You know how I’m always complaining about the horrible mobile service here in Canada? Turns out my whining was founded in fact. A recent post by Thomas Purves details the appalling inadequacy of mobile data access here in Canada:
I would like to say that Canada is a 3rd world country when it comes to Mobile ICT, except you can clearly see from this chart that even *Rwanda* has orders of magnitude better Mobile Data service than Canada.
I’ve recently been looking for a better data plan with Rogers, and I’ve realized that I just can’t afford to buy one right now. When I’m in London, however, I use my data plan without even considering the costs, it’s just that cheap. Here’s the chart that Thomas was referring to.
So while I think we all need to do something to abolish the CRTC — and while we’re at it, we need to do something about Net Neutrality here in Canada as well — I love the way Thomas puts it in his post:
If you live in Canada, write to your MP. The CRTC, as an institution, needs to be taken out and shot.
Not literally of course, as Thomas says, “we are Canadian after all,” but the sentiment is the right one. For more information, check out Thomas’ post. Thanks to Mark for sending this over.
Vasta, thanks for getting the word out.
Great post Sameer, I caught this through my RSS reader, and posted an article detailing my experiences over at OneDegree.ca.
Cheers mate!
Abolish the CRTC? Take out the CRTC and shoot it?
Please. The CRTC does not regulate wireless. Never has.
And this is where it’s gotten us. Sameer, first you say you want to enforce net neutrality and lower wireless data rates, but then you say you want to get rid of a regulator.
If not the CRTC, what exactly do you have in mind — a roving band of thugs to enforce your will? Having everyone get on their hands and knees to ask really, really nicely?
One of the things I’ve learned is that those who talk about getting rid of the CRTC need to sit down and think about it a bit more, because they haven’t, yet. If you really want to see the things happen that you say you want to happen, you should be out there intervening before the CRTC and trying to get it to be more, not less, pro-active in the judgements it renders.
The language is intentionally inflammatory, as you may have noticed on all the other blogs that have written about this matter.
Also, you first say the CRTC is not a regulator of wireless services, but then go on to refer to it as a regulator. If it is not regulating wireless, then maybe it should be: perhaps then I could see reason to not denigrate it so much.
Maybe you’re right in the sense that abolishing the CRTC is a bad idea (though there is a lot more I don’t agree with them on) but perhaps they need to step up and understand the concerns of everyday Canadians. Or perhaps, we need a regulatory body that is ACTUALLY concerned with communications in this country, unlike the CRTC.