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Massive Canadian Class-Action Cellphone Suit Is Approved
BeanBunny writes "A Saskatchewan, Canada court has ruled that a $12 billion class-action suit can proceed. The suit alleges that 'system access fees' that the cellphone companies have charged ($7-9 per month) are unfair and constitute price gouging. 'It is described as the largest class-action in Canadian history, potentially affecting every cellphone user in the country. Currently, there are 7,500 complainants signed onto the suit.'"
This is classic bait and switch tactics... Advertise one price, and then hit the customers with another. Their only real justification is that 'everyone else is doing it' and that not doing so would put them out of business. Its about time something like this came along.
You know, that would've been a lot more topical back when we weren't so close to parity.
Assuming the lawsuit is successful, they'll just roll the $7 fee into the base price for ALL of their plans. So my $20/mo plan will become a $26.95/mo plan. Big whoop.
Wake me up when they stop charging $0.10 per SMS, or $0.05 per KB. I mean why is it they can afford me calling my friends after 6pm which uses roughly 9.6kbit/sec for FREE (well unlimited), but I can't send a 200 byte SMS without incurring a 10 cent charge no matter the time of day.
Cell phones are basically a license to print money. And since Rogers and Bell are basically monopolies they can charge [and do] whatever they want. If you look at Rogers previous earnings reports, the wireless division has been making tons of profit for a long time. So strictly speaking the high fees are NOT required to stay in business, they're just fucking greedy.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I've always wondered about that fee. I remember when I first got a cell phone eons ago, when I signed up for a plan and the first bill did not jive with the plan. I didn't remember paying a large fee for my landline so I phoned them and got quite upset at first. After that I noticed that the sales reps tell you there is an "access charge" which by now shouldn't need to exist.
It is also interesting that Bell raised their fees. Good thing I don't use them as my cell phone carrier.
From TFA: Here are the monthly subscriber access fees charged by Canada's major cellphone providers:
* Rogers Wireless: $6.95
* Telus Mobility: $6.95
* Bell Mobility: $8.95, after a recent $2 increase
Well, at least they're not AT&T...
9 Canadian dollars = 8.775351 U.S. dollars
Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
That'd be nifty. I'm sure you could accuse them of price fixing, collusion and deceptive business practices at the very least. I bet there's a case to be made there, for 12 BILLION DOLLARS!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
To quote XE.com
12,000,000,000.00 CAD
=
11,819,048,612.17 USD
If these 30,000 are all located in Saskatchewan, that would be ~3% of the total population of the province.
The suit alleges that in selling the fee, representatives and company personal presented it as a regulatory fee rather than a non-regulatory fee.
7 Canadian dollars = 6.825273 U.S. dollars
So thats what... $5, $6 American?
Currently just a few cents under parity. Wait a year and you may be looking at 1.25 greenbacks per loonie. As the trend has gone that way. We went from ~0.69 greenbacks per loonies to 0.98 greenbacks per loonie.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Even if the lawsuit is won, you poor Canucks will still have those dreadful 3-year lock-in contracts too.
Don't suppose this is a Canada wide lawsuit? And if so how do I get in on it?
I've been with Clearnet/Telus for nearly 10 years and apparently been handing free money to them... Good Times...
I Like Pie...
If the price is too high, it's called price gouging
:)
If the price is too low, it's called predatory pricing
It the price is just the same, it's called price fixing
How convenient a system where anyone doing business is guilty
\u262D = \u5350
Glad to hear that. The polar bears seem to be running out of room up north. It's good to know they'lll have something to eat.
Yeah, I can take a joke (picture an over-taxed Canuck getting his green card and exclaiming "I'm free, I'm free!").
Anyway, the Inuit crack is actually ironic: the vast, barren, Canadian north drove the manufacture and launching of the first TV satellites so the Inuit could get TV.
You could've hired me.
Haven't been watching the value of your dollars I take it?
When the fed next helps its friends on wall street the 1 CAD will be worth > 1 USD.
Yep, and Canadian products will become more "expensive" to Americans (therefore, less goods are sold). Additionally, US products will become cheaper for Canadians (therefore, more of our goods get sold to you)....
It doesn't matter. The point is: currency values mean very little unless you trade them or are measuring inflation. Any more analysis is a discussion of macro-economic theory and world money supply. A topic best left to the economists.
