As a loyal Mobilicity customer for two years and counting, amidst their struggle to restructure their company to fight potential bankruptcy, I do not plan to switch carriers until the very end. Why? Because I’ve enjoyed the value of their service plans and their consistency to providing competitive pricing in the telecommunications market for smartphone users.
Telus has in negotiations and settlements with the Canadian government to allow the Vancouver-based company to purchase Mobilicity. Although I am no fan of the Big 3 (Rogers, Bell and Telus), I do not wish to lose my services at Mobilicity and the merger may be a positive act as thousand of jobs can be kept and Mobilicity users can keep their services.
However, the government wants to keep pricing competitive for the growing market of data users, thus preventing the purchase of Mobilicity that uses the AWS spectrum by allowing more players to remain in the market. Regulation may be needed to reduce prices paid by Canadian consumers, especially data/roaming fees. But with the uncertainty of the success for regulation, investors will not want to take this sort of risk to invest in improving network speeds to meet the demand for increased data usage at affordable pricing.
Regulation does have many positive effects, but negative ones at its consequences.