I received a politely worded brush off from the Canadian Competition Bureau’s Law Officer Stephanie Paolin yesterday. While I’m sure Ms. Paolin was merely “following orders”, it was this blasé approach to competition in the Canadian telecommunications space that has allowed the financial transgressions against the paying Canadian public to take place over the last two decades.
The gist of the letter was that the Rogers is not a monopoly due to the competition it is engaged in with Bell, Telus, Alliant, T-baytel, Sasktel, Virgin, Solo and Koodo. Naturally this position is one of ignorance; while the handsets may appear similar in form, they are not – as stated in the letter – similar in function. Furthermore, Rogers/Fido operates a GSM network while Telus, Bell, et al. operate via CDMA. It should be considered (and considered as the foremost fact) that Rogers/Fido has no competition in the GSM network space.
The exact quote was
It is the Bureau’s view that Rogers does not hold a dominant position in the market for mobile wireless telephony services in Canada. Rogers is in direct competition with two other major wireless providers, in addition to a number of smaller carriers, all of whom offer handsets that are functional substitutes for the iPhone. Moreover, Rogers’ recently-announced pricing plans for the iPhone do not constitute an anti-competitive act as these pricing plans do not have an intended negative effect on a competitor that is predatory, disciplinary or exclusionary. Rather, they reflect an attempt by Rogers to market a product consumers find desirable and set prices accordingly. This may ultimately be disciplined by competitor responses, and/or by consumers rejecting such a strategy. In either case, market forces will determine if these prices can be sustained.
The bolding is mine – but I found this curious. The competition bureau is not interested that the pricing may be predatory towards consumers. Instead, it is merely concerned with maintaining the status quo for businesses. The long and the short of it is that the competition bureau flipped me an eloquent bird and told me to go stuff myself. It’s good to see that we’ve got these agencies in place – what would we do without such powerful siphons on the public purse?
We NEED bureaucratic nonsense! Without it, we’d be making friends without licenses, restrictions and rules! Think of the children!
Sometimes, we just have to deal with it, like mature people who have lost all energy and reason to fight for what’s theirs. I don’t know what kind of world you live in but here on earth, you must submit to the authorities and do each and everything you say or you cannot live in civilization.
Rules and regulations, they’re what make the world go round.