Must be a commonwealth thing or something. BCE owns all the copper, and charges BellNexxia, who in turn charges Sympatico (who are not bad from a strictly massmarket consumer perspective but suck if you are at all clewfull and want to do something other than surf and email) and the outfit I use. However, the regulatory agence (CRTC) know that riding herd on these guys (and the other regional monopolies) is very important, and seem to take their job pretty seriously. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the reason that bellnexxia and sympatico are different companies with an "arms length" relationship is because the law here requires BCE (and telus and etc) have to pass all structural changes past them first, and also all new tech that might have an impact on other more open aspects of telecom (like ISPs). I think the CRTC feels that the initial years of the Internet were resisted by companies like BCE (who saw the its potential to kill their long distance profits) and it was the other outfits that actually opened up that market... and that having the 600 pound gorilla come in after the fact was something that doesn't wash well with the man on the street up here.

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I guess you could say that the usual street level POV on Ma Bell and the banks is that we've decided not to lynch them... yet. Even better, the lawmakers know this too. Now if only the VPs at these companies could figure out the "yet" part of that statement and its implications for their long term personal survival if they get too greedy...