The population of Canada is around 35 million, about the same as the state of California. I know it's too much to ask an American to have some sort of international awareness, even for their closest neighbour, trading partner, and largest oil source, so I'm not holding your doltish comment against you.
I Like Pie...
"Price Gouging" is for life-essentials - like food, water, shelter. A cellphone plan isn't a life essential. The merchants may be overcharging, and there may need to be legal action against them, but they're not _gouging_. Keep that term for when people are going to die without the goods.
(Yes, increased communication can save lives, but that does not appear to be the tack the court case is going with, and I would argue that cellphones are still on a different tier from sustinance and protection from the elements)
</Pet-Peeve>
"Assuming the lawsuit is successful, they'll just roll the $7 fee into the base price for ALL of their plans. So my $20/mo plan will become a $26.95/mo plan. Big whoop."
It is a Big Whoop. PC Mobile doesn't charge the System Access Fee and I always just assumed they did. I'd rather cell companies advertise $26.95/month because that's what they actually &*%#@ charge! Oh... and paying $4/month for them NOT TO BLOCK call display? Blow me! I don't have a home phone. I have a cell and skype... one day I'll just have WiFi and VoIP. Cell companies should fear WiFi phones... if/when that catches on it'll be payback!
What I'm wondering is, if the companies lose, how hard is this a blow to them paying so much money as a penalty? Would any of them go out of buisness or is 12 billion chump change?
> Yep, and Canadian products will become more "expensive" to Americans (therefore, less goods are sold). Additionally, US products will become cheaper for Canadians (therefore, more of our goods get sold to you)....
You seem to forget, we're your #1 supplier of petroleum products. You really don't have a choice if we raise prices to match domestic prices, since we supply the equivalent of 1 Katrina of oil, and there isn't enough slack in the world, never mind enough oil tankers, to make up the difference.
You *could* stop using up so much of it, which is what will probably happen as people stop over-spending and are unable to borrow against their home's declining values.
Kevin Smith on Prince
Actually, 8.86613 U.S dollars at the moment.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
I see you voted for Bush.
.....where do I sign up? I'm all for free money back.
What does it mean to wake out of a dream
and be wearing someone else's shorts?
BNL, Born on a Pirate Ship (1998)
I use a prepaid cell phone. I don't have a contract. I don't pay any fees. I pay x amount of dollars to get y amount of minutes. Period. The only downsides are that the per-minute price is higher than normal plans and the minutes expire after a year. Of course prepaid doesn't include any kind of text messaging or other fancy features, so if those are important than you'll have to do something else. But for somebody who just wants to talk on a phone, prepaid is the only way to go.
""Price Gouging" is for life-essentials - like food, water, shelter. A cellphone plan isn't a life essential."
:). Thanks for clearing that up.
I agree. When I was selling Nintendo Wiis during Xmas for $450 people kept saying I was a price gouging sack of $%@*. Now I know it's not true
So where do I sign up for this lawsuit? Or is it automatic because I'm a customer of Bell (previously Telus)?
And I don't care if they bump up the price of the normal plan. At least what's advertised will match what one is billed, for once.
All is prevelant in the world...
they charge a fixed monthly rate just like a land line.
I don't have a cell phone and frankly I don't need one.
But if someone offer something like 25$ a month unlimited minutes 24-7 (however you can charge me long distance) I'll drop my land line and go grab a cell...
Try it! Library of Babel
Since it screws over the customers worse than the companies just to make the lawyers rich.
But in this case, these ripoff fees have been bugging me for 10 years, so I'm all for this on. If they roll in the fees with the normal rates, good, that's how they should do it.
"You can never trust a Canadian. Someday, we'll be providing your natural resources" -Steven Page, Barenaked Ladies
Those 7500 people will be lucky if they see pennies on the dollar from any settlement.
Googling "Merchant Law Group" turns up some strange legalese terms. What does "conduct unbecoming a lawyer" mean? What does "disbarment" mean?
Unfortunately, the Merchant firm also has powerful friends in high places.
The point is: currency values mean very little unless you trade them or are measuring inflation. Any more analysis is a discussion of macro-economic theory and world money supply. A topic best left to the economists.
Any instantaneous value doesn't mean much. But patterns mean more. The US greenback has been in a slide for sometime. Confidence in the currency is dropping among certain groups and thus it's being slaughtered by currency speculators. Over the last 8 years it's lost about 30%-50% of it's relative value against other western currencies. It happens to coincide with a strong Canadian economy which leads to the 50% gain the loonie has had over the greenback in the last year.
