I was a Shaw Mobile (not Freedom) customer, and Rogers wanted me to drive 600km (both ways) through the Kootenay mountains in winter to get my new SIM cards.
Weird. They mailed my new SIM cards to me.
?
They had $10b+ in equity to work with and had ample opportunity to capture ZIRP if they wanted.
Anything inhibiting Shaw’s ability to raise capital was its dual class structure where the Shaw family retained control despite owning a minority of the shares.
They could also have just eliminated our archaic foreign ownership laws. I am surprised this hasn’t come up in trade negotiations. If we want improved productivity then we desperately need competition. If we don’t get serious about this then we’ll continue to languish economically as a nation.
Rogers support is pretty notorious country wide, I'm sure it still varies at a localized level.
I had a Rogers internet install technician come to my house (for Teksavvy because the gov mandates they run the networks for small operators) and instead of drilling a hole through a wall he opened a window a crack ran the cable through and went home. The girl on the phone couldn't believe my story but I'm sure nothing happened in terms of punishment.
This is the outcome of artificial barriers to competition in the name of national benefit. It doesn't matter how absurd your customer story, neither customers nor the upstart businesses have a choice.
Their system didn't work when setting them up, and I had two different support operators tell me that my only option was to drive to Cranbrook. In the middle of winter. This is a drive that involves 3 mountain passes.