I think its slightly stupid that Mobilicity has a case here- if a new competitor can beat Big 3 prices, obviously they're going to offer competing plans in the same price range. People had already been speculating for a while that the main effect of these new competitors was going to be them forcing Rogers/Bell/Telus to lower their prices to compete.

Especially if these prices reflect the pricing that Mobilicity was using, because as has been stated, they kindof suck...


But yeah, as soon as September starts and I'll be residing in Hamilton again, I'll be switching to WIND. That's competitive prices!

hm, seems interesting. I was looking at Wind but I want to keep my existing Nokia E71 GSM phone that I use on Fido prepaid. And CityFido plans still restrict you to your local calling area (read: If I'm in Hamilton with my Toronto number, that's long distance).

The Chatr $45 plan just might be the ticket.

Originally Posted by Marlowe

I think its slightly stupid that Mobilicity has a case here- if a new competitor can beat Big 3 prices, obviously they're going to offer competing plans in the same price range. People had already been speculating for a while that the main effect of these new competitors was going to be them forcing Rogers/Bell/Telus to lower their prices to compete.

Especially if these prices reflect the pricing that Mobilicity was using, because as has been stated, they kindof suck...


But yeah, as soon as September starts and I'll be residing in Hamilton again, I'll be switching to WIND. That's competitive prices!

The reason they might have a case is because Rogers may be creating this brand solely to kill the new competition. Chatr may be able to take away enough possible Wind/Mobilicity customers to that none of these companies can survive (except Chatr which is financed by Rogers). Once Chatr becomes the only player they either close shop or change their plans to be much more like Fido. Consumers would get screwed over, there would be no competition (back to the big 3), and it means Rogers would've used their market position to kill competition w/o actually competing (which is not allowed under Canadian law). It's just going to be near impossible to prove that Rogers intends to do this until they actually do something malevolent with Chatr (which won't happen unless Wind/Mobilicity are dead), so the case likely wont get too far.

Yeah, I understand the law and why they have a case, it was more the law I thought was stupid

Rogers could definitely try to use their market size to crush the competition by undercutting their prices and then raising prices once others are gone from the market, but to do that they'd have to offer something better than the competition. Chatr isn't that. And even if they did sweeten the offer and put Mobilicity (and later WIND) out of business, when they tried to jack up the prices to Rogers levels, they'd most likely lose those customers to Bell or Telus.

In the age of the internet its a lot harder for a company to succeed with those tactics. The word would spread rather rapidly, and those customers would harbor a fair bit of ill will toward Rogers. When they have the choice between the big 3, they'll pick one of the other two. Unless of course, Rogers keeps the prices lower in which case we still win because prices ended up lower.

Originally Posted by Marlowe

Yeah, I understand the law and why they have a case, it was more the law I thought was stupid

Rogers could definitely try to use their market size to crush the competition by undercutting their prices and then raising prices once others are gone from the market, but to do that they'd have to offer something better than the competition. Chatr isn't that. And even if they did sweeten the offer and put Mobilicity (and later WIND) out of business, when they tried to jack up the prices to Rogers levels, they'd most likely lose those customers to Bell or Telus.

In the age of the internet its a lot harder for a company to succeed with those tactics. The word would spread rather rapidly, and those customers would harbor a fair bit of ill will toward Rogers. When they have the choice between the big 3, they'll pick one of the other two. Unless of course, Rogers keeps the prices lower in which case we still win because prices ended up lower.

Im not sure about that, look at Rogers/Bell with internet and how they bully TSI.

Originally Posted by Marlowe

Yeah, I understand the law and why they have a case, it was more the law I thought was stupid

Rogers could definitely try to use their market size to crush the competition by undercutting their prices and then raising prices once others are gone from the market, but to do that they'd have to offer something better than the competition. Chatr isn't that. And even if they did sweeten the offer and put Mobilicity (and later WIND) out of business, when they tried to jack up the prices to Rogers levels, they'd most likely lose those customers to Bell or Telus.

In the age of the internet its a lot harder for a company to succeed with those tactics. The word would spread rather rapidly, and those customers would harbor a fair bit of ill will toward Rogers. When they have the choice between the big 3, they'll pick one of the other two. Unless of course, Rogers keeps the prices lower in which case we still win because prices ended up lower.

