Globalive is ‘Canadian’ says Canada Govt

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
4,646
The Canadian government has determined telecom Globalive is a “Canadian company,” allowing it to enter the mobile phone market there. As can be expected, the existing three companies (Rogers, Telus, BCE) don’t welcome the additional competition but are especially incensed because 2/3 of Globalive shares are owned by an Egyptian telecom holding. Drama eh?

The company is testing networks in Toronto and Calgary, where it plans to first introduce service before adding coverage in Vancouver, Ottawa and Edmonton, reaching a population of between 15 million and 18 million people. The carrier plans to sell BlackBerry, HTC and Samsung handsets through its own stores and kiosks in Blockbuster Inc. movie-rental outlets.
Click to expand...
 
lol, the "Robelus" Big 3 alliance has been in turmoil since last month.

A lawsuit from Bell suing Rogers for false advertising that it's the most reliable.
Rogers then sues Bell who advertises they're the fastest, most reliable, and largest .
Telus then sues Rogers for claiming that their network is better than the Telus/Bell network.

I think it's just meant to show that there is significant "competition" in the Canadian market.
 
The CRTC, the body which is supposed to represent Canadian consumers, but is actually a bunch of ex Rogers and Bell big wigs, initially denied Globalives entrance into the market, the federal government finally gave the go-ahead. I welcome competition in the currently monopoly which exists here in Ontario.
 
I don't think Tony Clement wanted to deal with angry Canadians so he decided to do the right thing :D
 
Its about time Ontario needs the competition. CRTC doesn't work for the Canadian consumers they work for big business.
 
Makaveli@BETA said:
Its about time Ontario needs the competition. CRTC doesn't work for the Canadian consumers they work for big business.
Click to expand...

Well, I doubt the government is padding their paychecks and considering most if not all of them were working for the Big 3...it raises eyebrows. The CRTC has yet to do anything useful to me especially after letting Bell screw over every single DSL user in Ontario.
 
I would only welcome some proper phone companies... right now, they charge us insane amounts of money for data. For example, there used to be a plan 2 years ago, 6gb for $30. You could only get it when you bought an iPhone from either Fido/Rogers. Now, everyone is offering 3GB/$100 plan... It's fucking rape. And the only reason they can do this is because they have no competition.
 
About time.... I thought I read ~2 years ago that the government was finally allowing licensing of more companies, like Shaw? Maybe just seeing something now...
 
Asked why the government overruled the CRTC, Clement said there were differences over the interpretation of whether foreigners had “effective control” of the company.

The regulator had ruled that a non-Canadian holds two- thirds of Globalive’s equity, is the principal source of technical expertise and provides it with access to an established trademark.

“This is, and should be, a subjective test, and so it is possible two branches of government could reasonably come to two different conclusions,” Clement said.
Click to expand...

While I am all for competition (and strongly dislike the incumbent players), foreign ownership rules of vital infrastructure exist for a reason. Those rules should objective and clear, not subjective and whimsical. Clement has given no logic to how he interprets them as a Canadian company, or reasons for government overruling it's own agencies. Clement is merely another Harper lapdog. This is with a minority government. I wonder what the PMOs power would be like with a Majority. Clearly our checks/balances are out of wack here.

I wonder how quick Washington (can they even do that?) would be to over-ride the FTC and mandate a middle eastern telecom provider?
 
I really don't care how 'Canadian' the company is. More competition is good. I've been waiting many years for Globalive is to make it here. Hopefully their plans are a good, and shake up the competition.

And yeah... the CRTC ... ugh.
 
Snowdog said:
While I am all for competition (and strongly dislike the incumbent players), foreign ownership rules of vital infrastructure exist for a reason. Those rules should objective and clear, not subjective and whimsical. Clement has given no logic to how he interprets them as a Canadian company, or reasons for government overruling it's own agencies. Clement is merely another Harper lapdog. This is with a minority government. I wonder what the PMOs power would be like with a Majority. Clearly our checks/balances are out of wack here.

I wonder how quick Washington (can they even do that?) would be to over-ride the FTC and mandate a middle eastern telecom provider?
Click to expand...

It's debatable whether a wireless service provider should be considered "vital infrastructure". In parts of India maybe. Furthermore, the more of them the are, the less vital each one becomes.

Invoking US policies on wireless competition is not exactly sane.
 
A big win for the Canadian consumers. It's about time the Rogers and Bell get some real challenges. They've been ripping consumers with bullshit contracts, hidden charges and low bandwidth caps for a long time and there's a reason why they're the most hated companies in Canada.
 
Thank god for conservatives.. Hopefully they get a majority and get rid of the CRTC all together.
 
Snowdog said:
While I am all for competition (and strongly dislike the incumbent players), foreign ownership rules of vital infrastructure exist for a reason. Those rules should objective and clear, not subjective and whimsical. Clement has given no logic to how he interprets them as a Canadian company, or reasons for government overruling it's own agencies. Clement is merely another Harper lapdog. This is with a minority government. I wonder what the PMOs power would be like with a Majority. Clearly our checks/balances are out of wack here.

