TextNow是一家加拿大公司，但它的低资费手机套餐只在美国适用。这并不是说TextNow不想为加拿大提供此项服务，而是因为它无能为力。
TextNow的首席执行官Derek Ting说：“我们在安大略省的滑铁卢市有一个将近80人的工作团队，每天都会做的较为大型的讨论就是‘我们啥时候才能为加拿大用户提供服务，这样加拿大的人就能使用到我们的服务’，但至今也没有鼓舞人心的消息出来。”
TextNow是一家移动虚拟运营商，它以批发价买下无线网络的使用权，然后将其转售给用户。在美国，TextNow从美国第四大运营商Sprint手里购买网络使用权。但在加拿大，没有无线运营商愿意出售使用权给TextNow。
Ting说，“我们在加拿大为此碰壁，我们很努力地在尝试，曾与Rogers进行了长达12个月的洽谈，然而最终还是没有谈成。”Ting认为，加拿大的三大无线运营商就像协商好似的，不对像TextNow这样的公司开放市场。
在美国则完全不一样，每一个手机提供商都会在批发市场上出售移动网络使用权。Ting认为在美国之所以呈现这样的局面是因为竞争的存在，他们要和每个公司竞争，他们并没有协同一致关闭市场。
这就意味着市场运营商赢了，而用户输了。
Ting说，“加拿大用户最终是受骗上当的。”
只要手机能连上无线，TextNow就可以利用软件将手机收发的内容包括通话和短信转换，这样就可以减少使用网络的时间并且收费比运营商的低。
Ting表示他希望能有一个基于市场的一个解决方案出来，单同时他也认为任何市场上的改变都要经过联邦政府。
Ting说：“其他国家都会有一个比较好的竞争机制，即使没有，监管机构也会指令将频谱分派一点给较小的公司。然而在加拿大却不是这样的，我们拥有最昂贵的市场。”
在加拿大有个先例，有线和电话公司的现有运营商已经百要求批发出售他们的网络。但上个月，加拿大广播电视委员会拒绝了一群虚商想要管理无线网络的倡议，原因是这样会不利于现有运营商投资他们的网络。
Ting却不这么认为，他说类似的条例在德国这样的国家已经实行了但并没有影响网络质量。
Ting表示，从长远看来，比较理想的状况是，加拿大广播电视委员会不再站在Telus、Bell和Rogers这三大运营商一边，而是从加拿大全局开始考虑能让加拿大发展更好地条例，不仅只照顾这三巨头的利益。
这样的改变更有可能由政府部门提出而不是监管部门。目前并没有任何迹象表明这一局面能迅速改善。
TextNow Wants to Fix Canada’s Broken Wireless Industry
TextNow is a Canadian company, but its low-cost cellphone plans are only available in the United States.That’s not because TextNow doesn’t want to offer them here, but because it can’t.
“We have a team of almost 80 people here in Waterloo, Ontario,” says Derek Ting, TextNow’s CEO. “One of the biggest conversations, that comes up every day, is ‘when are we going to bring our service to Canada so we all can use it’ and, so far, it has not been encouraging news.”
TextNow is a mobile virtual network operator. It buys access to wireless networks at wholesale prices, and then re-sells that access to its customers. In the U.S., TextNow buys access from Sprint, the country’s fourth-largest wireless carrier, but in Canada, it can’t find a wireless carrier willing to sell it access.
“We’ve kind of hit a brick wall with that,” says Ting. “We tried diligently. We went through a 12-month process with Rogers and at the end they said no.”Ting says he thinks that Canada’s big three wireless carriers are “kind of in a pact to keep the market sealed from guys like us.”
It’s a different story in the U.S., where every major cell phone provider sells mobile network access on the wholesale market.“The reason they do it is because of the competition, they truly compete with each other. They’re not in some pact to close the market off,” Ting says.
And that means incumbents win and consumers lose, he says.
“The Canadian consumer is the one who gets screwed in the end,” Ting says.
TextNow uses software to switch everything a phone sends and receives – including calls and texts – to WiFi whenever it’s available, allowing it to cut down on the amount of network time it uses and charge lower prices than incumbent providers.
While Ting says he’d like there to a market-based solution to the problem, he thinks any changes in the market will have to come from the federal government.
“Other countries either have perfect competition, like in the U.S., or when they don’t have perfect competition, the regulators mandate some sort of allocation of spectrum to smaller players,” he says. “We don’t, and as a result, we have the most unaffordable market.”
There is a precedent in Canada, incumbent cable and phone companies are already required to sell wholesale access to their wired networks.But last month, the CRTC, rejected an appeal by a group of MNVOs to expand that regulation to cover wireless networks on the grounds that it would disincentivize incumbent carriers from making investments in their networks.
Ting doesn’t buy it, he says similar regulations have been implemented in countries like Germany with no impact on network quality.
“Long-term, the ideal situation, is the CRTC stops siding with Telus, Bell and Rogers and starts thinking about regulation that benefits Canadians as a whole, not just the interests of the big three,” he says.
That change, though, will likely have to come from politicians, instead of regulators and there’s no sign that will be coming any time soon.
责任编辑：葛梦洁
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