700Mhz spectrum auction

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Fire

I never said the consumer would be better off with private enterprise, I'm saying the company would do better financially as a private enterprise.

You bolded the previous post's sentence "They are a crown corp. that really challenges the notion that private business is more effective than government run." and said "No it doesn't". The rest of your post was, presumably, in support of that, although how it does so is not clear to me unless you are claiming that private enterprise making maximum profit was a good that outweighed the cost to consumers. Or I guess it could all be one long non sequitur.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

I'm pretty happy with Wind so far. I'm curious about your signal issues. I've had a bit of trouble downtown, but other than that I'm pretty damn happy. It's about $90/month less US long distance in my pocket and that buys a whole bunch of roaming data/minutes when I'm out of a Wind zone.

Wind is great from a pricing and customer focus standpoint, don't get me wrong, but I've had trouble just within big office towers and inner building meeting rooms where I can't get a signal. Other than that I haven't had any issues with signal. 700Mhz certainly would have helped with this.

Also speed isn't the best with Wind, I have trouble keeping HSPA+ in a lot of places so I don't get over 3-4Mbps most of the time. Things just take longer to load is all.

[Fire]

Originally Posted by jammies

You bolded the previous post's sentence "They are a crown corp. that really challenges the notion that private business is more effective than government run." and said "No it doesn't". The rest of your post was, presumably, in support of that, although how it does so is not clear to me unless you are claiming that private enterprise making maximum profit was a good that outweighed the cost to consumers. Or I guess it could all be one long non sequitur.

I probably misinterpreted what he meant by "is more effective". I assumed he meant the company is better run because it's government owned, but after re-reading it I can see how he meant something else.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Fire

I probably misinterpreted what he meant by "is more effective". I assumed he meant the company is better run because it's government owned, but after re-reading it I can see how he meant something else.

To clarify, the argument for the privatization of "essential" services is that a private company can deliver the essential good with better service and at a lower cost and the competition motive will result in a lower cost to the consumer. Generally I agree with this. However in the case of wireless and cable companies this has not occurred. The best wireless providers in Canada in terms of service and cost seem to be the government owned ones. And in provinces with government owned telcos rates are lower for cable and phones.

If the general rule that private companies are more efficient then the bell/telus/rogers conglomerate should be able to force sasktel into a money losing position and cause it to fold. Instead Sasktel out performs them in terms of subscribers.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by GGG

To clarify, the argument for the privatization of "essential" services is that a private company can deliver the essential good with better service and at a lower cost and the competition motive will result in a lower cost to the consumer. Generally I agree with this. However in the case of wireless and cable companies this has not occurred. The best wireless providers in Canada in terms of service and cost seem to be the government owned ones. And in provinces with government owned telcos rates are lower for cable and phones.

If the general rule that private companies are more efficient then the bell/telus/rogers conglomerate should be able to force sasktel into a money losing position and cause it to fold. Instead Sasktel out performs them in terms of subscribers.

Private companies only drive down costs in an environment where there is a high level of competition pushing down profit margins because they are better at streamlining and process changes than government organizations. When you have a very small number of players in a market, competition is low and private companies have very little incentive to actually change or streamline in order to improve services. This really changes the private company's focus to maximizing profits instead so much so that a crown corporation would actually perform better for the end consumer.

There are so many examples of this from the cellular market and not too long ago the energy/power distribution/generation deregulation in Alberta. It's the whole private companies are not good for the consumer for things with inelastic demand or low elastic demand. i.e. energy, health care, cellular (unless you increase the competition)

[Looch City]

So a couple days after Wind drops out, Telus is increasing their prices by another $5. Source: http://mobilesyrup.com/2014/01/16/te...te-plans-by-5/

Coincidence?

Bell and Rogers will most likely (definitely) follow suit.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

So a couple days after Wind drops out, Telus is increasing their prices by another $5. Source: http://mobilesyrup.com/2014/01/16/te...te-plans-by-5/

Coincidence?

Bell and Rogers will most likely (definitely) follow suit.

Gotta pay for Telus Sky somehow!

[MonsieurFish]

New to this, and don't fully understand this stuff... but I read through the thread before signing up with Wind this past weekend, and the guy at the store mentioned how their service will be improving with this new spectrum rolling out in the near future. Is this true? Or does the fact that they dropped out mean that their service won't be getting any better soon?

[BlackArcher101]

Don't event think current phones can use 700mhz?

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Don't event think current phones can use 700mhz?

Nexus 5 has 700mhz LTE

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Nexus 5 has 700mhz LTE

Ah, looked up the specs earlier, but they were in "bands", not freq.

[accord1999]

Since AT&T already uses 700 MHz/Band 17 for LTE and many of the Big 3 phones are almost identical to AT&T, a number of existing smartphones already have support for Band 17. This band corresponds to the B and C blocks up for auction in Canada.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by MonsieurFish

New to this, and don't fully understand this stuff... but I read through the thread before signing up with Wind this past weekend, and the guy at the store mentioned how their service will be improving with this new spectrum rolling out in the near future. Is this true? Or does the fact that they dropped out mean that their service won't be getting any better soon?

Since they dropped out of the auction, Wind can only improve their service by adding more towers to fill gaps or to purchase Mobilicity and use their spectrum.

It would also have taken time for Wind to use take advantage of the spectrum; even if they did win a prime 700 Mhz block, that block would almost certainly be C1 or C2 block, which are used by Verizon's LTE service in the USA. I believe in Canada, only the iPhone 5s and 5c support this band.

[Azure]

There were rumours that the results of the auction will be released today.

[cam_wmh]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Since they dropped out of the auction, Wind can only improve their service by adding more towers to fill gaps or to purchase Mobilicity and use their spectrum.

It would also have taken time for Wind to use take advantage of the spectrum; even if they did win a prime 700 Mhz block, that block would almost certainly be C1 or C2 block, which are used by Verizon's LTE service in the USA. I believe in Canada, only the iPhone 5s and 5c support this band.

Why would Wind go through the auction when they can go to Mobility's bankruptcy hearing, and buy spectrum at cents on the dollar?

Their last minute pull-out was smoke & mirrors imo.

[Azure]

Is Mobility buying 700mhz spectrum?

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

Why would Wind go through the auction when they can go to Mobility's bankruptcy hearing, and buy spectrum at cents on the dollar?

Their last minute pull-out was smoke & mirrors imo.

Mobilicity's spectrum is not ideal for propagation. It's all AWS which is shiety for that.

[Nehkara]

The results of the spectrum auction will be announced at 3 PM Mountain (75 minutes from now).

Source

[DoubleK]

I'm trying to figure out whether to be excited or not...

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

I'm trying to figure out whether to be excited or not...

Even if Wind was in it, the only interesting thing about the auction was who get the blocks that are compatible with AT&T. The 4 prime blocks were going to the Big 3 and the regional/Wind no matter what.

At least now, there's the question of whether Videotron would be willing to go after the 4th prime block in Alberta, BC and Ontario.