Homephone and Internet in Alberta, Canada?
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Homephone and Internet in Alberta, Canada?
Is anyone able to recommend a cost-effective and practical alternative to the abusive Telus/Shaw Communications duopoly? I am fed up with having to constantly switch between these two sleazy companies as their pseudo-introductory discounts expire and they attempt to jack up the monthly rate to extortion level. They seem oblivious to the fact that there is a severe recession in Alberta with many residents without jobs and others on substantially reduced pay. (Exceptions to this as always are tax-looting politicians and featherbedded bureaucrats.)
So-called Retention Teams and Loyalty Departments are staffed with useless idiots who babble on about irrelevant details when all that one wants to know is the one sensible monthly fee that they will offer going forward for these two basic services. My time is valuable to me if not to the uncaring personnel these two abusive companies employ.
Complaints to various Better Business Bureaux are ineffective. The BBB Serving Southern Alberta and East Kootenays, located in Calgary, is ineffective regarding telcom complaints. It refers Telus complaints to the BBB of Mainland BC in Vancouver, near where the Telus head office is located. This BBB has or had a Telus employee/representative on its Board of Directors and is/was partly funded by Telus. This BBB does not make any pretence of impartiality and independence. He who pays the piper calls the tune! Of course BBB staff will not bite the hand that feeds them. Of course the BBB is not really going to do anything effective for the public. If it did, it would have to lay off half its staff. No BBB management is really going to see their little empire cut back and their staff laid off, so damn the customers. Over five years after the BBB of Mainland BC admitted in an email dated 5 March 2012 that “The telecommunications industry receives a large volume of both consumer inquiries and complaints....” this BBB has failed to take any effective remedial action. This inaction indicates they WANT a continuing large volume of telcom complaints from the public to justify their existence, keep their sinecure jobs and expand their empires even more. What a charade!
If I am unhappy with the quality of bread I have bought and the supplier fails to remedy the problem I simply take my custom to another of a dozen or more competing bakers and supermarkets. This option does not exist with telcoms. Why not? What do Canadian taxpayers pay a federal Competition Bureau for? Do these featherbedded bureaucrats add any value to the system? In the absence of a choice of at least seven practical telcoms these bureaucrats should regulate the basic services and rates of the cartel/duopoly to levels acceptable and affordable to ordinary working Canadians, not just for those on an MP’s or bureaucrat’s salary. Is there some sort of quid pro quo that is stopping such a common sense solution?
The EU has just shown Canada how to deal with abusive companies with a €2.4 billion fine on Google. In addition to fines the EU enforces helpful regulations such as no roaming charges, no locked cell phones, right to be forgotten, access to monopoly systems for competitors, etc. Let’s see Canada do the same with its Telcom scoundrels.
All that I require is a basic landline with one feature - caller ID - and basic Internet access with minimal downloads. I find it asinine that more than a decade and a half into the 21st century Canada is unable to offer these very basic services at reasonable rates to all Albertans.
I will appreciate any helpful solutions.
So-called Retention Teams and Loyalty Departments are staffed with useless idiots who babble on about irrelevant details when all that one wants to know is the one sensible monthly fee that they will offer going forward for these two basic services. My time is valuable to me if not to the uncaring personnel these two abusive companies employ.
Complaints to various Better Business Bureaux are ineffective. The BBB Serving Southern Alberta and East Kootenays, located in Calgary, is ineffective regarding telcom complaints. It refers Telus complaints to the BBB of Mainland BC in Vancouver, near where the Telus head office is located. This BBB has or had a Telus employee/representative on its Board of Directors and is/was partly funded by Telus. This BBB does not make any pretence of impartiality and independence. He who pays the piper calls the tune! Of course BBB staff will not bite the hand that feeds them. Of course the BBB is not really going to do anything effective for the public. If it did, it would have to lay off half its staff. No BBB management is really going to see their little empire cut back and their staff laid off, so damn the customers. Over five years after the BBB of Mainland BC admitted in an email dated 5 March 2012 that “The telecommunications industry receives a large volume of both consumer inquiries and complaints....” this BBB has failed to take any effective remedial action. This inaction indicates they WANT a continuing large volume of telcom complaints from the public to justify their existence, keep their sinecure jobs and expand their empires even more. What a charade!
If I am unhappy with the quality of bread I have bought and the supplier fails to remedy the problem I simply take my custom to another of a dozen or more competing bakers and supermarkets. This option does not exist with telcoms. Why not? What do Canadian taxpayers pay a federal Competition Bureau for? Do these featherbedded bureaucrats add any value to the system? In the absence of a choice of at least seven practical telcoms these bureaucrats should regulate the basic services and rates of the cartel/duopoly to levels acceptable and affordable to ordinary working Canadians, not just for those on an MP’s or bureaucrat’s salary. Is there some sort of quid pro quo that is stopping such a common sense solution?
The EU has just shown Canada how to deal with abusive companies with a €2.4 billion fine on Google. In addition to fines the EU enforces helpful regulations such as no roaming charges, no locked cell phones, right to be forgotten, access to monopoly systems for competitors, etc. Let’s see Canada do the same with its Telcom scoundrels.
All that I require is a basic landline with one feature - caller ID - and basic Internet access with minimal downloads. I find it asinine that more than a decade and a half into the 21st century Canada is unable to offer these very basic services at reasonable rates to all Albertans.
I will appreciate any helpful solutions.
