
Ask HN: Addressing Canadian Telco Abuse of Power - grownseed
Hi HN,<p>I&#x27;ve been living in Canada for a few years now, after having lived in several other countries. When I first arrived, I was shocked by how expensive phone&#x2F;internet providers are, and as time went on, things only appeared to get worse.<p>Every now and then, I check &quot;competing&quot; offers only to find out that they essentially cost the same, sometimes in roundabout ways (confusing consumers with a myriad of options and such). To make matters worse, costs are actually going up. One such example was Shaw downgrading all of their offers (bandwidth, usage, etc.), while effectively hiking up their prices. Likewise, they&#x27;ll increase the price of your existing package every so often, with absolutely no justification.<p>I&#x27;ve tried to get clarifications from various telcos, which went about as well as one might imagine. As many other people are, I&#x27;m convinced there is corporate collusion at play here, which is reinforced by the few oligopolies running the business. Despite repeated outrage over the years (a quick Google search for Canadian telco oligopolies&#x2F;collusion will bring up tons of results), nothing has happened and things keep getting worse.<p>What resources are available to the general public to push this trend back? How would the kind people of HN address this situation in a constructive, realistic and effective manner?<p>Thank you!
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anonbanker
As a litigious american immgrant, I've been able to mitigate my costs with
counter-claims.

Every time the price goes up, I send their CFO a bill for the yearly
difference of my charges. After the second notice, when the CFO has defaulted
and is now personally liable for a lien, I get a polite letter from someone
else in the company saying that my bill has been "credited for mistaken
charges."

When my bandwidth goes down, I bill them back for the adjusted bandwidth. same
song and dance, and the bandwidth shoots up again after an "upgrade on your
node was completed".

In short, I've had a 100Mbit connection with Shaw for 4 years now, with
(almost) no outages for $70/month.

~~~
deskamess
How does that work? I mean what is the basis for the counter claim in law? I
don't mind writing a couple of letters to get this going.

~~~
anonbanker
If you're really interested in the foundations of filing a counterclaim, I
would suggest Brian Blum's seminal work[0]. It will explain in great detail
more than I could summarize.

However, I'll relay a parable told to me in first-year law school contracts
class:

A man picks up a hitchiker on the side of the road. beautiful girl. She offers
to fool around with him while driving (use your imagination). after the act is
over, she says "I forgot to mention: I'm a prostitute, and that act cost $50."

Without missing a beat, the driver responds, "It just so happens that I forgot
to mention: I'm a taxi driver, and this trip costs $60, so I'll take the $10
you owe me now."

0\. [https://www.amazon.com/Examples-Explanations-Contracts-
Brian...](https://www.amazon.com/Examples-Explanations-Contracts-Brian-
Blum/dp/1454815477)

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jtcchan
I fully support your cause and have witnessed this as well. I looked into it
briefly and I believe your best avenues are:

* CRTC [http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/](http://crtc.gc.ca/eng/) * Competition Bureau [http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/](http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/)

Where complaints can be made re: competitive pricing and misleading
advertisements.

See also: [http://www.ipvancouverblog.com/canadiancompetitionlaw-
abuseo...](http://www.ipvancouverblog.com/canadiancompetitionlaw-
abuseofdominance/)

Good luck!

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mthoms
[https://openmedia.org/en/ca](https://openmedia.org/en/ca)

Openmedia is an advocacy group that is very active and has a handful of modest
successes under its belt. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMedia.ca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMedia.ca)

Another good resource for keeping informed is through the site of law
professor Michael Geist. I should note that his focus is a little more on
copyright law. [http://www.michaelgeist.ca](http://www.michaelgeist.ca)

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mynameislegion
If you live in western Canada, Lightspeed is beacon of hope.

[http://www.lightspeed.ca/personal/ratesadsl.html#table](http://www.lightspeed.ca/personal/ratesadsl.html#table)

Cost comparison:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/comments/4dtjt1/internet_s...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Edmonton/comments/4dtjt1/internet_service_providers/d1uc1ya)

~~~
mthoms
Lightspeed looks interesting. Unfortunately their website doesn't instill a
whole lot of confidence. Has your experience been positive?

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andy9775
The other issue with Canadian telecom is that certain companies are
essentially given a government monopoly in certain areas. Where I live, cogeco
provides cable Internet and Bell DSL. However, in the next city Rogers does
cable and another does DSL. The logic is that one company owns one line and
does maintnence on it. Also encourages companies to raise prices and decrease
service since you have no other choice.

As for cell phones, it comes down to competition. I know that Saskatchewan as
saskatel and the offerings from Rogers, Bell Telus used to be half of what you
would pay on other provinces (haven't checked this lately).

~~~
tonyarkles
Still true re: Sasktel, as far as I know. I've had a lot of family and friends
leave the province, but try to keep their 306 number for as long as possible,
to stay locked into their existing Telus or Bell contracts while living in
another province.

For reference, I pay $90/mo for 13GB of data, unlimited talk including long
distance, unlimited SMS. Could it be cheaper? Sure. My old plan was
"unlimited" (throttled after 10GB), but was only around $65. Had to change
plans when I broke my old phone.

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DKnoll
Very, very little. The CRTC and the Competition Bureau are the relevant
political bodies if you feel like trying.

I pay $79.99 CAD/month for 250Mb/20Mb with no data cap (I have pushed this to
extremes, there is no hidden cap) from Rogers. I'm pretty happy with it.

Telecom has always been a cabal in Canada, predating the Internet. Good luck
trying to change it.

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Spoom
Bell is required to lease out its lines, so if you're in an area with a good
DSL connection, check out TekSavvy[1] who have very good reviews[2]. You are
still subject to Bell occasionally being dicks, but it's better than paying
Bell directly.

1\. [http://teksavvy.com/](http://teksavvy.com/)

2\.
[http://www.dslreports.com/reviews/2564](http://www.dslreports.com/reviews/2564)

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PerfectElement
I've been with Wind Mobile for years (unlimited everything for $40/month), but
I've got tired of not having service when I really needed it. Now that I have
an online business, I can't afford to be offline every time I drive out of
town. I'm moving to Rogers and going to pay more than double for 5GB of data.

~~~
tonyarkles
Don't come out to the prairies! Out here, Rogers pretty much only has coverage
in the major cities and along the major highways (sounds similar to your
experience with Wind). Sasktel/Telus/Bell all share Sasktel's towers, and
Sasktel has a mandate to cover a huge amount of the province. Last I heard,
Rogers had entered a peering agreement with Sasktel finally, but they charge
customers extra to connect to the rural towers.

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fmilne
[https://oyyo.ca](https://oyyo.ca) provides beta testers with a telephone
number in exchange for feedback. Runs on WiFi or with a tablet data plan from
Rogers or Bell.

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grownseed
Just wanted to say thanks to everybody for the great feedback! I'm really glad
I turned to HN for this.

Some people mentioned OpenMedia, who happen to be based in Vancouver where I
am, so I'm planning on giving them a shout soon.

As for the CRTC, I spent a bit of time looking them up and I have to admit it
didn't make me feel particularly confident in their ability to make anything
happen. That said, I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Again, thank you all, I'm hopeful something can be done.

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spoonie
If you are lucky enough to live in an area with any kind of competition,
choose them over the incumbents. You should choose them even of they provide
worse speeds or less comprehensive customer service. Ideally you should choose
a fully independent ISP that doesn't lease any infrastructure from the
incumbents.

