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Population Density
Canada: 3 people per sq.km
Australia: 2.84 people per sq.km

Area land mass:
Canada: 9,984,670 km2
Australia 7,617,930 km2

Yes Canada is bigger, but slightly more densely populated, I wouldn’t call it a big difference, both countries could be used to compare cell phone industries.

Besides 90% of both Countries population are concentrated in cities, so creating the cell tower infrastructure is just the same as any other country. Its only in the rural areas that it gets expensive.

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I don’t think it’s too much to ask for some better value for your money, and I don’t think anything you’re saying has anything to do with the fact that more competition will go a long ways toward helping that.

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Now, it is true that a good portion of the population is located in urban centres. However, this only means that as carriers expand coverage outside these centres they will experience decreasing returns on their investments. Which means that their total costs start to rise disproportionately to the rise in addressable customers (POP’s).

Canada is a huge country with a small population. The cost of providing service can never be as low as a country such as Sweden or Finland. Never. Canadian carriers would kill for a cost model like small countries have.

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Spare us the picture as it is already drawn:

Russia; http://tinyurl.com/yjkb5ok

Canada; http://tinyurl.com/ykjv3us

US; http://tinyurl.com/yhybdur

Australia; http://tinyurl.com/yz8qamf

The United States has far more evenly distributed demographics than Canada, the comparison is nullified, the rest is self explanatory.

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Have a look for yourself around this site;

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_mob_pho_sub-media-mobile-phone-subscribers

It is evident that the largest country in the world (Russia) and the third largest (China) have the most cell phone subscribers, and even Australia which is the 6th largest country in the world has 18.4 million subscribers out of only 21 million, all while these nations have much lower rates than Canada. Going back again to my original statement, it not the size of the nation that determines the cost and/or number of subscribers and the ability to deliver service to them. Given the geographic fact that ‘most’ people live around borders and coast lines and not in Baffin Island in Canada, a wireless carrier’s coverage does not have to span great distances in order for it to reach millions of people and gain a consumer base.

I.E. Wind does not need to provide coverage for all of Canada, it can easily reach a majority of people and hence keep initial costs down and still be profitible and competitive.

There is NO excuse for Canada to have the 3rd highest cell phone rates in the world, none.

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Maybe in the future, you guys, can do this with Mr. Ballmer (MS CEO) and catch a glimpse with his “halloween-like face” and his samurai-showdown vid.

hilarity link: http://bit.ly/Halloween-face-fit-for-an-ceo

There’s no reason to give all the credit to engadget “e-interview”, right?

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If Industry Canada reverses their decision, this will impact the ownership structure of the Big three. The big three will be forced to merge or pimp majority stakes to US carrier like AT&T. Than Canadians will be complaining they no longer have a national wireless company anymore.

Canada is already selling their Oil Sands & Mineral assets to China, their Agricultural and manufacturing, industry belongs to Americans, their Fishing Industry belongs to Europeans, etc.. so perhaps their long term goal is to sell their wireless interests as well.

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Verizon – Id like 5,000,000 droids
Moto – sure $10 each please

Bell/Telus/Rogers – Id like 50,000 droids
Moto – sure $25 each pease

Verizon – Shit guys we need to launch LTE to our clients this build out is going to cost us about $700,000,000 but we still have about 90,000,000 clients to help us absorb this cost and keep our rates lower

Bel/Telus/Rogers – Shit guys we need to launch LTE to our clients, this build out is going to cost us about $900,000,000 but we still have about 6,000,000 clients each to keep our prices as low as the Americans.. oh wait

Prices are obviously not exact but if any of you want a picture drawn out next let me know

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Im sure if a carrier came out and launched in the “cluster” areas and there only their costs would be lower ad could offer you better service – I recall a company by the name of Fido doing this and not being able to compete. People loved the pricing, complained about lack of service, Fido could not compete, launched an all you can talk plan in the effort to acquire new activations to lift their subscriber base and value for a buyout.

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I think this past year I have had my data interrupted only twice… once due to a severe windstorm, and once because my device needed to reset to the network. My voice calls have been dropped due to my previous handset being dropped way too much and not working properly (my new blackberry gets the exact same coverage and works fine in those same places) or my girlfriend forgetting that her particular phone cannot flip closed while on speakerphone without terminating the call. I didn’t know Rogers towers were windproof, that their devices glued themselves to your body until they could safely attach to another surface, or that they could predict that you did not mean to hang up the phone. (for those who couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm.)

I will give this much… as far as building and running a network goes, it does cost a lot of money. But it does not cost as much as the current incumbents seem to rake in each and every month. Let’s take this to scale here.

