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CRTC Unveils New Wireless Code To Protect Canadian Customers
FuzzNugget writes "The CRTC has unveiled a code of conduct that brings many positive changes for Canadian wireless customers, most notably:
1.) Carriers must provide the option to unlock a cell phone after 3 months for subsidized phones within the contract period, or immediately if the device was purchased outright.
2.) Contracts are now capped at two years, and cancellation fees are limited to the amount of the subsidy.
3.) Carriers can no longer charge outrageous data overage and international roaming charges. Without explicit consent from the a customer, such charges are capped at $50 and $100 per month, respectively."
1.) Carriers must provide the option to unlock a cell phone after 3 months for subsidized phones within the contract period, or immediately if the device was purchased outright.
2.) Contracts are now capped at two years, and cancellation fees are limited to the amount of the subsidy.
3.) Carriers can no longer charge outrageous data overage and international roaming charges. Without explicit consent from the a customer, such charges are capped at $50 and $100 per month, respectively."
I hope the U.S. follows.
Since the previous contract lengths were generally 3 years, i think that phone costs are going to increase because providers can't guarantee you'll stay as long with them. But I still like the move to cap it at 2 years, because the lifetime of smartphones (if you want to stay semi-relevant) are becoming shorter and shorter.
I am going to predict that this is going to be a devastating blow to their profits. Back when BlockBuster instituted "No Late Fees" I knew they were doomed. Basically they were profiting on bad luck and stupidity of which people are never short. So then BB had to profit from providing a quality service. Doomed!
How many people are suckered into overpaying in all kinds of creative ways. The locked phone for instance must keep many people from switching carriers. So I don't see the big three going bankrupt but I do see their profits taking a bigger hit than even they see coming in that they have probably fooled themselves into thinking that they are making profits in ways other than taking advantage of bad luck and stupidity.
IT IS ABOUT FUCKING TIME.
The telephone company has for a long time worked over its customers. The only defense the people had was for the government to regulate them. Well with modern cell phones, not much is regulated anymore. If a phone company gives you a phone that drops calls 50% or more of the time, the user has no right to cancel the contract. I had a phone like this, and I told the people I got the phone from,"Look a contract should involve you at least providing me with a reasonable service." They didn't offer to let me out of the contract(Verizon), but they did say,"Hey we'll sell you a cell phone booster for your house, only a couple hundred bucks."
USA is never gonna regulate the cell phone companies, because the way campaign contributions work, the cell phone companies owns the politicians through campaign contributions. The USA is still a nice place to live, but things get worse here the more corporations influence public policy.
As a Canadian am impressed at seeing, let's see whether the big 3 telcos in Canada that have a stranglehold and generally influenced the CRTC with their lobbyist don't find alternate ways to fuck us.
Probably one of the most expensive places to have a mobile phone in the modern world.
Point 3 can't work.
International roaming and roaming data results in fees from different carriers to the local carrier.
Say I travel to Brazil and use 50 gigs of data. Brazil telecom then charges Rogers/Bell/Telus $30,000 worth of fees. Rogers/Bell/Telus can then only legally charge the user $100.
This is how international roaming and billing works and that's why this law is unenforceable. Wanna destroy the business of all carriers? Just travel internationally and use as much data as possible, and then just pay the maximum. Even the big telcos can't absorb that kind of monetary loss.
1.) Carriers must provide the option to unlock a cell phone after 3 months for subsidized phones within the contract period, or immediately if the device was purchased outright.
Bell, Telus and Rogers announced a new unlock policy. You now have the option to unlock your smartphone, provided you pay the price of the phone.
2.) Contracts are now capped at two years, and cancellation fees are limited to the amount of the subsidy.
Bell, Telus and Rogers announced that you can now get the iPhone 5S and the Galaxy S5 for $300 on two years, or $10000 outright. That's a subsidy of $9700.
You have the option to cancel anytime, provided that you refund Bell, Telus or Rogers that $9700 subsidy they were so kind to give you in the first place.
3.) Carriers can no longer charge outrageous data overage and international roaming charges. Without explicit consent from the a customer, such charges are capped at $50 and $100 per month, respectively."
Bell, Telus and Rogers announced new roaming rates of $100/bit. Use 1 bit of data and reach the cap. Service is disabled once you reach the cap.
Bonus: 50% discount on national roaming.
Rampant corporate misbehavior has so desensitized the public that weak half measures are applauded. The chance your carrier will break into your house, light your dog on fire and crap on your carpet has been somewhat reduced. Rejoice!
Sudden outbreak of common sense, eh?
I'll take your minimum data plan, please.... -sets up wireless hotspot-
With the way things are now in the US, it might be a good idea to buy Canadian phone service and "roam" in the US.
Actually, with the actions of T-Mobile lately, it's almost as if they were anticipating this. There are no cancellation fees... no more contracts. If you decide to stop being a T-Mobile customer, you just have to pay for the phone you bought through them if you haven't already.