I agree it's meaning is very open to interpretations.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I assume by 'access' they mean what occurs directly after you bend over and grab your ankles?
Anyway... We're at a time in this technology that is going to be a short-lived transition in the larger picture. Eventually prices for all cell phone service will drop dramatically, including all data services. Right now we're just getting out of the early adopter phase and are moving into widespread use. (I'm looking at timelines of how long it took the human race to develop sufficient technology for this to work and how long we've actually had it... the latter time is almost nothing)
So right now companies are able to bend us over... but whereas they didn't before, now they have to at least lube up.
I don't really see this lawsuit succeeding, but hey, it's worth a try I guess.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Oh, I'd hate to be working at a Cdn cellphone callcentre right now...
All is prevelant in the world...
I know it's too much to ask for a Canadian to have some sort of understanding that not all Americans are ignorant assholes - just the louder portion.
I'm on prepaid, only paying $10/mth+tax and nothing else. That's one of the reasons I picked prepaid to begin with; No system access fee, at least in Canada on Telus.
If you are Canadian, and have a canadian cell phone, Go to http://www.merchantlaw.com/cellular.html to sign up...
Ian Ameline
Sign up here: http://www.merchantlaw.com/cellular.html
Seriously? This country and corporations(as well as you Canadians up 'der") have found fit to nickel and dime the lazy into millions and billions of extra dollars in hidden fees, surcharges, and taxes.
It's interesting to see this in almost EVERY major bill of everyday American usage. Phone, cable, electric, gas. It truly is out of control and it's a pleasant surprise to see the Canadians take charge. Now if us Americans would understand that the phone companies here are doing the same PLUS charging us for for fractions of extra minutes based on getting their own operator telling us "if you would like to leave a message press one, if you would like to page this person, press 2. If not please leave your message after the tone." 15 seconds of extra money for them after every phone call not answered. I bet that adds up to a few extra "crack" millions a year.
1.00 CAD = 0.985699 USD Not even 1 and a half cents difference per dollar. And the way things are going, we'll be the ones making fun of the American dollar soon enough.
It does matter, and it doesn't take an economist to notice it. Just ask any business that does export between the two countries. In the US, factory outlet stores spring up along the border like dandelions when the US dollar falls, and die just as quickly when the US dollar rises.
Similarly, Canadian export businesses that sell and ship primarily to US customers (of which there are many) tend to see a sharp drop in business when the Canadian dollar rises. The drop can be significant enough to put an end to low-margin businesses, especially if they don't have deep enough pockets.
Your point may be that this has little effect on the overall economy, which may be true (and I agree, is a topic for economists), but I believe it is foolish to say that there is no effect whatsoever.
I have a house alarm that requires a phone in order to get the insurance deduction, so I have a home phone. Awesome.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
It's deceptive. If I sign up for a $49/mo plan and incur no extra expenses (MMS, minutes, downloads) then why is my bill $63/mo give or take a few bucks? Why does it vary when I never have extra charges?
If the plan costs $63/mo then advertise it as that. Not $49/mo.
And then all these "free phone" deals. I keep asking them for that free phone, but they won't give it to me without money. The sign says "free phone." and it doesn't have an *. If it says free, then why can't I have it free?
I have a free phone you can have, just sign here. What did you sign? A contract for a variable monthly fee service which I can change the fee structure at any time and an agreement to pay $300 if you cancel. I reserve the right to increase your fee's at any time. And I can add $20 worth of monthly fee's if I feel like it with no recourse on your side.
Sucks. But they all do it.
Not for customers who already have $XX price for a plan. The price of the plan is fixed (unless you switch to a new plan), and would be grandfathered in with the contract, etc.
My captcha is parasite... how nice and fitting for a comment on a cellphone-related article
I figure it's 50/50 whether or not the USD is blow the CAD by the end of the month.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Very Funny. Our money is almost on par with yours now. This time next year it'll be us making the jokes.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
$48/Year fee, mandated by the CRTC (Kinda like the FCC). Not sure when it transitioned to 6.95/month.
Karma: Can only be portioned out by the Cosmos.
(N/T) For us Canadians, this is very pertinent information.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
"Assuming the lawsuit is successful, they'll just roll the $7 fee into the base price for ALL of their plans. So my $20/mo plan will become a $26.95/mo plan. Big whoop."
