For the folks that hope for competition as a solution, this has always been a red herring. Even under the classic framework where competition is thought as an effective means to lower prices, the telco market has always been one where natural monopolies form. Introducing competition in the telco market requires regulation. Using regulated competition to lower prices is just regulating prices with extra steps. Personally, I’d demand price regulation without the overhead. Today, these are essential infrastructure services like electricity and water. And to put a further damper on the profit that can flow to regulators, ensure that unions scoop up as much from that profit as possible, effectively acting as taxation.
Yeah these are essential services now and since we can’t have real competition lets just nationalize all the carriers and turn them into a crown corporation.
Almost sounds logical doesn’t it. We might also stem excess profits from flowing into privatizing healthcare while doing it. Cough… Telus Health… cough.
Nationalize the infrastructure (cell towers / fibre network) and make everyone compete on service. No more “You don’t have network? I have network.” bullshit – one cell network, with double the capacity, double the coverage, and everyone competes for customers on price and service and device support (iPhone/Android/watches/data cards/etc.), and everyone pays the same wholesale price for voice/minutes and data/gigs. Everyone gets 5G. Your only government requirement for starting a new cell company is a $1m non-transferable license/access fee that helps pay for expanding/upgrading the network.
For the folks that hope for competition as a solution, this has always been a red herring. Even under the classic framework where competition is thought as an effective means to lower prices, the telco market has always been one where natural monopolies form. Introducing competition in the telco market requires regulation. Using regulated competition to lower prices is just regulating prices with extra steps. Personally, I’d demand price regulation without the overhead. Today, these are essential infrastructure services like electricity and water. And to put a further damper on the profit that can flow to regulators, ensure that unions scoop up as much from that profit as possible, effectively acting as taxation.
Yeah these are essential services now and since we can’t have real competition lets just nationalize all the carriers and turn them into a crown corporation.
Almost sounds logical doesn’t it. We might also stem excess profits from flowing into privatizing healthcare while doing it. Cough… Telus Health… cough.
Nationalize the infrastructure (cell towers / fibre network) and make everyone compete on service. No more “You don’t have network? I have network.” bullshit – one cell network, with double the capacity, double the coverage, and everyone competes for customers on price and service and device support (iPhone/Android/watches/data cards/etc.), and everyone pays the same wholesale price for voice/minutes and data/gigs. Everyone gets 5G. Your only government requirement for starting a new cell company is a $1m non-transferable license/access fee that helps pay for expanding/upgrading the network.
And then sell that crown corp off after investing a ton of tax dollars so that the buyer can double prices.