The roaming and overage charge caps are new though.
For the 2 year contract - prices will simply jump 33% to make up for the lost 3rd year.
International carriers typically don't report for a month or two until after you've travelled, so there's no way to know what the roaming charge will be. The Canadian carrier will have to eat anything over 100 bucks, expect that to be passed onto the customers.
The price to buy the phone outright will jump to cover the lost revenue from unlocking.
Rogers and Bell have Canadians by the balls, and have forever. They own the CRTC, and are the only organizations allowed to give any input into the rulings. Since I've moved back, I've just stuck with a cheap pay-as-you-go phone, and carry an iPod touch, and use it at wi-fi hotspots. The mobile plans are outright dogshit up here. 2 GB caps, and other nonsense like that.
The 50 dollar max data cap charge means you might be able to get 2.5 GBs in a month. You will be tricked into checking the box that lets them charge the insane bills, however.
This is basically the consumer being bent over again, while being tricked into thankful for it.
If you think corporate handouts are bad in the US, give Canada a try. I'm trying to register the vehicle I purchased in the States now, I can only take it to Canadian Tire to verify it meets Canadian standards. That is the law. It's like Obama saying you can only go to Sears Auto Center.
At least we have good weed, and the women aren't so dumpy as they were down south..
This may sound like a stupid question to some...
When going to Europe, I would get a burner phone as it was cheaper than paying roaming/data fees. Since they must now unlock the phone (in my case, an iPhone), does that mean that when I now go to Europe all I need to do is buy a SIM card/service from a local cell provider and stick it in my iPhone and it will work?
It's better to burn out than to fade away
"Contracts are now capped at two years"...
(sigh)
My contract is 2 years old next month.
I still have a year to go, and boy do I have grievances.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
A lot of Americans are complaining about their American telecom service. But aren't American monthly phone and data plans far far better than Canada?!
Blind squirrel finds nut.
Remember, in Canada, it is 30$ the MB for roaming fee, 22,000$ for 700MB (revised to 2,200 $ later).
Symptom: Providers treat their customers like crap and actually compete on who is better at it.
Reason: Heavy governmental intervention in the business including heavy regulation and issuing of permits.
Bad Solution: More regulation to fix a specific issue.
Result of bad solution: Providers still treat their customers like crap and think creatively how to screw them even better.
For the reason of mass stupidity everyone loves the Bad Solution.
Better Solution: Government makes it much easier to enter the market by de-regulating it and replacing the need for permits by registration.
Result of better solution: More players enter the playing field and try to solicit customers away from the old players. Customers are globally loved.
For the reasons stated above no one thinks of the Better Solution.
Ayn Rand would disagree with this...
The CRTC has opted to not make this retroactive to existing contracts, so if you're currently on a contract, you're still screwed until it ends, and you've got to wait out the entire preexisting term and can't use the new 2 year cutout.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
We are still saddled with regulated monopolies that have no interest in competing on price or quality. Until these monopolies are liquidated, we will continue to have poor service and high prices. The Canadian regulatory system is not working! The results speak for themselves!
All cell towers are now common carrier, anyone can use them.
All cell carriers pay into a pool to keep bandwidth capacity increasing.
All cell carriers standardize on single signal type.
All cell carriers use true names of signal type - no 4G / 5G when they are really just extended 2g or 3g.
All cell carriers capped at $20.00 a month (including all fees, charges, costs, handling, blah, blah, blah) for unlimited everything per family, regardless of number of cell devices.
Lowest priced carrier wins as everything else is the same.
No capping, no traffic shaping, no roaming of any kind allowed.
After i was charged for almost $500 from Bell, i said, NO MORE. Now i avoid talking with any canadian, because as you know, no matter what you do (send/receive SMS for example), you will be charged something outrageous.
No longer have to be stuck with 3-5 year contract. Finally! so hope end the tunnel
I just phoned koodo and i would need to pay 50$ to unlock my phone which i bought outright. Doesnt sound right to me
Here's their mandate on prepaid cards:
J. Expiration of prepaid cards
1. General
A service provider must keep open the accounts of customers with prepaid cards for at least seven calendar days following the expiration of an activated card, at no charge, to give the customer more time to “top up” their account and retain their prepaid balance.
In my opinion, prepaid phone cards should be considered the same as gift cards: they should never expire, they can only be used up by the customer. They essentially represent a cash transaction, same as a gift card.
The only difference is, there may be some *slight* cost to the provider to keep that phone number active in their system (I can't right now think of what would cost them money, exactly, but there might be). To cover those costs, the provider could be allowed to deduct a very small 'Idle' fee from the prepaid balance for each month that the user does not use their prepaid minutes. I'm talking 50 cents or a dollar per month, something like that. That way, if Grandma wants to have an emergency cell phone, she can buy $50 worth of minutes and use them up over the next three or four years, not worrying about having to try to add minutes to her phone in an emergency because the old card expired...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
I can't see where it says that the carriers have to comply with this code under penalty of law...am I missing something?
