It's a well known fact the price for basic services is high in Canada. You can ask yourself why the prices for basic phone line, TV subscription or basic mobile phones is outrageously high and the only explanation is the low number of incumbents in each industry, their commodity of crying foul to regulators when other big players try to invade their territory, invoking "social aspects" of their services for all Canadians and the "complacency" of the political parties.
My frustration covered the well known facts in the "competitive" industries in Canada - telecommunications, banks, transportation, wireless telecom, media distribution. Here I want to tell about a personal history, our family switching to VoIP. I knew about VoIP telephony and used NetMessenger, then Yahoo and lastly Skype, but at home I continued to pay $34 for almost nothing. So after a few investigations I bought the services of Vbuzzer, a Canadian company which for $60 per year will provide the same service as Bell. I had to buy a VoIp adapter for our home phones, follow the settings for it and even get some services which I didn't want to pay at Bell. The catch is you have to have an internet connection which by default is owned by Bell (that will be the subject of another posting). Calling my internet provider confirmed I have to pay for the "dry loop" (phone cable without a Bell's phone) an extra $5, in perpetuity.
The grand total, per month, to have a phone and internet is $30 (internet ) + $5 (Vbuzzer) + $5 (dry loop) = $40 versus $30 (internet) + $30 (Bell) = $60, with Bell.
It is not a big saving but the whole point is the profit which goes to Bell for installing the phone cable in a new neighborhood. If you look from a business perspective, how much cost to install the phone cable in a new residential area, what is the operational cost for each new phone, the numbers are surprisingly low. That discrepancy (low cost, high price for a service in perpetuity) didn't pop-up on the radar of the house builders (aka Canadian entrepreneurs).
Let's assume a family lives in a house for more than ten years. At almost $3600 paid to Bell for basic telephony, the cable installation is less than $100. If you want to have internet through phone cable you have to pay at least $600. Now for less than $1000, Bell/or any other cabling company can install fiber optics and from that moment on you don't need any other cables/wireless connections for any of your digital needs. On fiber you can get everything: TV, VoIP, digital content, monitoring for your house, etc... for the next near future.
And here comes the power of many. As a single customer of Bell, Rogers or any service provider you don't have bargaining power; as a tenant in a large building, as a subscriber in a neighborhood of thousands of houses you have a lot of power over the content providers.
See you for now ....
My frustration covered the well known facts in the "competitive" industries in Canada - telecommunications, banks, transportation, wireless telecom, media distribution. Here I want to tell about a personal history, our family switching to VoIP. I knew about VoIP telephony and used NetMessenger, then Yahoo and lastly Skype, but at home I continued to pay $34 for almost nothing. So after a few investigations I bought the services of Vbuzzer, a Canadian company which for $60 per year will provide the same service as Bell. I had to buy a VoIp adapter for our home phones, follow the settings for it and even get some services which I didn't want to pay at Bell. The catch is you have to have an internet connection which by default is owned by Bell (that will be the subject of another posting). Calling my internet provider confirmed I have to pay for the "dry loop" (phone cable without a Bell's phone) an extra $5, in perpetuity.
The grand total, per month, to have a phone and internet is $30 (internet ) + $5 (Vbuzzer) + $5 (dry loop) = $40 versus $30 (internet) + $30 (Bell) = $60, with Bell.
It is not a big saving but the whole point is the profit which goes to Bell for installing the phone cable in a new neighborhood. If you look from a business perspective, how much cost to install the phone cable in a new residential area, what is the operational cost for each new phone, the numbers are surprisingly low. That discrepancy (low cost, high price for a service in perpetuity) didn't pop-up on the radar of the house builders (aka Canadian entrepreneurs).
Let's assume a family lives in a house for more than ten years. At almost $3600 paid to Bell for basic telephony, the cable installation is less than $100. If you want to have internet through phone cable you have to pay at least $600. Now for less than $1000, Bell/or any other cabling company can install fiber optics and from that moment on you don't need any other cables/wireless connections for any of your digital needs. On fiber you can get everything: TV, VoIP, digital content, monitoring for your house, etc... for the next near future.
And here comes the power of many. As a single customer of Bell, Rogers or any service provider you don't have bargaining power; as a tenant in a large building, as a subscriber in a neighborhood of thousands of houses you have a lot of power over the content providers.
See you for now ....
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