TORONTO – Ashok Kalle, president of independent ISP Pathway Communications says the federal government’s decision to relax the rules of the regulatory game when it comes to telecom is bad news for Canadians.
Pathway offers voice and data services to Canadian residential and business clients.
"The decision by Industry Canada to allow deregulation of the telecommunications market will hurt consumers of long distance, VOIP and other telecommunications/online services in the long-run," said Kalle in a statement. "I am clearly in agreement with comments made by Liberal MP and consumer affairs critic Dan McTeague who attacked the new regulations as a ‘bad news announcement by a government that has a tenuous hold on power.’"
"I agree that the decision will give consumers some short-term gains in a price war early on, but consumers will suffer in the long-term," added Kalle. "There were good reasons why these regulations were put in there in the first place. It is extremely important to have strong competition. But companies who have been in business for a few years and trying to enter the voice space cannot compete against a company that is 100 years old and built with public funding. It is clearly not a level playing field as Bell, Telus and others argue."