I can definitely see that being able to claim that your company complies with the Code would be a great advertising feature, but what's to stop them from saying "that's nice" and continuing on with business as usual?
As per the wikipedia article on the CRTC:
Regulation of telephone service
The commission currently has some jurisdiction over the provision of local landline telephone service in Canada. This is largely limited to the major incumbent carriers, such as Bell Canada and Telus, for traditional landline service (but not Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)). It has begun the gradual deregulation of such services where, in the commission's opinion, a sufficient level of competition exists.[11]
The CRTC is sometimes blamed for the current state of the mobile phone industry in Canada, in which there are only three national mobile network operators – Bell Mobility, Telus Mobility, and Rogers Wireless – as well as a handful of MVNOs operating on these networks. In fact, the commission has very little to do with the regulation of mobile phone service, outside of "undue preference" issues (for example, a carrier offering a superior rate or service to some subscribers and not others without a good reason). It does not regulate service rates, service quality, or other business practices, and commission approval is not necessary for wireless provider sales or mergers as in the broadcasting industry.[12] Moreover, it does not deal with the availability of spectrum for mobile phone service, which is part of the Industry Canada mandate, nor the maintenance of competition, which is largely the responsibility of The Competition Bureau.
So...they're expanding their mandate?
Hmm...interesting times.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
I read somewhere that the 2-year limit actually applies to existing contracts, too. Might be worth checking out.
So Sasktel has the best coverage by far, but Rogers/Fido/etc. have the better plans for low usage.
I'm actually currently using the 7-11 Speakout plan.
Am I the only one to notice the loophole? As a way around "Without explicit consent from the customer":
"Terms and Conditions.
Article 1: The customer agrees that data overage and international roaming charges will not be capped as per CRTC regulation. This waiver of customer rights is required for customer service and telecom partners service agreements..."
Stick this in the contract and bury it in a giant pile of (pre-existing) legalese. Done and done!
Try $25/year with Speakout Wireless.. airtime doesn't expire for a year.. even on $25 card.
I believe it will cost you $10 for a sim card to get going ( or buy a phone from them using a deal on their $50 airtime.. used to be a free phone with $100 airtime ).
I give everyone my free Fongo.com number ( which I can transfer to another phone later if I want to )
- set Fongo to ring your cell phone and house phones simultaneaously.
- answer the cheaper option ( ie Home Phone)
- or just use Speakout or Fongo's free call display to decide to use wireless minutes or call them back later.
Carriers don't need to unlock phones for free. The policy says "unlock the device, or give the customer the means to unlock the device, upon request, at the rate specified by the service provider"
So all service providers need to do is specify that their unlocking rate is $1000 per device. :(
... on the radio today as I was driving home that this will only mean 'higher costs'. They're going to punish everyone for having the audacity to ask for a fair shake. If the standard 3 year contract is forced down to 2, expect an immediate 33% increase in upfront phone costs and monthly charges.
Only a complete BAN on contracts and a cap on SMS fees (how about 0.1c per SMS, so it costs less than talking to the freaking Hubble!) will make any difference. They'll just pass the costs onto the customers.
3.) Carriers can no longer charge outrageous data overage and international roaming charges. Without explicit consent from the a customer, such charges are capped at $50 and $100 per month, respectively."
Cant help but feel the user is lacking some responsibility to monitor their own use if they go overseas instead of blaming the carriers for this. A good way to fix this is bar international roaming and data by default?
I've just started discussions on a new phone and provider. I don't understand the contract issues. Started with Rogers and they don't apply any penalty for cancelling a new contract and your only obligation is to pay off the outstanding amount owed on the phone that they subsidized. I assume this could be a "penalty" if they overcharged you for the phone but that cost is clear in the contract. Am I missing something?
"1.) Carriers must provide the option to unlock a cell phone after 3 months for subsidized phones within the contract period, or immediately if the device was purchased outright."
I am not sure what this will accomplish. It will only give you the option to change, but this doesn't say that it will be financially reasonable.
"2.) Contracts are now capped at two years, and cancellation fees are limited to the amount of the subsidy."
I do believe the "subsidy" just quadrupled and the 2 year contracts now cost as much as 3.
"3.) Carriers can no longer charge outrageous data overage and international roaming charges. Without explicit consent from the a customer, such charges are capped at $50 and $100 per month, respectively."
You will be disconnected within 5min of entering international roaming and owe 100$, same with data fees, but 50$. However it will be nice not to be fearful that you can accidentally bankrupt yourself by some phone app or feature making your have a 20,000$ bill just by traveling outside Canada.