The Globe and Mail on why telecom deregulation may actually result in higher, not lower pricing. As Ivey School of Business professor Guy Holburn notes "It's a fairly concentrated industry. It's just not obvious rates are going to go down."
Telecom Reform and Consumer Prices
One Comment
Recent Posts
The Lawful Access Two-Headed Surveillance Monster: How Bill C-22 Went Off the Rails 
How Much Further Will Lawful Access Go?: Police Chief Tells Bill C-22 Hearing That Three Years of Metadata Retention Would Be “Ideal” 
Bill C-22’s Groundhog Day: Why the Government’s Dismissal of Signal, Apple and the U.S. Congress Concerns Runs Back the Disastrous Online News Act Playbook 
Slick Videos Won’t Save Lawful Access: Why The Government’s Bill C-22 Defence Avoids the Charter, Privacy and Security Concerns Raised By Critics 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 268: Sara Grimes on the Moral Panic Behind Banning Kids from Social Media and AI Chatbots
Because it’s more like long distance
It may not be obvious to Holburn, but there is less concentration in telephony than he acknowledges. Perhaps in a battle of the business schools, I see that Mihkel Tombak of Rotman thinks that prices could go down.
As I am quoted in that same article, “You have all sorts of outsiders who can discipline the pricing from the incumbent phone companies.” Look at all the alternatives: cable-based voice services, cell phone competition, over-the-top VoIP – local phone service is more likely to behave like long distance.
And one thing is for certain, consumers won’t save money under regulated pricing.