Telecom Trends

A new coalition has formed to advocate for more competition in Canada wireless services.

The Coalition for Wireless Competition, launched by Videotron, MTS Allstream and Mipps (associated with Primus Canada), plans to encourage Canadian consumers and businesses to tell the government they want more competition in wireless services in Canada.

According to the group's press release,

Currently, three companies control the entire Canadian market and that has led to higher prices, and less advanced technologies than are common in Europe, the U.S. and Asia

People who live in Saskatchewan and Manitoba may question if Bell, TELUS and Rogers really control the entire Canadian Market. I don't get to see the TV ads in Winnipeg often to know how different the pricing is with a member of this coalition as the ILEC wireless provider. I did see from the MTS website that they have a $125 data plan for 500MB - which is an attractive rate by Canadian standards. Any US style big buckets?

According to the Statistics Canada numbers I showed on Tuesday, Manitoba is dragging down the national average for cellular penetration in households. Why is that?

The issue of wireless competition in Canada will be the focus of a panel moderated by Terence Corcoran of the Financial Post at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit on June 13. The panel features Robert Depatie of Videotron, John Watson of TELUS, Lawson Hunter from Bell and Dave Dobbin of Toronto Hydro Telecom.

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Videotron, MTS Allstream, MiPPS, Rogers, Bell, TELUS