Yesterday, I reported on Ted Rogers speech to the Canadian Club in Ottawa and I mentioned that there would be a response from Pierre Karl Péladeau of Quebecor today.
I have just returned from the lunch and here are some highlights from his speech.
To be fair, I will not add commentary – my views on the AWS spectrum auction can be found by reading postings on this site over the past year.
Here are some of the statements:
like you I have not had a chance to actually use an iPhone. It’s not available in Canada. 1 million have already been sold south of the border.
Americans can pay about $60 a month to use this iPhone. In Canada, this same phone will likely cost between $260 to $879 a month. In fact the National Post recently ran a story featuring a reknown expert in the field, who estimated it would cost $900 a month to use all the functions of the iPhone in Canada.
Some of the advocacy advertising was present, as the accompanying graphic shows, with a strangled Blackberry under the weight of chains.
Pierre Karl cited the statements from RIM’s Don Morrison from earlier in the year:
The COO of RIM believes that Canadian carriers could increase the number of BlackBerries they sell each week by eight or nine times if they simply lowered their prices to the levels seen in such countries as Germany, France and Spain. Eight or nine times the current sales volume!
The very symbol of the Canadian wireless success is being denied to Canadians. That’s a real shame but it does tell us something very concerning about the wireless industry in Canada, and that is the focus of my address today.
He spoke about free markets:
The Canadian market would be considered free if it were open to foreign ownership, but I am led to believe a truly open market is simply not in the cards politically right now. Too many issues come to play. So we find ourselves among Canadian providers, asking the federal government to set rules that best guarantee a higher level of wireless competition.
I may write something about these points later. In the meantime, I’ll let you judge for yourselves. The complete text is available on-line.