Industry Minister Tony Clement announced this morning that the Government has overturned the CRTC decision on Globalive, giving the go-ahead for the fourth national wireless carrier to enter the marketplace. Clement stated "Globalive is a Canadian company, and meets Canadian ownership and control requirements under the Telecommunications Act." While Clement was careful to say that the decision applies solely to these facts, the Order-in-Council seems to suggest that the door is open to greater foreign involvement in the Canadian wireless marketplace.
The key paragraphs focus on the need to interpret the Canadian control requirements with enhanced competition in mind and on the absence of foreign investment restrictions under the law:
Whereas the Governor in Council considers that, when possible, the Canadian ownership and control requirements should be applied in support of the Canadian telecommunications policy objectives set out in the Act, including enhancing competition in the telecommunications market;
Whereas the Canadian ownership and control requirements of the Act restrict the ownership of voting shares by non-Canadians, but the Act does not impose limits on foreign investment in telecommunication common carriers and should be interpreted in a way that ensures that access to foreign capital, technology and experience is encouraged in a manner that supports all of the Canadian telecommunication policy objectives;
These paragraphs signal the prioritization of enhanced competition in the marketplace. With support for foreign investment, the removal of foreign control limits may not be far behind.
Finally
I’ve been holding off renewing my crappy telus contract since before the spectrum auction, just waiting for this day.
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I what I’m getting for Christmas this year!!!!
I was hoping
This is a very good day. Nice to get some good news for a change. Goodbye Rogers, you charge too much for too little.
Good news
I wasn’t sure this would happen. Goodbye Rogers, you ask too much, and deliver too little.
Christmas has come early
This is a progressive move forward for Canadian consumers and technology developers.
The support for introducing competition into the wireless market is nationwide. Rogers, Telus, and Bell will have to actually compete now. Thank you to Mr. Tony Clement for giving Canadians what they were asking for.
It will be interesting to see how the encouragement of foreign investment plays out.
Not renewing my Telus contract either
Still have a year of useless options forced on me, but after that, I’ll be doing business with whoever has reasonable offers. If Globalive isn’t that much better, I’ll just live without a mobile phone until it’s reasonable to do so.
The next step
Very good. The gov’t is learning. Now legalize DirecTV, DishNet and other US services and I might forgive you for C-61.
Win Win
Truly a great moment for consumer and the future of the so-called “knowledge” economy. Truth is this is also great news for Rogers as well as they may finally be forced to abandon their unsustainable anti-consumer corporate culture. Hey Rogers, turn this situation to your advantage. As you are tearing down your false ads, how about replacing them with “The Most Transparent Business in Canada.” Embrace the future and your customers will stay/come.
Now.. If only we can get competition in…
We need competition now for internet … TV.. Home phone maybe?
Resonse to axeCRTC
axeCRTC said:
The next step Very good. The gov’t is learning. Now legalize DirecTV, DishNet and other US services and I might forgive you for C-61.
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C-61 was a liberal bill… Just saying.. Hopefully the conservatives don’t bring back its draconian policies.. The open debate on copyright reform was at least a start..
Response to Yatti420
axeCRTC said:
The next step Very good. The gov’t is learning. Now legalize DirecTV, DishNet and other US services and I might forgive you for C-61.
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Yatti420
C-61 was a liberal bill… Just saying.. Hopefully the conservatives don’t bring back its draconian policies.. The open debate on copyright reform was at least a start..
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As far as copyright legislation is concerned, Bill C-61 was a Conservative bill. Bill C-60 was a Liberal bill. 😉
Clement slays Finkenstein’s Monster
Hopefully this is a wake-up call to CTV/Global/Rogers/Bell currently playing the game of “Who Gets to Screw the Consumer More” with the CRTC over the fee-for-carriage issue. If you’re not willing to offer Canadians value for their dollar, there are lots of foreign companies who will, and hiding behind the CRTC will no longer be tolerated.
Globalive won’t change anything.
Globalive’s leaked price plans (from their May 2009 internal rollout) don’t seem to be any cheaper than Rogers and Bell. The only way that will change is if Globalive doesn’t do well out of the gate and becomes somewhat desperate.
The last thing we need is a third company that overcharges and provides substandard customer service.
Can someone clarify this?
If I understand correctly, there are two sets of criteria here. The first is the Telecommunications Act (vetted by the CRTC), the other is the Radiocommunications Act (vetted by Industry Canada).
As I understand it, they passed the IC test and were allowed to bid in the spectrum auction. Later, however, the incumbents appealed to the CRTC who applied the more restrictive Telecommunications Act test (or at least more restrictive in the CRTC’s interpretation of it), which they failed.
Do I have this correct?
Is this a good thing or not?
I find it interesting that you will go on for hundreds of words when something is going wrong, clearly stating what’s going wrong and why you think its wrong, but when something goes right (presumably that’s the case here) you don’t say much of anything about it other than it happened. What gives?