Canada also has a telecom cartel. The CRTC, which is the gov't regulatory body (and which is controlled by the telecoms), limits access to the market.
The CRTC does not limit access to the market, the elected government does. For national security purposes foreign ownership is restricted:
> As it stands now [in 2018], foreign ownership of a telecommunications company is limited to no more than 20 per cent of a company’s voting shares and no more than 33.3 per cent of the voting shares of a carrier’s holding company, and an effective total limit of 46.7 per cent (as long as the foreign entity doesn’t have control). On top of that, at least 80 per cent of the board members must be Canadian citizens.
* https://financialpost.com/telecom/tight-reins-leaves-our-tel...
See Telecommunications Act, Section 16. That dictates only domestic companies can really do much, which is the incumbents of Bell, Telus, Rogers, etc.
Reduce foreign operator restrictions and foreign operators may come into the market and provide more competition.
That and outright monopolies created by the government itself.
Which is why Bell Canada not peering at TorIX (and other Canadian IXPs) really annoys me. (Rogers, Telus, Cogeco, TekSavvy, etc, do.)
* https://www.cira.ca/improving-canadas-internet/initiatives/c...
Even major cloud hosting companies (AWS, Digital Ocean, OVH) have Canadian build-outs for folks that are sensitive to domestic/international issues, and yet if connect with Bell your traffic tends to go to Chicago and then back.