Rogers to buy Shaw

[FlameOn]

Third year running we are among the highest prices in the world. Especially with our 20GB plans where we are number one.
This buyout is totally gonna bring prices down guys. I love that at the parliamentary hearing yesterday when asked by MPs why the buyout would increase competition Roger's CEO spun it as "It would make Rogers more competitive against Bell and Telus".

https://twitter.com/user/status/1376593544576634881

http://research.rewheel.fi/downloads...IC_VERSION.pdf

[Azure]

Bell buying MTS in Manitoba increased prices.

Bell argued that it wouldn't.

Prices were kept low for a couple years, but lately Bell has merged a lot of MTS customers into the Bell side, and unless you are a big corporate account, pricing got worse.

If you were a big corporate account, pricing got better.

The same thing will happen with Shaw & Rogers, but on a bigger scale. Nobody in their right mind actually believes that anything will get better other than how much more profit Rogers will make.

The ONLY reason these sales are allowed to continue is the amount of influence the telecom industry has over our politicians.

[FlameOn]

Videotron telling MPs they are ready and willing to take over Freedom mobile if government forces a breakup of Shaw before Rogers takeover.

https://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en...h&Stream=Video

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Azure

Bell buying MTS in Manitoba increased prices.

Bell argued that it wouldn't.

Prices were kept low for a couple years, but lately Bell has merged a lot of MTS customers into the Bell side, and unless you are a big cooperate account, pricing got worse.

If you were a big cooperate account, pricing got better.

The same thing will happen with Shaw & Rogers, but on a bigger scale. Nobody in their right mind actually believes that anything will get better other than how much more profit Rogers will make.

The ONLY reason these sales are allowed to continue is the amount of influence the telecom industry has over our politicians.

^^^ This 100%.

The real argument for the merger is that Shaw can't really afford to build out 5G on it's own. A big part of this is the diffuse population density and the sheer size of the country.

The worst thing is every time an operator is lost, it makes it much more unlikely that a new operator will start up. The cost of new entrants keeps going up and up and up.

One way to truly get competition is to open up the market to foreign ownership. Hell will have frozen over before the Feds ever let that happen.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

^^^ This 100%.

The real argument for the merger is that Shaw can't really afford to build out 5G on it's own. A big part of this is the diffuse population density and the sheer size of the country.

Our country's size has nothing to do with our cell phone costs because our population is highly concentrated to the lower latitudes. Australia and Canada are comparable GDP, similar equipment costs, similar population densities, and their plans come out on average to be half of what ours are.

From the prior time this was discussed w/ all the charts and studies:
https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpo...8&postcount=94

I'd say it's not that Shaw and Rogers can't afford to build out a 5G network, its the family voting shareholders aren't willing to forgo increasing dividends, which limits long term corporate capex reinvestment into the network in favor of keeping the short term payouts increasing.

[Azure]

Even if Freedom Mobile is forced to be sold to Videotron or even SaskTel, I still see a lot of concerns with Rogers being able to gain access to everything else that Shaw has.

This is Bell buying MTS, but worse x10, because Shaw is 10x bigger.

[bluejays]

Here’s a question I don’t understand, but why is the telecom industry protected by the Canadian government? Is it for national security?

[jayswin]

Just a guess, but as much as we hate them they provide a lot of jobs in Canada. I would imagine that if allowed in, foreign (see:US) telecoms would quickly crush and kill canadian telecoms.

Even though they'd still need a certain number of jobs here for install/sales etc. They'd likely keep as many corporate, support etc jobs in America as possible. And through redundancy with their major American workforces, they'd just straight up elite a lot of positions along with keeping remaining positions in the US.

[stampsx2]

Who cares

I was worried about all of this till i heard in that industry questioning video we’re only talking about some cell phone competition in three provinces. I thought this affected the entire country.

After an hour of watching from what i understood, shaw is only in the west and rogers is only in the east as far as internet and tv go and they don’t even compete. I’m guessing prices will stay the same since the competitor is telus and nothing changes there.

The only competition we’re talking about is cell phone competition with rogers in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Toronto. That’s all Shaw has but correct me if i understood that wrong.

Worst case i’m going to assume that if prices get out of control the government will step in as they did two years ago telling them to cut prices?

Now if you work for telus or in that industry i guess there are some other concerns.

Back to real estate.

[FlameOn]

Canada already pays high wireline internet fees relative to the rest of the world and anything other than a price change downwards is bad for consumers. Its actually a lot more nuanced than that. Market influence and size of the new Rogers entity and a unified nation wide fiber backbone can mean a lot of other consumer level costs not related to cell service.

• They could start charging more for wholesale internet rates to TPIA customers i.e. Teksavvy, Primus, and others forcing raises increases in prices from those providers.
• They can use their increased customer base as an argument to implement fees towards streaming services, potentially increasing costs for things like Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.
• They can charge higher carriage fees for Rogers owned channels and drive up costs for channels to other pay TV service providers while favoring their own. This would unfairly favor Shaw vs. Telus for example.

Generally larger market size means bigger power that will be exploited negatively. Look at the Bell/MTS buyout to see what that meant and how it's going to kill Calgary jobs, lower competition, and increase end consumer pricing.

[stampsx2]

^^^ yaaaa i’m guessing you work for telus.

If they haven’t done those things by now they’ll have a hard time implementing them under a different name i would imagine.

You were saying and i heard it mentioned in the video that videotron out of quebec is likely to take freedom’s place. We would have a national bilingual cell phone provider with low prices. I mean it’ll be a pretty quick and easy switch for me if i see my cell phone bill go up.