:(
:/ The other company seems to charge more in sales tax than i can find taxable plus several questionable 'fees'. Repeat for multiple techniques for each company :(
That is the idea yes.
Did you get the plan on price? You would not know your $20 plan costs more than my $25 plan until you sign on for a year or two!
I am trying to compare phone companies for work. It is impossible to know how much it will cost without signing up. Land or cell
Is $25.00 per month and $.07 per minute better or worse than $15.00 per month and $.08 per minute? No matter how much math you throw at it you can't tell because they tack on too many fake fees mixed in the real taxes. XO adds a minimum of 10% on the the bottom of the bill up to 24% if your a little guy
PS: so far XO is the worst on under-the-line fees plus they flat-out lied to me when asked about one.
We went from ~0.69 greenbacks per loonies to 0.98 greenbacks per loonie.
This just means that Canadians will buy more American stuff. Is that supposed to bother me?
though I must say that there are some Americans that have not been very well educated on the world outside of their borders. I was in California a few years back and when I told a guy I was visiting from Canada, he asked me if that was an eastern state. I don't think this guy was the sharpest tool in the shed, though he may have been the strongest. It was at a gym.
Americans cutting down on oil? Heh, unlikely.
They'd pay through the nose just to have a bigger SUV than their neighbors.
Does anyone here have the contact information for the lawyer etc conducting this suit for all those Canadians getting bilked?
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
I think "end of month" is pessimistic. If it's going to happen, it'll likely be by the end of this week.
For any Canadians who want to sign onto this lawsuit:
http://www.merchantlaw.com/cellular.html
Recommend this to anyone you know who uses a cellphone from a Canadian provider!
No, once our money drops to yours, phase one of the North American Union will be complete. Next, both of us will nosedive toward peso parity. I see no reason to trust Canadian politicians any more than US politicians wrt carefully orchestrated treason.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I used to be on a monthly Bell plan. It was their cheapest plan, advertised as $25/month with internet access and a certain number of free text messages. Great! Except that for call display, it was an extra $5 a month. I opted out of voice mail because that would have been another $5 a month. $35 a month was pushing my budget. Unfortunately, I didn't know about the system access fees (I did realize there would be tax, of course). My final monthly bill was $46/month. I also didn't know that the rebate claim form that I got because I signed on to a contract was going to expire, so I missed the deadline to send it in. I was locked into a contract that the other side tricked their way out of honouring for two years.
Adding injury to injury, while "internet access" was included, bandwidth was not. It was $50/month. I was rather excited about having a phone that could download things, so I downloaded two ringtones and a game. They cost me about $7, which I expected... plus over $30 for the bandwidth. I had never been told about the bandwidth charges and none of the paperwork I had been given when I signed up had mentioned it.
Within hours of my contract expiring, I switched to prepaid. I would have dropped Bell completely, but at the time it wasn't possible to keep your number when changing carriers. Now I pay $25 for two months of access... taxes, access fee, and call display included. I once used the full $25 during a month in which I took a 10-day vacation out of province and made long-distance calls while roaming, but other than that I've never used it up.
Even if I had sent in the rebate form (that was partly my own fault for procrastinating and not reading it carefully), I lost more money on that than I like to think about. If I hadn't gone on a plan in the first place, I would have saved about $800 over the course of two years, or about $650 if I'd gotten my rebate.
Prepaid is more per minute, so if I were a bigger talker it might equalize. Going on that plan is a pretty big regret though. If I got a new phone, even a super swanky one, I'd pay for it outright and get prepaid again.
In the UK one reason for some of the cost is interconnect fees. If you send a SMS to a phone on another network then your network has to pay a fee (3p per message if I remember correctly) to the destination network.
8 years also happens to coincide with GW Bush presidency. But spending $200 million PER DAY on a war couldn't possibly have any effect on the economy now could it..
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
There's American stuff? Pretty much everything comes from China these days.
... the cheap white plastic case - with a grand total of two moving parts in the form of metal latches - was manufactured in the United States. I called my wife over and said "here you go honey ... a perfect metaphor for the decline in American manufacturing."
True story: my wife was looking for a new sewing machine a couple years back. We shopped around and eventually settled on a specific Singer model. Then on impulse my wife decided to get a white plastic case to store the machine away when not in use. Upon getting everything home I noticed the sewing machine - a complex piece of machinery with lots of value-add in the manufacturing - was made in China
So, good luck with that plastic-sewing-machine-based economy.
