After spending a pretty hefty amount of money on my cell phone bill, I was just wondering why nobody ever suggests that the government creates it's own cellular service, where instead of profits, the government option would merely base prices on what is necessary to maintain the service.
What's your opinion on an optional public cellular service provider, in competition with privatized providers?
It works well. And it's usually very reasonable. But I think you need to understand how we got to the situation we are at today. I know your communications history in the States is a bit different from ours, but I think there are some lessons to be learned.
When I was growing up the government owned the phone services. Back then we paid a small monthly rate for local service. In contrast we sometimes paid horrendous rates for long distance.
In the early 1990's carriers lobbied for, and brought legal cases against the government, in order to gain access to the various government owned networks. They won their cases in the courts and then proceeded to undercut the government on the long distance rates. 10¢ a minute at the time, as I recall. What people failed to realize, however, was that the long distance rates were being used to subsidize the cost of providing the local service. The government services then began to be a taxpayer burden.
The government then sold their interests to private service providers. Adjusted for inflation, the same basic service (if you can call it that...) now costs about twice the price. The reason for the increase? Mainly corporate profits.
The same thing happened in the utilities area. I once had a gas bill that averaged $35 a month. Now it's closer to $90. And that's just because I spent a small fortune insulating the bejabbywockers out of my house (R200 in the roof). The reason for the increase? Privatization and the addition of corporate profit levels.
And my electrical??? WOWZA!! It's gone up over 5X!! We're now the most expensive prices in North America. Oh - And it just went up again this month because they just introduced a carbon tax to our region. The reason for the increase? Again, privatization and the addition of corporate profit levels.
.
Believe me. I liked a little bit of LIMITED government control. But here's the basic problem; The money to build and operate the network has to come from somewhere. It all depends upon the business model. The government system worked well, but it couldn't compete on the open market. Especially when the courts declared it was illegal for them to keep competitors out of their system. Personally, I don't think they should have been allowed to use the public system. I think if they wanted to compete then they should have been forced to build their own networks - just like they had to do in the States. And that, my friend, explains why YOU have the cell bill you have.
