Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
The world was shocked this week when news leaked out of Canada that the country’s trio of dominate wireless carriers have recently increased the price of services in near unison. Shocked!
According to Canadian press, the carriers – Telus Mobility, Rogers Wireless and Bell Canada – all jacked up their pricing for smartphone contracts in a uniformity of moves only matched by Team Canada’s performance at last year’s World Synchronized Skating competition.
It was that good.
Of course, carriers raising prices is in of itself not really big news as carriers around the world make such pricing adjustments in tune with what their respective markets will allow. Heck, Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility have been moving lock-step in pricing moves for years. And, in Canada, Telus and Bell Canada are basically the same carrier, so those two mimicking price moves is somehow even less of a surprise.
However, for Canada the moves come just weeks after the country failed to attract any new competitors through its 700 MHz spectrum auction, with the big three all garnering a significant portion of the licenses up for bid. This, despite the government’s feverish attempts to lure anyone into the market, to the howls of protest by those same three operators.
You may remember those efforts. The one’s where basically Industry Canada was laying out rules making it more difficult for incumbent operators with significant market share – Telus, Rogers and Bell Canada – from garnering a significant portion of spectrum from the 700 MHz auction, from acquiring rivals and forcing them to alter long-held and out-dated contract terms. Industry Canada was also willing to bend some foreign ownership rules in order to attract new entrants, which also proved less than successful.
And somehow, the three large incumbents came back from all of that and have decided to raise prices, even for their prepaid services. Imagine that.
I am not claiming that Canada’s wireless carriers are evil in any way, though Dr. Evil himself (Mike Myers) is Canadian. But, these price increases did come on the heels of Industry Canada’s Minister of Industry James Moore touting the success of the 700 MHz auction by stating:
“While this debate has played out among analysts and commentators, our government had one goal: to take deliberate, concrete steps to create more choice, lower prices and better wireless service for Canadians and their families.”
It would seem that two of those goals have now fallen short, with the final one on the shoulders of grudge-holding wireless operators to come through on.
Further under-cutting Industry Canada’s claims of increasing competition was that the one company that did manage to increase its potential as a new rival for the three established carriers, Videotron, has taken a non-Tron stance in regards to plans of expansion outside of its native Quebec.
During the company’s recent quarterly results conference call, Videotron noted:
“While no decision has yet been made on how to use the spectrum, various options for maximizing the value of our investment are now available to us.”
That sounds promising, no? Sort of reminds one of Canada’s Shaw Communications, which also made noise about launching wireless services, only to eventually sell its spectrum holdings to Rogers.
So, where does that leave the Canadian wireless market? In a whole mess of dysfunction that shows the real dark side of that country’s normally squeaky clean image of brave polar bear fighters, curlers and masters of synchronization. Well, maybe they are still masters of that last one.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–Not sure what this meant, but ProtectCell recently released a report showing that iPhone owners are 46% less likely to need a replacement device than consumers with other smartphones. For those keeping score, ProtectCell provides insurance for mobile devices.
Breaking down the numbers, the company claims iPhone users are also 11% less likely to report a broken or damaged device, but 65% more likely to report a device replacement “due to their device going missing.” Not sure exactly what a “device going missing” would mean other than the fact the user lost or had their phone stolen, though the thought of an iPhone just packing up and walking away does seem sort of cool.
–Talk about a match made in heaven. Prepaid wireless provider BYO Wireless outbid all of its wireless rivals in announcing a partnership with NBC’s “American Dream Builders” television show that calls for BYO to be the “sole wireless service provider to the show’s designers on all episodes.” Take that Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile/Sprint!
Though I guess I have one question in that how will viewers really be able to tell the show’s “dream builders” are using a BYO device seeing that BYO relies on consumers bringing their own phones to the company’s service. I would think that when they show those sexy close ups of a “dream builder” dialing up their “dream contractors” all viewers will see is a phone with a Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile/Sprint logo on it.
Then again, how many people are actually going to be watching this show anyways? No harm, no foul.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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