The prevailing argument is that going from 4 major providers to 3 in fact takes competition away. T-Mobile initially caused the other big carriers to drop their prices and to reinstate unlimited plans, but Sprint also has had an impact because they are financially not so well off and have offered very good deals in order to attract customers. The argument in some of the articles is that if T-Mobile (the stronger and financially sound company) merges with the weaker Sprint the new larger organisation which would rival AT&T and Verizon in terms of subscribers is less likely to continue to offer such good deals since they don't have to do so any more to attract customers. Here in Canada that is certainly the case, we have Bell, Telus and Rogers, all are GSM, but all seem to be equally expensive. Bell which is more dominant out East is the largest provider in terms of numbers since Ontario and Quebec have about half of the population of Canada's 36 Million, Telus is next and Roger's I think is last. As for MVNO's we have 3 main national companies, Virgin Mobile, Koodo Mobile and Fido. However, Bell owns Virgin, Telus owns Koodo and Roger's owns Fido. This leaves a few smaller MVNO's which are usually only available in the larger markets like Videotron in Quebec, the province of Manitoba and Sasketchewan used to have their own companies, but Manitoba Tel was bought out by Bell and neither offered national service anyways. In Quebec the MVNO's like Koodo offer pretty competitive packages because of Videotron, but normally you can only get those if you have a Quebec phone number. I have gotten onto these plans along with my wife, my Mom and a few friends by first buying a new sIM with a local British Columbia number and the cheapest Koodo prepaid plan. Then once we activated our self-service accounts online we went ahead and changedd our BC numbers to Quebec numbers which of course is possible since people do move and may want to have a new local number Once that was done we suddenly had access to the plans offered in Quebec, the one we all have is a $49 plan which offers unlimited calling and texting, basic voice mail and 6Gb of data. After we had switched to that plan we had to wait a few days (depending on when the SIM was bought I think it was a week or 10 days at most), for the first billing statement and the first new full billing cycle. At that point it is possible to request to have your number ported over to an existing number so we then requested to have our Quebec numbers ported to our existing BC numbers. This is also permissible because of course people do get new service but want to keep their old number, especially nowadays with unlimited Canada wide calling it doesn't really matter where your number is from. Anyways, oru Quebec plans remained but were now transferred to our existing BC numbers and the $10 SIM cards we bought went in the trash. If I wanted that same plan from Koodo here in BC it would cost at least $25 or $30 more. At this point there is little hope that we get better deals let alone unlimited plans because some smaller, but still significant provider such as T-Mobile offers it because they can attract customers that way and by doing so they force the other large players to follow along. Bell, Telus and Rogers approximately have a third of the Canadian market each between the main company and their corresponding MVNO so they have very little incentive to offer better deals. Our CRTC which is a bit like the FCC in the US has ruled in favour of consumers in a few cases such as when they decided no provider could sell a locked phone any more and now even phones bought on a 2-year contract have to be unlocked, but they can't force the providers to really lower their prices.
Regards, Sieghard -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Mary Otten Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2018 2:28 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: T-Mobile and Sprint agree to merger Well anything that provides more competition to Verizon has to be good from a consumer point of view. As for 5G and that CDMA, my impression was that it goes away. If you’re having five G, it’s all one system and it doesn’t have CDMA anymore, correct? In other words, CDMA is just not important anymore. Mary Sent from my iPhone > On Apr 29, 2018, at 1:10 PM, Mike Arrigo <[email protected]> wrote: > > Usually with mergers like this, the employees and consumers rarely benefit, > only those at the top. It will be interesting to see if it's approved. They > will also have to figure how ot merge their networks since t-mobile uses GSM > and UMTS and Sprint uses CDMA, of course, it will be going to LTE eventually > anyway so I would think that CDMA will be phased out. > >> On Apr 29, 2018, at 2:03 PM, Sieghard Weitzel <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> Here is news which was news before but this time sounds like it might be >> happening. Interesting is the variety of headlines listed when you do a >> Google search. Our CBC canadian headline/perspective is neutral/objective >> without implications: >> >> T-Mobile and Sprint agree to merger | CBC News - CBC.ca >> >> The CNN search result which includes the word “finally” would seem to >> indicate that this is about time: >> T-Mobile and Sprint agree to merge, finally >> >> An article from The Guardian immediately highlights the potential job loss, >> probably won’t go over too well with Mr. Trump: >> T-Mobile and Sprint agree merger that could cost 20,000 US jobs >> >> >> Regards, >> Sieghard >> >> >> -- >> The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. >> >> If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if >> you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or >> moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. >> >> Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: >> [email protected]. 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Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/viphone. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: [email protected]. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/viphone. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
