TekSavvy is the last remaining large internet wholesale provider, as others have been snapped up by bigger rivals in what independent ISPs describe as a challenging regulatory environment.
Roughly half a dozen independent ISPs have been sold since February of 2022. According to BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Casey, BCE Inc. paid roughly $139-million for Ebox, an internet, telephone and television service provider based in Longueuil, Que., and approximately $335-million for Ottawa-based Distributel last year.
Telus, meanwhile, acquired Altima Telecom and Start.ca for undisclosed amounts, while Quebecor Inc. snapped up VMedia, an independent internet and television provider serving customers primarily in Toronto, in July of 2022. The price of the VMedia acquisition was also not disclosed.
Montreal-based Cogeco Inc., meanwhile, paid $100-million for Oxio, a Montreal-based provider with 48,000 internet subscribers, Mr. Casey wrote in a research note…
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Sent an email to my MP. This is a competition issue similar to the Shaw sale to Rogers and the feds should get involved. You should do the same.
This is awful. TekSavvy was a strong advocate for positive change in a terrible, entrenched market, and the entire landscape is going to be worse without them. I guess at this point I hope that we see more municipal broadband efforts like in Olds, Alberta, though I fear that I’m never going to see something like that in any major cities.
Oh shit, not good. They’ve been the one bright spot in a sea of ISP bleakness.
I’ve been with them for nearly 10 years now. Stuck with them out of principle even though the speed/price weren’t as good as I could get elsewhere.
This seriously sucks, I’m so tired of a small handful of corporations owning every aspect of my life.
Ah yeah that really suck.
Municipal network? Look at Toronto. CIty council wanted to create a network to service area where the cartel wouldn’t service. The whole thing was vetoed by Rogers Director (member of the board) Mayor John Tory.
I’ve been with Teksavvy for nearly 15 years. This is a sad, sad day.
Why the fuck does the government keep allowing competition to be snapped up by the big 3???
Rhetorical question i guess… But wtf. Do your job… Where are the antitrust regulations in this country? I am not a lawyer
Canada loves it’s monopolies. I can’t believe that Shaw deal went through – the government literally will not allow us to have more than 3 telecommunications companies. It’s ridiculous.
For context, remember that the Competition Bureau tried to block the Rogers-Shaw merger and was overridden by the courts. So continuing consolidation is a problem that won’t be fixed easily.
Canada was literally, actually, no shit created by corporations for the purpose of facilitating the extraction of value from human and natural resources by corporations. It genuinely exists to exploit us.
I’ve really enjoyed my time with TekSavvy. My wife - then fiance - told me about them when I moved into our new place before her when I was comparing internet prices from the “Big 3”. Their front facing disdain for the monopolization and lobbying of telecom in Canada was fascinating to see and made me a big fan, alongside their competitive pricing and good service as well. Although it’s only been just over a year I’m really going to miss them if they change everything/are bought out. Hoping for the best here but it is looking grim.
Oh man you missed them in their glory days. They would pressure the big three, prices were lowered, and they gave that back to us customers. They emailed us telling our plans were getting cheaper, faster, or both!
Now they’re just the diet coke of the big three. They offer the same crap that all the other ones do - nothing for loyal customers but like over $400 off for newer customers, limited time offers for even faster and cheaper plans…
It’s all shit. You hop from service to service, or you tell them you’re going to do that and all of a sudden they offer you amazing plans to get you to stay.
Teksavvy will literally throttle your speeds if you’re late on your bill, without warning, days before they initially told you they were going to cut you off. This ruined my plans to download a few things before I was stuck offline. This forced me to use up all of my full speed mobile data (another thing that most developed countries don’t have and scoff at, data caps). Then you gotta argue with them to NOT have to pay for services that were not provided/withheld.
I was with TekSavvy for a long time but they were getting worse. I Switched to Oxio https://oxio.ca which is cheaper and faster than TS was. It’s a brand for Cogeco.