Let’s say everyone’s plan averaged $40 each month. and there were let’s say… 50,000 people on the network over the course of the first year (obviously they are aiming at much higher numbers but I am aiming really really low here). that is $200,000 each month. over a year, that’s $2,400,000 (2.4 million). In the first year. On only 50,000 new subscriptions. Will they lose money at first with my numbers? maybe, yeah, I don’t know what their staffing is like and what is to be paid and all. But as their network and customer service are proven to be reliable and competent respectively, more people will move their services over to the new guys, until they too are bringing in a lot more than 2.4 million each year.

And the obvious difference (I would hope) is that they would be giving a lot more for that $40 than Bell / Telus / Rogers do in the way of minutes and included services (i.e: text messaging / picture messaging / mobile browsing). People comment that we can’t have US style plans. But see, here’s the thing; if we are offered more within our plan, we are willing to pay more. Funny how successful Sprint’s $99 Unlimited Everything plan is. Yes it is $100 each month, but you get EVERYTHING that is essential at an UNLIMITED rate. If that was an option to me at say $120, I would sign up for that and still tack on $25 to be able to call all across north america whenever I wished and not be dinged long distance ever! why? Because I would be getting a better value! And sometimes value is really missed out on… especially by Rogers. I used to have their service a couple years back, I should know.

Adding another voice here is not going to confuse consumers. Right now, the big 3 rely on confusion in the marketplace it seems – you, for example, john, were incredibly confused as to the ownership / network leasing of Fido, Koodo, Mike, Solo, Virgin, PC mobile, Sears, Primus, etcetera… the only TWO large-size Telco companies in all of Canada that are not under the ownership of the big 3 are Sasktel and MTS (there are two others I believe, but they serve only northern Ontario, and even then are not incredibly large). However, even these ones have roaming agreements with Bell and Telus. And MTS just signed an agreement with Rogers for its new HSPA network. So in essence, they too have to answer to the Big 3.

The newcomers will have been the first groups to launch within Canada that would not need to answer to any of the big 3 other than to temporarily allow roaming. I don’t know about you, but I think that is the least confusing part of it all. New, fresh ideas that weren’t just the big guys in flashier clothes or walking a new dog.

I’ll admit, I’m sticking with Telus… but only because I know I will be able to talk to them and have them bring my rate plan down as the newcomers become established and begin to take hold of customers. After all, if they didn’t, what would stop me from taking the $250 I spend each month for my and my girlfriend’s phones (combined, folks, I wouldn’t pay that much each month for just me) and walking over to one of the new guys to spend maybe only $175-$200 for the same services?

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I signed up for that myself, they’re aiming for 10000 names total.

Personally, I don’t completely mind Telus (they use Bell’s network there in Waterloo I believe, and should have their own towers there too). Maybe, just maybe, in a few months what with the new HSPA+ network they and Bell have built up, some real competition will start… but I think we all expect absolutely nothing to happen until the new guys start up their networks. Anyone notice how all but Videotron have the big 3 going after them?… and Videotron signed a roaming agreement with Rogers to allow coverage outside of Quebec?

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http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/11/canada-cellphone-rates-expensive-oecd.html

USA, Canada, Spain Win Title for Most Expensive Cell Phone Bills

http://cell-phone-providers-review.toptenreviews.com/usa-canada-spain-win-title-for-most-expensive-cell-phone-bills.html

The big 3 have been shoring up their distribution channels (ie: cut down stores, laid off sales reps / call centre reps, etc) and restructured their remaining reps’ commissions (ie: pay cuts) and here we have Wind hiring 800+ Canadians, opening stores, call centres, and basically create employments for hundreds of Canadians during tough times. And what does the CRTC do? Take their sweet ass time reviewing and basically tell Wind to **** off because they meet some BS rule.

Clearly, the CRTC is influenced. This must stop.

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BJ

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i honestly do believe that canadians do deserve a more competetive wirelesss industry. the lawmakers (ie clement or others in the house of commons) may not want to deal wih this issue head on because this is a bit of a nationalistic issue.

the thing that is most perplexing is that if you happen to remember at&t used to operate in canada in the late 90s! talk about foreign ownership!

the law of 80% ownership is also a bunch of bullcrap. and the law needs aome adjusting to be more modern and competetive. hopefully the tories will be brav enough to fix that soon.

i would love to get an iphone or blackberry for my own personal use but a staring monthly fee of close to 70/mo for a full feature set incl vm cid data etc thats juat way too much and totally out of control!

the argument that canada is such a huge country with such a small population is valid. but the country is never going to get 100% coverage. but the fact is that we are forced to overpay. the statistic that only 65% of canadians have a cell phone really does speak volumes about the oligopolistic situation we have here. its not that canadians are are rejectors at all. iys just that its simply too expensive and the big three are charging as much as they can get away with.

we need more choice! ultimately wind will be be approved but not for 2009

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