Who Owns, Controls, Pays for the Airways?

For the past nine days, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has held hearings to gather information before it decides whether or not it should force the prime providers of cell phone services to sell to smaller companies access to their networks. If the smaller companies could gain access to those networks, they suggest that they could provide more cellular coverage at a potentially lower cost to the consumer. On the surface, such a policy would make sense. After all - who doesn't like the thought of more competition if it means that our costs will decrease? Except, why is our government thinking about sticking its nose into this particular business?

I am not a fan of the capitalistic system. I believe it is a destructive force that feeds off of the labour of those under it. The capitalist urge to make more and more money, to control more and more people and resources can only bring the world to the verge of collapse. It is not a sustainable system. But for the foreseeable future, it is the economic system we are stuck with. The question is - should governments manipulate that system to give some companies advantages over others, or should they just let the system be until it sinks under its own weight?

The smaller providers of cell phone services argue that the large companies (i.e. Telus, Rogers, Bell) have an unfair advantage because Telus, Rogers, Bell get to use the cell towers that they built. The smaller companies want access to those towers without investing capital in the construction of such a network. It is not surprising that they can charge less for access - they have not paid for the cost of creating the infrastructure. Telus, Rogers, Bell in various ways have suggested to the CRTC that if their investors cannot get back their "deserved" profits from their money - future investments (i.e. jobs) in the infrastructure may not be as forthcoming.

The "need' for everyone to have affordable and effective cell phone coverage is a need that was created by the capitalist. Many Canadians survived quite nicely for most of their lives without needing to carry a phone in their pockets. It is only within the last 10-15 years that we have discovered that humankind cannot exist without these devices. It should be noted that cell phone coverage is reasonably cheap - it is our constant need to Google everything, to post the most mundane of thoughts on social media and our compulsion to text everything to everyone that is costing us so much money.

It would seem to me that if everyone has the right to have a cell phone and have good coverage - perhaps the Canadian government should nationalize the whole thing and make it available at a far more reasonable cost. Either that, or we stop being so habituated to using the silly things. In the meantime, the Canadian government needs to decide whether or not it wants to control the economy or let the capitalist do it.