1) They don't really have to undercut them, the ability to keep your phone and get a decent unlimited plan may be enough to drive customers to them. Simply having too many new brands with similar plans (Wind, Mobilicity, Chatr, Public Mobile, and possibly entrants from Bell and Telus) may be enough to saturate the market and spread the customers too thinly between them for any Brand not backed by one of the big 3 to fail.
2) What people were hoping for was competition with Fido/Rogers to lower their prices and benefit everyone, not that they would keep their prices the same and start yet another discount brand to face off against the newcomers.
3) People who buy Rogers are often tied into the ecosystem somehow (family plan, bundled services, contract) it'll take more than being pissed about some shady business practices to get them to leave en mass.
4) (Assuming the newcomers are killed off) Even if Chatr sticks around, expect to see the exact same price creep that happened with Fido until Rogers/Fido/Chatr are all offering almost identical plans

Originally Posted by Entropy

If you view the page's source code, you can see that chatr is indeed a subsidiary of Rogers.

Just an fyi.

On an unrelated note, Entropy is not always positive.
dG on the other hand would have been a better choice because it's always negative. Doesn't sound as cool though... Gibbs?

Originally Posted by Cirrhosis

On an unrelated note, Entropy is not always positive.
dG on the other hand would have been a better choice because it's always negative. Doesn't sound as cool though... Gibbs?

When the universe is your closed system, change in entropy is always positive.
If I got that wrong, I'm going to blame it on being hungry, lol

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

1) They don't really have to undercut them, the ability to keep your phone and get a decent unlimited plan may be enough to drive customers to them. Simply having too many new brands with similar plans (Wind, Mobilicity, Chatr, Public Mobile, and possibly entrants from Bell and Telus) may be enough to saturate the market and spread the customers too thinly between them for any Brand not backed by one of the big 3 to fail.
2) What people were hoping for was competition with Fido/Rogers to lower their prices and benefit everyone, not that they would keep their prices the same and start yet another discount brand to face off against the newcomers.
3) People who buy Rogers are often tied into the ecosystem somehow (family plan, bundled services, contract) it'll take more than being pissed about some shady business practices to get them to leave en mass.
4) (Assuming the newcomers are killed off) Even if Chatr sticks around, expect to see the exact same price creep that happened with Fido until Rogers/Fido/Chatr are all offering almost identical plans

Ok, wall of text warning to start.

No matter which way you cut it, $45 a month isn't that great for what they are offering. Almost anyone, especially people who are tied into one of the big 3 already with a work related plan or a family plan, is getting a better deal than that already. The target market for these new companies is people who want out of these plans enough to switch (myself included) and people who are newly entering the market. And that first group is 100% going to research their options enough that saturation shouldn't matter much- they'll pick the place that suits their needs best. If customer needs are wide ranging enough it could be harder for each company, but it also means more variety in plans exists which is always a plus. That's something we haven't yet had.

The second group is most likely the most important, and that's where saturation might matter, since nobody really spends that much time researching their first phone plan. However, since these plans are non-contract its theoretically easier to get out of them. It doesn't take someone long to realize that they could be getting a better deal somewhere else and switch (the number of people waiting for a contract to expire is a large part of every big 3's customer base.

I agree on #2 that that's what people were hoping for, and it might still happen. But the fact that Rogers feels threatened enough to make a move like this is a very good sign. It might not be the top outcome, but it still seems like a good one.

Its also worth noting that Mobilicity actually has much better pricing options than I had believed. They have plans at $15 for unlimited text with limited calling, and plans at increasingly higher increments that offer more features. But both the $35 and $45 plans offer much more than Rogers is offering. Also Wind is now offering $150 in credit to anyone who switches from their existing carrier, which might be enough to persuade people who are in a contract with an existing carrier to break out of it.

I hate the oligopoly we have in Canadian phone's as much as- if not much more than- the next guy, but I'm pretty confident its going to disappear at this point no matter what Rogers does. We have real competition entering the market for the first time- and that's going to shake it up beyond recognition. But if that means Rogers offering an alternative to one of the new upstarts, and if it somehow succeeds because its run properly, I don't see that as a bad thing.


I'm not sure how much the internet situation applies to this situation, but yes, that was effed up. If we can get into the same type of situation where we get real competition emerging for ISPs, I would be overjoyed. I'm assuming you were referring to the whole Bell adding bandwidth caps to TechSavvy thing? Or were there other incidents I don't know about?

Originally Posted by Marlowe

* Concentrated Wisdom*?

I have to agree with basically everything you're saying, I guess Chatr may really be a non-factor unless they lower prices

Originally Posted by Marlowe

I hate the oligopoly we have in Canadian phone's as much as- if not much more than- the next guy, but I'm pretty confident its going to disappear at this point no matter what Rogers does. We have real competition entering the market for the first time- and that's going to shake it up beyond recognition. But if that means Rogers offering an alternative to one of the new upstarts, and if it somehow succeeds because its run properly, I don't see that as a bad thing.


