Post Tagged with: "Wireless"

United Nations of smartphone operating systems by Jon Fingas (CC BY-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/goVRFZ

Deja Vu All Over Again: Looking Back at Two Decades of Bell, Telus and Rogers Battles Over the Canadian Wireless Market

In the weeks leading up to the CRTC hearing on wireless services, there was no shortage of corporate lobbying, opinion pieces from telecom company consultants downplaying concerns about the competitiveness of the Canadian wireless market, and comments from company executives threatening to reduce investment if the CRTC mandated new competitions through MVNOs. Those claims have continued this week throughout the hearing.

Independent studies from around the globe have for years (here, here, here, here, here) found that Canadians face some of the highest wireless prices in the developed world. Yet if the usual claims of a fiercely competitive, reasonably priced wireless market provides a sense of deja vu, consider:

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February 20, 2020 5 comments News
Ting by Daniel Foster (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/2h6tHKy

The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 39: “The Day I Can Offer Service, Prices Come Down” – Elliot Noss on MVNOs and the CRTC Hearing on Wireless Services

The long awaited CRTC review into wireless services kicks off this week with virtually every key stakeholder – the big carriers, regional carriers, independent carriers, consumer groups, and many others – making their way to Gatineau to set out their vision for the future of wireless services in Canada. Elliot Noss, the CEO of Tucows, owns Ting, an MVNO that has carved out a niche in the U.S. market, but does not offer service in Canada as the big carriers won’t play ball. Elliot joins the podcast in advance of the CRTC hearing to discuss the state of Canadian wireless market, the role of MVNOs, and what he thinks needs to happen in Canada to make pricing more competitive.

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February 18, 2020 Comments are Disabled Podcasts
Happy New Year 2019 by Jon Glittenberg (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/2dQH12q

The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 36: The Year in Canadian Digital Law and Policy

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with important Supreme Court cases, legislative proposals, committee reports, expert panels, and political promises to reform existing laws and regulation. For this final Lawbytes podcast of 2019, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and think a bit about what may lie ahead next year. I focus on five issues: the “euro-fication” of Canadian digital policy, the debate over the competitiveness of the Canadian wireless market, the many calls for privacy law reform, the future of Canadian copyright reform, and the review of Canadian broadcast and telecom law.

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December 16, 2019 1 comment Podcasts
Rewheel Research, The state of 4G & 5G pricing, 2H2019: more-for-less, http://research.rewheel.fi/insights/2019_oct_pro_2h2019_release/

Wireless Worsens: Report Finds Canadian Wireless Pricing Now Less Competitive Compared to Other Developed Economies

The cost of wireless services emerged as a political issue during the recent national election, with most parties taking turns promising measures to increase competitiveness and lower consumer costs. The Liberals based their platform on a commitment to reduce costs by 25 per cent over the next two years, a measure that some analysts suggested had already been met. I argued that the 25 per cent reduction target was measuring the wrong thing, noting that “the 25 per cent price decline may sound attractive, but if other countries experience declines of 30 per cent or 40 per cent, it means that Canadians would actually be paying even more relative to consumers elsewhere.”

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October 30, 2019 2 comments News
Elections Canada polling station 2015 by ishmael n. daro https://flic.kr/p/z3z7Su https://flic.kr/p/z3z7Su

The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 27: Digital Policy and Election 2019 – Laura Tribe of OpenMedia on Where the Parties Stand

Digital issues were expected to garner attention in the 2019 Canadian federal election campaign. Over the course of the past few weeks, all the main political parties have had something to say about the high cost of cellphone prices in Canada and the prospect of implementing new taxes on tech companies. Laura Tribe, the Executive Director of OpenMedia, joined the podcast to talk about election 2019 and digital policies in a conversation that focused on wireless services and Internet taxes as well as privacy, intermediary liability, trade, and copyright.

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October 15, 2019 1 comment Podcasts