Introduction:

If you've been living under a rock for the past week, you probably have not heard about Telus' plan to increase provincial wide residential coverage pricing by 10%. Well it's true; less than a year since Telus raised their rates a substantial amount, they go ahead and raise them up again... fuckers. In this paper, I am pleading with current Telus residential customers to boycott Telus Communications. Telus is a multi-billion dollar corporation who has a monopoly over not only the residential and corporate phone lines and high-speed Internet ('ADSL') as well. Telus took over BCTEL two years ago, has 25% ownership over Sasktel, completely owns Quebectel, has 25% stock in Verizon, and rumour has it they helped Nortel Networks (formerly 'Northern Telecom') out of their slump by buying a quantity of their company. Holy corporate control, batman!

Why Boycott Telus?

A couple weeks ago while I was enjoying my taxi ride home from the Money Mart after pay day, I was lucky enough to toon into a local radio station (630 CHED) here in Edmonton where they had an interview with the city marketing director for Telus Communications. The Telus employee's defense of the proposal for the 10% residential increase was this: "We at Telus want to allow [more] competition into the residential market place. By raising the rates, telecom companies who thought that getting into the local Alberta market was unprofitable, will now think otherwise. If the proposal goes through, regular local residential phone lines will cost, at the most, $35.00 a month." This just does not make any sense! Wouldn't raising rates to allow competition be a BAD thing on the part of Telus? If local residential competition is allowed in Alberta, then Telus will lose revenue rather quickly. My theory is that the Telus employee that was on 630 CHED was full of shit when telling us that raising rates would invite local competition. Telus is a very large corporation who's revenues are more important to them than say, quality of service (QOS) for Albertans - raising rates will not allow local competition. Telus leases it's own lines to local competition in the payphone market at a high cost, and will probably do the same for residential lines. And speaking of residential lines, has anyone even seen any other companies in Alberta offering local residential service to Albertans? Not I. The only other common carrier I've seen around is AT&T, and they offer business lines.

The Alternative

The best suited alternative for anyone wanting quality lines at a decent rate, if Telus decides to hike its local rates to $35.00 for a regular line is - AT&T Business. AT&T right now offers its business accounts for $27.95 per month, and includes a monthly centrex line, line hunting, call display, call waiting, call conference / transfer and call forwarding. Telus' business line right now is currently $34.18... what a rip off.

Conclusion

My conclusion: Telus' service, which was once a flaming pile of dog shit, is now turning into a flaming pile of horse shit. Go with the alternative, AT&T, if you can... or better yet, get a pre-paid phone from Rogers AT&T or FIDO.
ENDZ.