Some ask the CRTC or Cabinet to change the rules. Other companies fail. Bankruptcies and forced sales significantly reduce the number of competitors. The companies that disappear say the telcos prices were predatory and the CRTC was biased, and that new entrants need better access to capital. Prices are down and margins are thin.
Profitability is possible, though far from certain, for the survivors.
The PBX and Key System market went through all six stages in the 1980s. Long distance did it in the nineties. Internet access, though never a regulated monopoly, went through a very similar process and now seems to be settling into Stage 6. Local competition is currently straddling Stages 4 and 5. The problem, for incumbents and entrants alike, is that Stage 6 provides only relative stability.