The IT Nerd

Bad news. The news is out that the merger of Rogers and Shaw has been approved by the Canadian government:

Federal Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne is set to make an announcement this morning about Rogers Communications Inc.’s proposed $26-billion purchase of Shaw Communications Inc.

A senior government official, speaking on the condition they not be named in order to discuss matters not yet made public, says the minister will discuss the transfer of wireless licences at a news conference before the stock market opens.

The deal was first announced more than two years ago and has been awaiting regulatory approval since then.

A full-scale purchase of Shaw by Rogers raised competition concerns, and the original deal has been revised to include the sale of Shaw’s Freedom Mobile to Quebec-based Videotron.

The CRTC and Competition Bureau have each given the agreement the green light.

So, if Canadians were hoping that this deal would not be approved and that competition, as little as it is in the Canadian telco space, wouldn’t shrink any further will be disappointed in this news. All this is going to do for Canadians is reduce choice and increase prices because there are less players in the market. I was going to say that I don’t understand why nobody in Ottawa sees that. But instead I will say that I don’t understand why nobody in Ottawa cares because Canada pays some of the highest prices in the world for telco services and this issue gets lip service at best from the Canadian government. And to be honest, I don’t know what it will take to change that.

Today is a very sad day in Canada.

This entry was posted on March 31, 2023 at 9:02 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Rogers, Shaw. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.