Personally, I only clicked on this story so that I could find some American jackass showing their complete and utter ignorance of current events, and the mods dropped the comment below my threshold.
:)
Now my day is ruined.
Guess I'll make it up with a trip to Vegas - AT PAR
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
As a Toon Town resident all my life, and a SaskTel user for 95% of that (1.5 years with Fido, ARG!) let me paint a picture of how castrated SaskTel cell-phone service is.
;-)
I use that term because "it has no balls whatsoever".
- We pay Bell Mobility in Ontario. Yes, the last-bastion of Crown Corporations only gets a cut of the Bell pie.
- We cannot use the vast majority of web-to-phone services. Promotions and content are carrier-dependant, and despite paying Bell, we do not use their network. How quickly would you lay out a contract for another 400,000 potential customers versus another 4,000,000?
- We get CDMA, with no sim cards. Meaning the phone I pay $300 for can only be used in 14% of the globe compared to the phone you paid $300 for.
Tri-band is A Good Thing.
The main benefits of course are:
- We get rural coverage, which is kind of important. We're larger than California with less than 1 million people. (And yet there's never enough parking downtown!)
- Supporting a heartless local monopoly is preferable to a national one.
- Chances are you know someone who works in the local call centre and can kick them in the nuts for bad service. (See what I did there?)
However, I may be biased. Living here does that.
You sell us oil? You're joking right?
... and beef ... and lumber ...
We sell *you* you're oil
Read up http://mmsd1.mms.nrcan.gc.ca/mmsd/trade/fuel_st1-4.htm
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Now whose fault is that? The phone companies. We're going to all charge each other money for these connections that don't really cost us anything. That way, we can charge our customers to "cover our costs". It's brilliant.
A rip-off is a rip-off whether it is perpetrated by a single company acting alone or by the whole lot of the slimy dirtbags.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If money is being charged disproportionate to the cost of a service, that represents an opportunity for a competitor to grab marketshare by offering the same service at a lower cost. Left to its own devices, the market will correct itself in these situations. Unfortunately, we have collusion, monopolies, and buying of government regulations thwarting what the market wants to do.
If this situation persists, someone will figure out a way to piggyback an ASCII/Unicode stream into a CELP transmission, allowing owners of phones with the new feature to send SMS to each other via their "free" voice minutes rather than having to may $0.15/ea. Unfortunately, the current crop of phone companies will then collude to require this feature be disabled on all phones which use their network. This is why Google's efforts to open up the 700 MHz band up for auction in the U.S. are so important.
If you mean our #1 foreign supplier, then yes, you're right.
The top 5 suppliers of petroleum to the US are The United States: 39.7%, Canada: 10.5%, Mexico: 8%, Saudi Arabia: 7.4%, and Venezuela: 7.4%.
(Information derived from Energy Information Administration statistics, which only shows the stats for 2005 and earlier)
Personally, I think we should use less petroleum products over here, but convincing people to use their cars less (which accounts for 50% or so of our petroleum usage) isn't easy as long as people here choose to live in Suburbia.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I don't see a future in cell phones as we know them now. As wireless networks cover more and more areas (which might happen very quickly as the range of WiFi devices increases), more people will shift to VoIP. WiFi is only available in high-end smartphones right now, but within a few years it could be a standard feature. All it takes is for the phone manufacturers to stop pandering to the service providers and put WiFi and a proper VoIP app on phones. Once WiFi becomes a standard feature, every average Joe on the street will be installing a VoIP app on their phone (there's plenty of incentive), and the shift will slowly be made from calling over cellular networks to calling over VoIP, the same way SMS has gone from being used by gadget freaks to cost-conscious callers and is now commonly used by everyone. The urge to switch to VoIP will be even greater, and the hardware will change to suit. For example portable audio went from portable CD players to CD/MP3 players and finally, as people stop buying CDs and start buying their music in a purely digital format, to DAPs incapable of playing CDs. Phones will go from cellular only to cell+WiFi and finally, as people stop subscribing to cellular service, to WiFi only. The technology is not far off at all.
However just as the RIAA has done everything to resist change and prop up the corpse of their old business model, expect the service providers to do everything in their power to stop the adoption of VoIP on portable devices. They won't be able to do much though, so just expect the providers to put on a smear campaign in their death throes. Everyone will be pointing and laughing and chatting with their friend on the other side of the planet for free.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"> You sell us oil? You're joking right?
