It sure is brutal trying to stay connected if you’re on a very tight budget.

Anyone remember how 6 years ago, it was in the news how American telecoms started offering unlimited full speed mobile data? The only reason that didn’t come to Canada was that “data caps were too lucrative.”

If Canadians weren’t so nice maybe we wouldn’t all just roll over and pay magnitudes more for fractions of what every other developed country in the world gets.

One has to wonder… Why doesn’t a single company just roll in and offer unlimited mobile data and shake things up? Oligopoly is the word you’re looking for, a handful of companies (ie the “big three”) operating together like a single, corporate monstrosity known as a monopoly thanks to the popularized board game

  • MacroCyclo@lemmy.ca
    0·
    1 year ago

    It’s tricky because if we allowed competition our telcos would get steamrolled by American telcos and many would die, but we would end up with a better/cheaper service for Canadians.

    For now I am happy with my $9 a month phone plan and don’t want anyone to take it away from me. I think they are already jacking the price up to $15 for new users.

    • juusukun@lemmy.caOP
      0·
      1 year ago

      …what do you get for $9 a month? I’m guessing you’re not in Ontario? Since I was a loyal long term customer I was lucky to get my bill down to 40 minus 10 bucks promotionally (which doesn’t show up in my account or say how long it’ll last) from 60 a month for 15GB of data. And now of course you can get more data for the same price or some shit as a new customer

      Opening up to international competition is one option… Honestly we could have Canadian companies be competitive but that would involve work and effort from all levels: government, consumer, and business.

      These dare the days of everyone wanting everything for free, but I’m not talking lazy hobos - I’m talking the entitled rich who think they can just keep sucking the rest of us dry indefinitely

      • MacroCyclo@lemmy.ca
        1·
        1 year ago

        I am with public mobile. It is available Canada-wide. The plan is $15 for calls and text + 250 mb data. Autopay, loyalty and other bonuses bring it down to $9. It works for me. Most people probably need at least the $30 ($24 for me with bonuses) plan.

        It think that could needs a few more asterisks lol