The CRTC has released its much-anticipated re-consideration ruling on how regional and smaller wireless companies access wholesale roaming services from larger providers. By sending a previous CRTC decision back to the Commission for re-consideration, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains signalled the government’s hope that the competitiveness problems in the Canadian wireless sector – consumers still pay some of the highest rates in the world – could be addressed through mandating access for new competitors on a wholesale basis. The Commission reviewed its earlier decision and basically said thanks, but no thanks, keeping the key policy elements unchanged.
Post Tagged with: "wireless competition"
Debating the State of Canadian Wireless Competition: The Present Isn’t So Friendly
Last week, I posted what I thought was a lengthy post on the state of Canadian wireless competition (and followed that with a condensed version in a column). This week, Telus’ Craig McTaggart showed what a long post actually looks like as he issued a 42 page response to my post as well as recent posts by Peter Nowak (here and here) and Open Media. While I won’t address everything in McTaggart’s post – Nowak responds here and Open Media can address the issues focused on their writing if they wish – a few responses are in order.
McTaggart is clearly passionate about these issues, going so far as to suggest that claims that Canada’s wireless market is uncompetitive is an “insult to TELUS’ team members.” Yet while he decries the use of older data, confusion of different issues, and cherry picking some statistics, he proceeds to do exactly that in his response. In fact, the oldest data I’ve seen in the myriad of recent posts on these issues can be found in McTaggart’s response as he relies 2005 data to argue that Canadians use their wireless devices more than most people in the world (page 16).
McTaggart starts his commentary on my post on page 11, going through each of my ten points. I’ll follow the same format:
Brown on Canadian Wireless Competition
Jesse Brown comments on the state of wireless competition, focusing on the barriers to foreign investment.
Spectrum Auction Puts Wireless Competition on the Line
Appeared in the Toronto Star on June 18, 2007 as Spectrum Auction Has Plenty on the Line Appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on June 19, 2007 as Federal Spectrum Auction Puts Wireless Competition on the Line Last week, the titans of the telecommunications industry, including Ted Rogers and BCE's Michael […]
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