> We sell *you* you're oil ... and beef ... and lumber ...
Canada does oil swaps with the US. Rather than the US moving oil from the east coast to the west coast, and Canada moving oil from Alberta to the east coase, Canada sends some oil to the US west and central states, and "swaps" it with oil the us imports from the middle east and venezuela that is sent up to estern Canada.
However, the net balance i petroleum products is definitely in our (Canada's) favour, and there is not enough tanker capacity to make up for it if almost any country stops shipping, or unilaterally raises the price. Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela could form NorAmPEC, charge a $100/bbl "environmental tax", and there isn't enough capacity to replace it. Even with the resulting lower demand, NorAmPEC would still come out ahead, money-wise, especially since OPEC would probably jump in.
Kevin Smith on Prince
If I recall, this used to be called a Ground Radio Station license fee.
Long before cell phones, if you flew a radio controlled airplane, you had to buy one of these licenses every year because of the range and power.
I vaguely remember it being $50/year CAD in the 80s and early 90s.
Cell phone providers used to charge it one time per year but then they decided to divide that number by 10 and took the resulting number and charged you that same amount every month.
Then, they deregulated cell phones and radio control boxes from the GRS fee. Yet, I still see "system access fee" on my bill.
Yup.... greedy bastards.
Nothing new. Look up the exchange rates from the 60's. Can $ 1.10 US $ or more.
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa
My first cell phone required a 3 watt transmitter in the trunk of my car - cost me $300. Airtime was $.45 a minute - period. No plans, no freebies, no data, no messaging. Monthly bill would run from $150 to $300 a month. That was 1989 - everything now is a whole lot cheaper and a whole lot more reliable. Wait a few more years, it'll all get better - long before the courts do anything.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Now, with this, everyone in Canada will be a millionaire (after it is evenly distributed among the people)
No?
- you quote on projects to American clients, in US dollars
- you receive payment for those projects in US dollars
- you have existing service contracts with American clients, paid in US dollars
- you maintain US dollar bank accounts for those funds to avoid exchange fees
- you have contractors on staff who are paid in US dollars
But I guess that never happens in your part of the country.US/UK/Canadian cell phone fees are a major rip off.
My service has a basic fee of eur0.66 per month, and it costs eur 0.069 per minute or per text message. The startup fee is eur2.90
http://www.dnafinland.fi/showPrivateProductSubscription.do?selectedMenuItem=AAA0dnaOnni
To reach a monthly total of eur15 (about $20), I'd need to blather for 200 minutes per month.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
-1, clueless.
Paranoid Much?
And what, might I ask, is wrong with a little price gouging? People obviously want to send text messages, so service providers should charge as much as users are willing to pay for them.
1 USD = 1.001 CAD
Nice job Bernanke, keep lowering that rate to keep your mates in Wall Street happy.
I mean you can push the DOW to 25,000 with a few more rate cuts. Sadly though you're running out of bullets...
I live in Alberta and while I pay about $7/mo to use my Rogers phone, I can leave it turned on and wander all over the country and not be gouged for roaming fees by little roadside bandit carriers. I've heard this is a big problem particularly in southern states - drive a highway for a few hours, forget to shut off your cel, and get a $100 phone bill!
Only recently have things moved away from being a few-carrier monopoly - now there are a half dozen or so. Some things are pretty stupid, but overall I'm happy with Canadian cel provider practices. They should however include the access fee in the price of the plan as doing otherwise is bait & switch, possibly even false advertising. (What, am I going to sign up for the plan and NOT use their network? WTF?)
It means something if you travel from the US to Canada frequently. Your Greenbacks suddenly buy a whole lot less in Canada, especially with all of the "sin taxes" levied on certain goods. $40.00 CAN for a two-four of beer? $1.05 CAN per liter for gas? $10.00 CAN for a pack of smokes? Outrageous! In years past it was great, your (US) dollar would go a long way up North, not so much now. Hell, my Canadian relatives are all coming down here to buy Christmas gifts and other goods because the (CAN) dollar is just so strong compared to the Greenback.
TODO: Insert witty sig
So, I send you an SMS, then you reply with an SMS, Our respective ISPs charge each other 3p (which cancels out to 0), and they use this as a reason to charge us 30p? Oh yeah... real good!.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.