Is the Rogers telephone monopoly drawing to a close?

June 12, 2009 12:21 PM

Your wild speculations about the near term future of the Canadian cellphone market, please! Oh so much

It is well known that the Canadian cellphone market sucks right now. We have effectively one provider that does GSM, and so as a result they get a monopoly on all the pretty phones. I have a pay as you go service right now that I'm pretty happy with, but I seriously ache for some Android-y goodness that I don't have to get a 3 year contract and pay out the nose for.

I've heard that there are some new players coming up in the Canadian GSM cellphone market in 2009-2010, in particular these these guys (who may or may not be planning this). People who are more plugged into the current state and future of Canadian mobile telephony, can you shed some light on the near future of GSM and Android phones in Canada? I'd really love to get an Android GSM phone with reasonable rates and a sane contract length.

posted by the dief to technology (6 comments total)

Rumor has it that T-Mobile is coming in 2010, or maybe even the end of 2009. I'd love it if it were true.
posted by CommonSense at 1:17 PM on June 12

I thought there were some onerous ownership rules in Canada that dictate that telephone companies have to be majority owned by Canadians. Is that not true?
posted by the dief at 1:18 PM on June 12

I have ZERO [0] expectations of ANY real market changes in the next 2 years (carriers, change of regulations etc...). If you want the Android (although the first gen sucks) sign the contract.

Oh, but many carriers will buy you out of your contract anyways. ie. If you switch from Rogers to Telus they will buy out your contract, give you a free BlackBerry (the best smart phone) and set you up with a decent plan. So I'd be willing to bet that any new carrier on the market would match this offer.

FWIW: I live in Ontario, I live in a geek household, I live for the deal and am 1/3 through a three year "contract" with Telus.
posted by saradarlin at 1:31 PM on June 12

I asked a similar question ten days ago:

Is Now A Good Time To Get Locked Into A Cellphone Plan In Canada?

and the (few) results were pretty similar to what saradarlin says above. I've opted to go with Fido (per second billing and earlier evenings for the win) - but I'm going to see if I can pay more for a two year plan, as three years seems like a long long time.
posted by backwards guitar at 2:16 PM on June 12

Bell and Telus will be finished their GSM rollout by the end of the year in time for the Olympics.

I've heard they want to use SIM cards that aren't removable, but I can't verify that.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:41 PM on June 12

Here's some more news stories about the Telus/Bell GSM switch.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:43 PM on June 12