Hacker News Reader

Comment by ojbyrne | Hacker News Reader

The CRTC loves monopolies, plain and simple. Companies just take advantage of that.

Well technically they are oligopolies, but I completely agree. Our politicos are either sheep or paid shills for the telcos and cablecos.

Oh, and let's not forget the fact that we have the highest mobile data rates in the world (or very close to it)

Monopolies make sense when building up infrastructure. But after a certain period of time, the company blessed by the government as a monopoly should be dismantled or broken into smaller competing companies. Otherwise the companies, as you said, take advantage.

I agree. I think they have a problem with that "after a certain period of time" - perhaps because of lobbyists.

Like the military coups in Latin America that said they'd only be in power "for a certain period of time" until democracy is restored.

Kind of unfair to the company which invested the resources into building the infrastructure, isn't it? I agree monopolies cause problems, but I personally would be upset if I invested tremendous resources into something and then was told that I must give access to all these others who profit from my investment.

In this case however the building and maintenance of the infrastructure was and is heavily subsidized by Canadian taxpayers. As well the monopolies are not the sole private contributers.

Well, although Bell was broken up into many "smaller" pieces, those pieces appear to be simply re-merging, and re-congealing back together again, slowly but surely.

I suppose the initial break-up however is good, and would stimulate a more competitive environment, and allow new start-ups to join the game.

But eventually those pieces are simply drawn back together again... It's like when you break a magnet into many pieces -- they reattract back together.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com