The story behind the cell phone squeeze

Image from Br3nda on Flickr

More and more, Canadians are relying on cell phones to communicate and to access the Internet—but affordable cell phone access is under siege.

Yesterday, we at OpenMedia.ca wrote to Canadians, warning that the Big Three cell phone companies are about to take up even more of the crucial infrastructure that makes your mobile Internet access possible. How? They’re using a sleazy and misleading PR campaign to convince government to keep independents out of the game.

In response, we’ve launched our newest campaign, Stop The Squeeze. The petition calls on the Industry Minister to stand up against the Big Three, and bring choice and affordability to the cell phone market.

One sure-fire way to tell that our tactics work: Big Telecom is trying to use our own strategies against us. Rogers is trying to trick Canadians (and the government) with a fake grassroots campaign that aims to reserve as much critical wireless infrastructure for Big Telecom as it can horde. Canadians need to push back. If Rogers succeeds, the Big Three cell phone companies will be able to kill the few independent mobile options we have, increase prices, and make for even worse customer service.

We have reports that lobbyists are working overtime to manipulate the government into handing over the keys to our digital future to a few greedy companies. They’re going to use all the millions and millions of dollars they’ve gouged out of Canadians to take control of the future of the Internet. This is all part of what is quickly becoming a multi-faceted campaign for a command-and-control communications system.

The government can stop this by breaking the Big Telecom stranglehold, but only a huge public backlash will convince them to do so. It’s a matter of political will: government will be ready to step up and do the right thing if they know Canadians are watching.

Let’s make the rules of this game fairer, before it’s too late. Canadians already pay more for cell phone plans than almost any country in the industrialized world. It’s time give independents a real chance to give you the choice you deserve. Enough is enough.