The following is from OpenMedia:
Get ready for price increases, more bureaucratic red tape, and disrespectful customer service.
We have reports that the Big Three cell phone giants (who control roughly 94% of the market) are trying to trick the government into shutting out independent competitors. Some of them are going so far as to use high-priced lobbyists and a fake grassroots campaign1.
If the Big Three succeed, they will:
- Squeeze Canadians into tighter contracts, with disrespectful customer service.
- Squeeze more money out of your wallet every single month.
- Squeeze independent providers out of the cell phone market.
In short, they will be the only game in town, and that means you and I will pay more for our cell phones. It will lock Canada behind the rest of the world on mobile communications, cripple essential innovation, limit social progress, and drain your wallet every month.
Sign the Stop The Squeeze petition before it’s too late!
Canadians already pay some of the highest cell phone fees in the free world2. This is a gut check for Canada. Will we let price-gouging big telecom companies squeeze every last penny out of our wallets before we stand up for ourselves? Will we let them slow-walk our economy into disaster?
We’ve heard that the Industry Minister is about to make a decision that could rubber stamp this cell phone nightmare into reality. Please join Canadians from across the country in signing this urgent petition to send him a message.
Let’s not put up with this anymore.
For the Internet,
Steve, Lindsey, and Shea, on behalf of the OpenMedia.ca Team
P.S. Last year Canadians spoke out against metered billing and successfully pushed the government into action. We know it’s powerful when we raise our voices together. Let’s do that now before it’s too late: http://StopTheSqueeze.ca
NOTES:
[1] Rogers has a campaign that purports to be in the interest of customer service when it is clearly about limiting their independent competitors. Find our coverage of that campaign here.
[2] In 2009, an OECD study found that Canadians pay some of the highest prices for mobile phone calls in the industrialized world. This was corroborated by a 2010 report from the New America Foundation. More recently, another study found that Canada has the highest roaming fees in the industrialized world.
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Xanthippa's Chamberpot 
January 12, 2012 at 11:42
Hi, this is Mary with Rogers. Just to add some context here, this is all about the consumer and giving them access to the best, most advanced networks in the world. A fair and open auction will mean Canadians, both in urban and rural communities, will have access to the benefits of LTE.
Let’s be realistic – the government should recognize who is actually going to the use 700 spectrum to deliver this technology to Canadians.
Thanks,
RogersMary
Xanthippa says:
Ah, it’s all for our own good because we are just not good/smart enough to think for ourselves….
Sort of like turning our salaries over to the government and getting allowances back for our mortgage/rent, our heating, hydro and a bit of pocket money – but not too much, as we just cannot be trusted to make choices of our own!
January 15, 2012 at 14:03
RogersMary:
There is nothing fair about an auction in which a giant monster like Rogers bids against tiny fledglings like Wind Mobile, Videotron, or Mobilicity.
When a market is dominated by a small number of huge players, like Rogers, that market is not free.
Ensuring that markets remain free is the most effective economic action a government can take to give equal protection to the equal rights of everyone – big or small.
Therefore, if the government were really doing its job, players the size of Rogers shouldn’t be allowed to exist at all.
January 16, 2012 at 17:46
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