The Rogers network outage proves Ottawa’s case for fourth network
Where TekSavvy competes while making minimal investments in infrastructure, those “facilities-based” rivals fight to win clients onto their own networks. What happened last Friday shows how important redundancy can be in an essential service. As telecom consultant Mark Goldberg said Monday in a blog post, “Last week’s network failure should serve to reaffirm Canada’s telecom policy promoting facilities-based competition.
There’s no way to create a perfect network. Telecom systems will occasionally crash, as do electric grids or cloud computer networks. In the telecom sector, government’s goal should be minimizing disruptions that come with problems on any one platform. Which brings us to Rogers’s bid for Shaw. Last month, the two companies announced plans to sell Shaw’s Freedom Mobile cellphone platform to Quebecor Inc. for $2.85-billion. Rogers reluctantly agreed to this divestiture to appease competition concerns from government regulators, including the Competition Bureau.
Friday’s outage should be a wake-up call to the Competition Bureau and Mr. Champagne: More investment is required in the telecom sector. Blocking Rogers’s bid for Shaw won’t create competition, and as the Shaw family has said – loud and clear – they will no longer commit capital to Freedom Mobile.
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