Quick show of hands. Who agrees with the CRTC that “market forces are working just fine for consumers” of internet service?
Yeah, I didn’t think so. The internet service provider market is a dog’s breakfast, mainly because the CRTC likes the competition nice and collusive. Why, you have the choice of spending $60 a month on internet from at least two corporate giants whose idea of competition is offering a bundle service with phone and cable.
This is the same CRTC that required direct government intervention to allow more competition in the the extremely expensive cell phone market to green-light Wind mobile. That didn’t last long, however, because our Canadian-content overlords decided Wind mobile was too Egyptian for its tastes.
Can’t have any scary foreign ownership in Canada. Best to simply shut up and pay our expensive cell phone bills. The CRTC is now looking at ignoring political pressure on their decision to allow so-called usage-based billing.
Which would be fine in an ideal world where some ridiculous antiquated regulator wasn’t making decisions against the best interests of Canadians. The concept of usage-based billing in a genuine free market economy would be fine. But we don’t live in a free market economy. Far from it.
As for why Canadians pay thousands of dollars more for the same service Chinese grocery vendors in Shanghai get, the CRTC doesn’t care about that either.
“The CRTC will not be expanding the scope, as requested by several parties, to include the billing practices for retail Internet services,” the commission said. “There is no evidence that market forces are not working properly in this unregulated market.”
What flatulent nonsense. No evidence that market forces are not working properly? Um, take a look at Japan for a moment (current tsunami devastation notwithstanding). (The updated 2010 report ranks Canada 22 out of 30 OECD countries for overall Internet access, based on penetration, speed and price).
Canada’s internet provider market is an oligopoly, and the CRTC seems to be the gatekeeper to that status quo.
The CRTC is far from useless. They are a formidable tool in the hands of a group of folks who support an elitist point of view.
It is a great tragedy that Canadians have this kind of information control over their heads.
Our only hope is that information technology will make them and their ilk superfluous.
The CRTC sees everything through the lens of Cancon.
Someone needs to remind these dinosaurs there is more original cancon on YouTube than the rest put together.
Instead of “useless”, the CRTC is an obstacle to consumer protection and at best serve as an advocate for the three largest stakeholders (Bell, Telus, Rogers)to restrict deregulation to end the oligarchy market share of 94%.
true market forces are never at play in canda. there is always some useless government agency sucking the life out of everything we do.
“Useless”? No, not to their friends. Overbearing and perpetuating the current setup, YES.
I’m about ready to give up on TV, paying $70 a month for about thirty CC channels I don’t want,including TWO French channels.
There IS no competition,each company will offer lower “new customer” rates for three months,then increase them to almost exactly what the others charge.They all try sleight -of-hand type billing,with a base rate plus add-ons galore,to get the programs you actually want.
There’s the facade of a competitive market,abetted by the friend of the Biggies,the CRTC.
When Enza Anderson the super-model tans-gender employee for the BMO branch on Church street was on the John oakley show in 2009, Enza snapped at the guest about the pride parade nudity and quasi-pedophilia by men enjoying being naked in front fo little girls .
Enza was on the audio archives to prove that she made a public comment that “Christians won’t be happy until all the homosexual are dead”.
The CRTC and BMO NesbitBurns INC did squat to call Enza out for her hate-speech,but since BMO now funds and forces employees to endorse the Child-abuse and Crime against Children by the TNT males flashing their penis at kids…..It now makes sense for why BMO’s CEO stayed mute on the anti-christian tirade by a Branch Employee in the gay village.
Currently I’m seeking a ruling from the CRA about BMO’s Charity Status for their Kids Foundation because BMO also condones Child-abuse during PRIDE and now funds it.You can’t claim to be a Kids Charity to help them whiel at the same time you condone tossing kids to male quasi-pedophiles with a mental illness to not seethe harm they do the kids by their nudity.
The CRTC won’t even allow the Parade to be aired live unless the cameras avoid the sexcapades and naked men exposing themself to kids. The CRTC is past the best-Befor date and is so bias for allowing child-abuse and hatred at some canadians, and yet the HRC under Barbara Hall abets in this injustice by picking who and what Human Rights are meted out to what people.
> our Canadian-content overlords decided Wind mobile was too Egyptian for its tastes.
The problem is of course that the CRTC was right. Weird ownership structure aside, Wind Mobile was a largely foreign controlled company entering a market where Canadian law prohibits majority foreign ownership. That we are left without real competitition in this environment seems a good argument that the law should be changed. If only governments had the ability to change laws when they discover that they’re harming our interests. /s
I wish that there was no problem with WindMobile, and I think the CRTC suffers from serious myopia, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give the government a pass on trying to pussyfoot around fixing the ridiculous law and regulation in this market with edicts from cabinet instead of doing their jobs properly and fixing the law.
There are good reasons why you might want your news and entertainment to have a healthy domestic market. I fail to see why the mere delivery of bits requires Canadian ownership and I can’t see why the government seems so afraid to fix these laws in the house. (Is it fear of a political fight or is it laziness?)
The CRTC have myopia. The government is simply not doing it’s job in this market. (And that includes their brain dead proposed copyright law.)
Where did I hear that “let the market force take care of itself” argument. Oh yeah, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan. And what was the consequence of that? Frauds committed by U.S. major banks and investment firms.
“The CRTC won’t even allow the Parade to be aired live unless the cameras avoid the sexcapades and naked men exposing themself to kids”.
Jeez…………and to think I had no respect for these useless twits at all. Sounds like they actually do have some redeeming value.