There’s a petition circling out there somewhere …. Not even a week since Rogers announced its pricing plan, and already, there’s … uh … *yawn.*  What was I talking about?

I find it pretty hard to get worked up about this.  For one thing, we already knew that Rogers was charging ridiculous amounts of money for data plans.  And we already knew that Rogers would likely have an exclusive deal to bring Canada the iPhone, meaning they could charge pretty much whatever they want.  Why did anyone for a moment think that these rates would be anything but flagrantly exorbitant?

For another thing, there’s nothing we can do, at least as far as protest is concerned.  Rogers is not, sad to say, a government agency — they’re a publicly traded company, meaning they’re beholden to their shareholders, not to their customers, and certainly not to the public.  All the petitions in the world won’t change the cost of wireless data in Canada, unless it starts to affect the bottom line.

So what can we do?  Save your money and get an Android phone in a few months.  You’ll be able to take it to any of the other two telecoms in Canada — any one you like!  Kidding aside, the Canadian bandwidth auction that will be ending any moment now saw the entrance of a new player to the scene, Globalive.  While smaller than the big three, Globalive (the parent company responsible for those ridiculous Yak ads) is poised to provide some alternative to the stagnant triopoly.  While they haven’t won the auction yet, they currently hold the top bid in 35 different auctions, placing them ahead of the pack.  This news is so hot Globalive hasn’t even updated their website yet!

While Globalive has stated their intention to become Canada’s fourth national wireless carrier, there’s no knowing what they (or whoever wins the auction) are going to do with this bandwidth, but it would certainly make sense for them to strike the big three at their weakest points: pricing in general, and data plan pricing in specific.  If they can offer unlimited data at rates comparable to what the rest of the world enjoys, they’re sure to see a lot of people switching to them in no time — especially if they encourage openness, like letting people use Android phones.

Failing that: should Globalive become an Orwellian two-legged pig of a telecom, it’s time to open the Canadian telecom market to foreign investors.  Part of the reason pricing in Canada is so high may be that our telecom industry is badly managed — that’s certainly the most obvious conclusion to draw from Bell’s recently publicised figures illustrating why they feel the need to throttle traffic.  If it takes foreign investment to get some infrastructure in this godforsaken country, so be it.  And don’t give me the “it’s because Canada is so big and spread out” line — if Australia‘s government can pledge to bring fibre optic broadband to 98% of its population, surely Canada’s can get us on the mobile web with a minimum of bloodshed.

In other words: forget Rogers, and forget the petition.  Money talks, and taking our business to startups offering internationally competitive pricing is the strongest message we can send Rogers about what we think of their offer.