I wonder how quick Washington (can they even do that?) would be to over-ride the FTC and mandate a middle eastern telecom provider?
Click to expand...

Yeah yeah we all know how bad a man Stephen Harper is, he'll eat your children and empty your back account :eek: We need more Jean Chretiens and Paul Martin's right :rolleyes:

It's socialists like you that make this country a laughing stock. The only reason the CRTC imposes the rules they do is to make the fat fatter. Whether it's TV or celluar we get SCREWED here all just to protect incompetent companies that are in bed with each other.
 
StaticSurge said:
Yeah yeah we all know how bad a man Stephen Harper is, he'll eat your children and empty your back account :eek: We need more Jean Chretiens and Paul Martin's right :rolleyes:

It's socialists like you that make this country a laughing stock. The only reason the CRTC imposes the rules they do is to make the fat fatter. Whether it's TV or celluar we get SCREWED here all just to protect incompetent companies that are in bed with each other.
Click to expand...

The USA has similar foreign ownership rules for telecom sector, as do most western nations.

It isn't a left/right issue. It is considered a national security issue.
 
StaticSurge said:
Yeah yeah we all know how bad a man Stephen Harper is, he'll eat your children and empty your back account :eek: We need more Jean Chretiens and Paul Martin's right :rolleyes:

It's socialists like you that make this country a laughing stock. The only reason the CRTC imposes the rules they do is to make the fat fatter. Whether it's TV or celluar we get SCREWED here all just to protect incompetent companies that are in bed with each other.
Click to expand...

And Harper isn't interested in selling Canada out to line his own pockets? The Conservatives even had the "Canada’s Economic Action Plan" signs printed in the United States. Talk about spreading the public wealth around .... to other countries.
 
This ruling can still be overturned. Tony Clement is not the highest man on the totem pole.

The top dog in Canada is of course the Governor General. Represented of the Queen, of which Michelle granted our Prime Minister Harper the right to prorogue government (so that they could not democratically kick him out of office)

There are at least three more places where this can be rejected, two of them British.

People in the US have no idea how tight we are to the British. We just got partial control of our constitution sometime around 1982, including land usage laws (which we have been unsuccessful in amending)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsuccessful_attempts_to_amend_the_Canadian_Constitution

If you want to setup a hotdog stand in Canada, it pretty well has to be approved by not only govt, but the Brits as well - or it can be constitutionally taken away at a moments notice.

This Egyptian WIND guy has got balls to do it the "honest" way though. Lots of foreign companies simply go multinational and disguise their foreign assets to do business in Canada.
 
m2h said:
I really don't care how 'Canadian' the company is. More competition is good. I've been waiting many years for Globalive is to make it here. Hopefully their plans are a good, and shake up the competition.

And yeah... the CRTC ... ugh.
Click to expand...

No kidding. I would welcome Taliban Moble if it drove the prices down. The prices are still going up. A year ago you could get cid/vm/150 txt for $11/month at rogers, now its $12 for just cid/vm.
 
Given that GATS and NAFTA require countries to allow all foreign investors to invest in a market and that the arbitration panels that administer these agreements are free to disagree with Clement that Globalive is "Canadian"... did I miss something, or might Clement have basically just strike down Canada's foreign ownership requirements on the telecom industry?

I'm guessing I probably did miss something since the CRTC's rules allowed something like what, 20% foreign ownership? I'm not sure how that complied with trade laws either.
 
Dephcon said:
No kidding. I would welcome Taliban Moble if it drove the prices down. The prices are still going up. A year ago you could get cid/vm/150 txt for $11/month at rogers, now its $12 for just cid/vm.
Click to expand...

Ditto to both of you.

We need this regardless of who owns them!
 
Dephcon said:
No kidding. I would welcome Taliban Moble if it drove the prices down. The prices are still going up. A year ago you could get cid/vm/150 txt for $11/month at rogers, now its $12 for just cid/vm.
Click to expand...

The top 3 have already dropped monthly fee's as well as some rates upon globe being allowed to do buisness.

What is sad is they said canada pays the highest rates in the world for wireless access, how the heck does that work!! we should be paying less!
 
StaticSurge said:
Yeah yeah we all know how bad a man Stephen Harper is, he'll eat your children and empty your back account :eek: We need more Jean Chretiens and Paul Martin's right :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Whats wrong with Paul Martin? The fact that he got rid of a $42 billion deficit, paid down $36 billion of national debt, and managed to record recorded five consecutive budget surpluses? Which Harper consequently burned through like something that is burned quickly? maybe magnesium?

Lets see what Harper has on his list?
funneling stimulus money to conservative ridings:
link 1
link 2

All the attacks on Richard Colvin?
torture allegations
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top