Why are banks still advertising "Vip mortgages call you back asap", ringfence real estate industry | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

COIN: Those mergers would have violated the basic conditions required for a functioning free market* - allowing too few competitors and too much control by one or two institutions. It would also have created two "Too big to fail" points of failure. It was a time of uncontrollable concentration of corporate power following the US gutting of the antitrust laws, a trend continuing today.

The mergers were widely criticized as genuinely not in the best interests of the country, and I wholeheartedly agree.

RetirEd

* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
AND virtually any economics textbook

Back in the post-FTA (Free Trade Agreement) days there was a flurry of anti-competitive mergers and aquisitions in Canada. Most of the participants lobbied for permission by saying they needed to be bigger to fight huge foreign companies. And as soon as they got permission most of them sold out to those foreign companies.

Remember Canadian beer companies? Speedo? Heinz? Lot of Canadian car manufacturing? All the rest?
RetirEd

savemoresaveoften: Why is blocking a shaw-Rogers merger "simply ballocks?" They collectively hold wayy too much of the Canadian telecommunications business, just as the Big Five banks did in the case we both just cited. And Canadian telecom pricing is near the top of world rates! The companies are intensely profitable and shockingly abusive in their practices.
RetirEd

savemoresaveoften said

Rogers already propose and will sell Freedom so there will remain 4 major "competitors" in the wireless, and wireless is where people spend their money on.
The tv cable business, the landline etc are a declining business, Rogers, Bell, Telus are losing customers in that side of the business as more migrate to wireless, streaming, so the argument of less competition is not a real argument. Cable internet is the only area where less competition is indeed true.

If anything, I am surprised Rogers is willing to go ahead with the merger, even without them holding on to Freedom.

The competition bureau is simply old school and not think in a coherent manner. They block the deal for the sake of blocking, which is their only job to justify their own existence.

As to Canada being one of the most expensive telecom rates, for the amount of land coverage (both wireless and wired), the amount of infrastructure that needs to be put in place, and the service we get in return, I think its relatively fair. I wont simply look at them as hugely profitable, and then complain "they make so much cuz they overcharge.) To lower price, maybe the government stop auctioning airwaves for billions of dollars every time, that will help the pricing for sure.  

I will add a couple more comments to your post.
1) Canada has a large land mass but a relatively small population.
2) Canada doesn't have the population to support 4 national providers. France with twice the population and a much smaller land mass has 3 or 4 providers.

Bill said
Rogers just ended online account access for pay-as-you-go so now you have to call in to top up (I do once a year, for about 10 years now), likely so they can talk you into a monthly plan.  

my inlaw has the Fido $100 a year pay as you go plan. Basically $100, good for upto $100 as a prepaid, you use it or lose it over 1 year.
I think Fido still offer the plan, but definitely not well advertised, for the exact reason you described. Porting your number over is free too. check it out

I was wondering why they did that--i.e.,ending the online access
It was a pretty good site, I could handle everything there-- plus check all the usage calls and charges
And, of course, pay as you go no longer functional in USA, which is a huge pita for the occasional traveler.
My first thought was-- they are going to pull the pay as you go entirely
They have tried a couple of times to stealth switch me over to monthly contract charge. That's my theory-- they will keep doing "stuff" to switch me over.
Since I'm stubborn, they may just pull the pin on me completely

My experience too, mustang, and yes, there's no longer a way to check your useage and charges, no access at all. I too figure pay-as-you-go's days are numbered, probably very few use it. If it happens we'll probably just switch my wife's phone to cheapest monthly plan and then just use the one phone. Sadly my Tinder days are long gone, didn't even have it when I was younger, so really what do I need my own private phone for anyway?

And note that corporations aren't people, and any taxes "they" pay are really borne by actual people like customers, employees, shareholders, etc.

Bill said
My experience too, mustang, and yes, there's no longer a way to check your useage and charges, no access at all. I too figure pay-as-you-go's days are numbered, probably very few use it. If it happens we'll probably just switch my wife's phone to cheapest monthly plan and then just use the one phone. Sadly my Tinder days are long gone, didn't even have it when I was younger, so really what do I need my own private phone for anyway?  

Actually, just realized another alternative still available. I also have a Speakout phone (from 7-11)
Only $25 per year-- depending on usage, of course. But,the other thing Ijust noted--Rogers has gradually increased the per minute/text from .20 when I started, up to .70 now. So, we never used up the $100-- until this year.
Speakout still at 0.20
The advantage to Rogers were:
1. worked in USA
2. pretty decent web site to track and manage things
Both those reasons now gone