I'm not sure how much the internet situation applies to this situation, but yes, that was effed up. If we can get into the same type of situation where we get real competition emerging for ISPs, I would be overjoyed. I'm assuming you were referring to the whole Bell adding bandwidth caps to TechSavvy thing? Or were there other incidents I don't know about?

Our communication industry is a bit of a joke. I always find it funny when people from the states complain about 2 year contracts when 3 years is the norm here. AT&T got eyed by the FTC for raising their cancellation fee to a max of $325, Rogers has been at $400 for over 3 years now and the CTRC could care less. Time Warner faced a really public backlash for testing 25GB bandwidth caps in some areas, Rogers lowest cap is 2GB and they'll charge you $5/GB if you go over it and Canadians have become accustomed to it (I get bitter when I hear Americans complaining about the 250GB Comcast bandwidth cap). Comcast was taken to court by the FCC for throttling P2P, Rogers does it openly and the CTRC just does't care.

We NEED competition in the communications industry, the oligopoly we have right now is an absolute joke. I wish more people actually knew how much they were being abused by Rogers and Co so we could get some sort of public backlash going.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

Our communication industry is a bit of a joke. I always find it funny when people from the states complain about 2 year contracts when 3 years is the norm here. AT&T got eyed by the FTC for raising their cancellation fee to a max of $325, Rogers has been at $400 for over 3 years now and the CTRC could care less. Time Warner faced a really public backlash for testing 25GB bandwidth caps in some areas, Rogers lowest cap is 2GB and they'll charge you $5/GB if you go over it and Canadians have become accustomed to it (I get bitter when I hear Americans complaining about the 250GB Comcast bandwidth cap). Comcast was taken to court by the FCC for throttling P2P, Rogers does it openly and the CTRC just does't care.

We NEED competition in the communications industry, the oligopoly we have right now is an absolute joke. I wish more people actually knew how much they were being abused by Rogers and Co so we could get some sort of public backlash going.

In other words, everyone switch their Internet service to TekSavvy so they can eventually setup their own infrastructure :p.

The best thing to do? If you're in an area outside their "zones", call up Chatr and ask when they're building more towers in your area (because they just use the Rogers network, it should be no trouble for them).

Also, talk to Rogers and say that you would like to pay that much outside their Chatr zones. When they say that you can't, just ask why not?

Here's the funniest thing: Chatr is "launching" (really, they could do this over night if they wanted to) in Montreal right at the same point that a new entrant in Quebec (Videotron) is launching.

Mobilicity is going to pursue legal options when dealing with Chatr, but Public and Wind have said that they are going to compete. They say competition is good for the consumer. They say that Rogers is trying to be everything to everyone and failing miserably. Each of the new entrants specialize well, providing better service to a more focused target market.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

Our communication industry is a bit of a joke. I always find it funny when people from the states complain about 2 year contracts when 3 years is the norm here. AT&T got eyed by the FTC for raising their cancellation fee to a max of $325, Rogers has been at $400 for over 3 years now and the CTRC could care less. Time Warner faced a really public backlash for testing 25GB bandwidth caps in some areas, Rogers lowest cap is 2GB and they'll charge you $5/GB if you go over it and Canadians have become accustomed to it (I get bitter when I hear Americans complaining about the 250GB Comcast bandwidth cap). Comcast was taken to court by the FCC for throttling P2P, Rogers does it openly and the CTRC just does't care.

We NEED competition in the communications industry, the oligopoly we have right now is an absolute joke. I wish more people actually knew how much they were being abused by Rogers and Co so we could get some sort of public backlash going.

100% Agreed. Especially since we almost didn't even get Wind because of Bell/Rogers/Telus using the CRTC to stall them for months and potentially block them. They also attempted the same thing with Mobilicity, to much less success.

I think koodo is pretty sick. Eventhough it's sister company of telus. It got great deals. I pay 40bucks with no contracts, have a caller id, free phone, unlimited text, free weekend, 5pm later free, some hundre min free outgoing and some other stuff.

Originally Posted by mcmastergcdb

I think koodo is pretty sick. Eventhough it's sister company of telus. It got great deals. I pay 40bucks with no contracts, have a caller id, free phone, unlimited text, free weekend, 5pm later free, some hundre min free outgoing and some other stuff.

Not too bad, but 40 bucks is alot for no data...