This makes me mad. The recently released CRTC Telecommunications Monitoring Report highlighted how lack of competition in the cellular phone market is leading to increased profits year after year. From the report:
“The telecommunications industry’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased from $12.4 billion to $13.1 billion, a $0.7 billion or 5% increase. The increase was due to the mobile phone service providers, whose EBITDA increased from $4.4 billion in 2005 to $5.6 billion in 2006, a $1.2 billion or 27% increase.“
Most of the Canadian market (95%) is served by a group of three providers – Bell, Rogers, and Telus. None of them really compete, as their plans and pricing are nearly identical, and far more expensive than other G8 countries.
There’s no easy solution to this problem. Foreign competition has been introduced on several occasions, but subsequently crushed by the “big trio”. Sprint introduced very competitive mobile service back in 2003. They were acquired by Fido, which was then acquired by Rogers. Prices (and their profits) have been increasing ever since, while prices in other countries have been steadily falling.