will have the BIG 4 playing together on price.  Hope they prove me wrong.
 

In order to be a "Budget" brand, it is smart to have a sister brand to go with it, ie Rogers owns both Fido & Chatr. 
Bell has Virgin & Lucky Mobile.
Telus has Koodo.
Quebecor only has Freedom, so it will most likely compete head on with Telus, Bell and Rogers proper, not the other ones...leaving us all in a situation where Freedom is just another price match to whatever Bell Rogers and Telus decide to do. 
So much for competition and low prices. 
Unless one would perhaps like to have a Vmedia + Freedom Mobile combo pack at some great idea of a good price...maybe? (one can hope...)

If you have your own phone, Chatr is terrific and cheap. Even more so if you have access to wifi and get the basic Chatr plan. $45.00 per month and 6G of high speed data with unlimited slower data after. (that's also why you need the wifi, and make it Bell if possible to CYA in the event of another glitch.)

Chatr is part of Rogers and I never have dropped calls. Highly recommend them depending on your needs.

Last edited by betaylored (August 12, 2022 4:49 pm)

Radiowiz wrote:

betaylored wrote:

If you have your own phone, Chatr is terrific and cheap. Even more so if you have access to wifi and get the basic Chatr plan. $45.00 per month and 6G of high speed data with unlimited slower data after. (that's also why you need the wifi, and make it Bell if possible to CYA in the event of another glitch.)

Chatr is part of Rogers and I never have dropped calls. Highly recommend them depending on your needs.

Nice, but Freedom is the only one that works in the Toronto Transit Subway system.
I hope Quebecor keeps it running and doesn't decide to terminate the exclusive relationship Freedom maintains.
 

They won't. It's a massive competitive advantage in Canada's biggest market. If anything, Quebecor putting real money into Freedom may force B/R/T to also sign with BAI.

I worked with a gentlman from Poland and it was actually cheaper for him to call me from his Polish cell phone than for me to call him.

Mind you, he had an interesting explanation for it all and I don't think he was far off the mark.

We had access to "cutting-edge" technology since the beginning.  As new technology was introduced it had to ride on the back of all that older technology.

Europe, especially the eastern block, simply gutted all their old technology and started fresh since what older tech was available wasn't working well anyway.  Not having to maintain any compatibility meant that they could build it cheaper in the first place.  As the saying goes, they just passed on the savings.

Admittedly, that's a gross oversimplification.  No doubt there's a lot of greed involved (think Bell's touch-tone service) but you're used to paying top dollar for something, it doesn't hurt so much when they keep charging you. 

Remember paying big bucks for long distance?  I remember a company called London Telecom who charged $70/minth for unlimited long distance in the 90s and that was considered a crazy low deal.