Another TekSavvy price increase

Cablecos were granted defacto monopolies by two things:

1. Territories where no other cable company could operate. To this day it’s why someone in a Rogers area can’t get Cogeco, for example

2. Regulated rates where channels they were told to carry were a guaranteed profit. You might recall when you couldn’t unbundle channels or pick only the ones you wanted. That was part of the structure where high cost channels such as Sportsnet subsidized money losers like The Parliamentary Channel. The CRTC set rates to ensure it was profitable for the cablecos to sell the bundles that way.

shikotee wrote: ↑ Their position of market dominance is entirely due to previous government subsidies, as well as regulations designed to protect them from foreign competition.

This. Bell is Canada’s largest backhaul operator. Everyone pretty much has to transit through Bell’s Canada wide network, formerly known as Bell Nexia.
That network was built with government set rates as well as direct payments from the government aka taxpayers.

Varian wrote: ↑ Just got an email about yet another price increase.
If I am not mistaken, my plan went up by $13 since start of COVID-19 in March of 2020. Think it was $5 then another $5 and another $3.

The prices are just outrageous.

My plan (Carrytel Quebec) went up $15, first $5 last year and just now $10 and the shitty thing is they're still the cheapest I can find. F*ck that.

It really depends on the area where you live. If you live in an area with a ton of apartment and high raise your price is going to lower since there are more providers. I live in Vancouver and the area where I live have Sahw, Telus, Novus, Urban fiber and Techsavy and another one I don't remember. Price is very cheap. Just got a letter from Shaw $45 or Net150 on a 2 year plan. My sister who lives in a house and she only have Shaw or Telus she is paying $85 for Net150. You aren't going to find smaller ISP out in house. Not only they have to built their own fiber out to that area and the rate of return is not worth they also don't have the man power to do installs, T/S all over the place so they do it in conerated area where they are a ton of people even if say only 10% of resident in an apartment uses their service they are still making money vs providing service a street of houses they might need like 80% of the people to switch to make it worth it. Then you have the super rural area like in farm land or those place where is really far and not much people live in. Only Shaw Telus and Bell provide to them coz well the network was built ages ago and is actually costing them money just to service these few customer so that amount is paid by everyone else.

I work for a smaller ISP and this is how things work we only go into area with a ton of high raise coz it make sense. Not only is much easier to turn a profit and also is much easier to schedule the tech and newer buildings usually have much better wiring so making high speed much much easier. Where an old building using cat3 wiring yea we can make it work but have to install more expensive equipment to make it work.