Canadian mobile market starts seeing effects of increased competition

The mobile market in North America is badly fragmented, due to
different carriers using different technologies (CDMA vs. GSM), different frequencies for different companies (AWS, 2100), and locking of phones to the carrier.

This fragmentation strengthens the stranglehold of the carrier on the customer, who has a higher barrier switching from one company to the other.

Industry lobbyists still call for more balkanization of the market, by adding more frequencies, against standardization.

In Canada, three new companies have started operating, they are WINDMobile, Mobilicity (also here) and Public Mobile.

This has starting to cause some of the large monopolies to offer cheaper alternatives.

For example, Rogers will offer a cheaper unlimited chatr service. And Mobilicity is complaining already.

This is all good for the consumer, minus the fragmentation of handsets part ...