Reporting from Canada - The question today is, ‘Are we falling behind in its communication services / technology?’

First off I am a Canadian, and I was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta and for the last 3.5 years I have lived in the UK - London in fact, and having returned home for the third time now in the last 2 years I really have noticed the pace of growth in my city (calgary).

I say all this preamble so people get a bit of perspective on what I am about to say.

Calgary has grown and grown and with it many problems, of which some are political, social and technological (the one I will cover on TechWinter).

You turn on the TV in Calgary and Telus the local telephone operator for Western Canada is offering TV, Telephone, and Internet for $95 (CDN) … That is about £47. The same service offered by Virgin Media in the UK costs £23.45 ($50 CDN). So in the UK where North Americans think prices are higher and life is expensive the cost of probably one of the most consumed services is nearly %50 less. Unbelievable. Shocking really.

But there is more…

Now lets accept that this may be a one-off and move onto the next item that actually a friend of mine Ewan of SMSTextNews always goes on and on about it so much so he even has a special category for Canada. This is a good thing as he is essentially doing his part to draw attention to how Canada is falling behind - our mobile/cell industry is uncompetitive.

Now on the face if it I would tend to be on the fence because Ewan is saying bad things about us Canucks (not really but one could take it that way) but every time I come back I am shocked. Shocked by what Canadians have to put up with from their networks and shocked further by what the networks say to cover up their price gouging.

One sales person tried to convince me that the reason their handsets/cell phones were so out of date was because the networks in Canada like to wait for ‘later’ versions to ensure their customers get a more stable handset…Hahahahahaha

Rogers (GSM), Telus (CDMA) and Bell (also CDMA) are the three ‘national’ mobile/cell carriers in Canada which you think would make up for a bit of competition like in the UK. Well you would be wrong. If there is no proof of collusion between these networks I would speculate it is because no one is looking as their prices are scandalous even compared to the American networks where pricing competition has done alot for consumers.

To get a Nokia N95 in Canada you had to wait for over a year after everyone else bought theirs, did you know that? Today the N95 is a year old and is free on anything but the cheapest contracts in the UK, in Canada can you guess at the cost? $399.00 (CDN), that is about £200 on a 3 year deal. If you want to get that phone on a 2 year deal it is $549.99 or about £280 regardless of what monthly price plan you have that is the amount Rogers will pay.

Is this price fixing? When Nokia colludes with networks creating artificially high prices is that not price fixing? Roger roger why are throwing around this term ‘price fixing’ isn’t that rather strong? Well on ebay.co.uk I can buy a brand new unlocked Nokia N95 8GB version for £299.00. If you are using Rogers in order to get a phone for less than I can buy off a dealer in the UK (save is £19 or $40 maximum) I need to sign up for two years and commit to specific price plan and set of services.

Shocked yet? Surprised?

In the US there are 4 national providers 2 GSM (AT&T, T-Mobile) and 2 CDMA (Verizon, Sprint) and there were until recently nearly a half a dozen small regional players and by regional I don’t mean one state, I mean 4+ US states which is 3-5 million potential customers.

Well I could just go on and on. Innovation is essentially stagnate in Canada, with only a few companies other than RIM’s Blackberry and all of them are unknowns. A perfect example is Convu which actually had a viable videocasting service at least 6 months in advance of the now much more popular Qik. Could they be a casualty of their own local industry not supporting them?

Mobile is the newest hot spot and will continue to draw the best innovation for the next few years and it is possible there may even be more money available from investors as they realise Web2.0 is getting on in years and Mobile is hot, ‘new’ and there is a dawning realisation that most people around the world will use mobiles to experience the Internet and their environment.

What are your thoughts?! Would really like your feedback on this one because it is close to my heart.