Our cell providers here in alberta would be bell, rogers, telus and videotron instead of shaw. Not much change at all except for a name.

Internet and tv i’m not too worried about so long as there is competition and a minimum of two providers. Since telus isn’t going anywhere that competition remains. I don’t see how changing from a shaw to rogers brand is going to change much for me.

Anyway. I’m out. I’ll let you guys fight it out.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

^^^ yaaaa i’m guessing you work for telus.

Internet and tv i’m not too worried about so long as there is competition and a minimum of two providers. Since telus isn’t going anywhere that competition remains. I don’t see how changing from a shaw to rogers brand is going to change much for me.

Haven't been in this thread long have you. I'm a Freedom customer and somehow I work for Telus? lol

Even for internet pricing we're among the highest in the world and to give a big player larger reach is going to end up crap for consumers and likely raise your internet rates. I'm surprised you're okay with that.

I wouldn't be okay with Bell taking over Telus either. If anything I'd like to see Bell broken up or a government mandated drop in wholesale internet rates across the board and municipalities allowing preferential access rates for new entrants looking to build networks. Works in other places around the world.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

^^^ yaaaa i’m guessing you work for telus.

If they haven’t done those things by now they’ll have a hard time implementing them under a different name i would imagine.

You were saying and i heard it mentioned in the video that videotron out of quebec is likely to take freedom’s place. We would have a national bilingual cell phone provider with low prices. I mean it’ll be a pretty quick and easy switch for me if i see my cell phone bill go up.

Our cell providers here in alberta would be bell, rogers, telus and videotron instead of shaw. Not much change at all except for a name.

Internet and tv i’m not too worried about so long as there is competition and a minimum of two providers. Since telus isn’t going anywhere that competition remains. I don’t see how changing from a shaw to rogers brand is going to change much for me.

Anyway. I’m out. I’ll let you guys fight it out.

Not even sure why you entered this thread. Are you a Rogers or Shaw shareholder?

Shaw has a massive fiber backbone in Canada. They own a lot of telecom infrastructure.

Right now one of the biggest issues facing Canada is our inability to offer high speed internet to every single Canadian. The reason this is still a problem is because of the 'last mile' problem. I.E. it is costly to dig a line to every single house. This is why companies like TekSavvy, or hundreds of others make deals with Rogers, Bell, Shaw, Telus, Hurricane Electric, etc, etc to buy wholesale transit and bandwidth. If we allow these 'backbone' providers to merge, competition on that front decreases, prices go up, and our ability to offer cheap internet to every Canadian becomes a bigger problem.

I don't even look at this from the mobile plan perspective because I am almost certain the government will force Shaw to divest Freedom Mobile.

My issue is with everything else.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Haven't been in this thread long have you. I'm a Freedom customer and somehow I work for Telus? lol

Even for internet pricing we're among the highest in the world and to give a big player larger reach is going to end up crap for consumers and likely raise your internet rates. I'm surprised you're okay with that.

I wouldn't be okay with Bell taking over Telus either. If anything I'd like to see Bell broken up or a government mandated drop in wholesale internet rates across the board and municipalities allowing preferential access rates for new entrants looking to build networks. Works in other places around the world.

This.

There are two ways to create better pricing in Canada.

Allowing MVNOs access to the mobile networks. And forcing better wholesale internet rates to encourage other companies to provide internet services.

Funny how the big 3 are very much against both.

In other countries (USA) both work fine, and the big telecom players don't see massive drops in their profits.

[Lubicon]

Competition and prices aside, I have not seen this mentioned yet and it is significant. This would be in conjunction with UCalgary if I understand correctly. That would be a nice win for the university.

"Rogers also plans to open a new National Centre of Technology and Engineering Excellence in Calgary, which will be home to 500 new engineering jobs. The centre will be a hub for research and development for the company."

https://calgaryherald.com/business/l...communications

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

Competition and prices aside, I have not seen this mentioned yet and it is significant. This would be in conjunction with UCalgary if I understand correctly. That would be a nice win for the university.

"Rogers also plans to open a new National Centre of Technology and Engineering Excellence in Calgary, which will be home to 500 new engineering jobs. The centre will be a hub for research and development for the company."

https://calgaryherald.com/business/l...communications

2023: The centre has been down-scaled to reflect market realities. It will now employ 3 part time cleaners.


Never believe any of this stuff.

[FlameOn]

Same broken promises Bell made before they took over MTS.

[calgarygeologist]

I don't understand much of the telecom industry but I've always wondered why the infrastructure component isn't nationalized especially in a country like Canada which needs to reach out to a lot of remote communities. The government could build out and invest in new infrastructure and sell licenses to the providers. Under this model it might be easier to bring in foreign competition and drive down prices.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

2023: The centre has been down-scaled to reflect market realities. It will now employ 3 part time cleaners.


Never believe any of this stuff.

I'm still waiting for the amazing plaza and restored facade that Encana was going to build when they tore down those heritage buildings for The Bow.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

I don't understand much of the telecom industry but I've always wondered why the infrastructure component isn't nationalized especially in a country like Canada which needs to reach out to a lot of remote communities. The government could build out and invest in new infrastructure and sell licenses to the providers. Under this model it might be easier to bring in foreign competition and drive down prices.

It doesn't need to be nationalized.

They just need to mandate wholesale access to both mobile & fiber based networks, and force super cheap prices.

That would allow 3rd party companies to provide services, and would fill a lot of gaps.