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Canadian Cellphone Bills Are Some of the Highest In the World, Says Report (straight.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the surprise-surprise dept.

Freshly Exhumed shares a report from Straight: A report released this week by the Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development (ISED) confirms that Canada ranks among the top three most costly countries for mobile wireless plans. Comparing the U.K, Italy, France, Australia, Japan, and the U.S. on six tiers of pricing -- which looked at talk-time, texts, and data -- the document shows that Canada has the most expensive mid-range and higher-tier plans in the world. "It is unacceptable that Canadians continue to pay ever-rising prices year after year for something as critical as mobile communications services," said Katy Anderson, Digital Rights Advocate at OpenMedia.

2 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting contrast between Internet and Mobile by cptdondo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I live in Canada as a US expat. US allows ISPs to control the last mile so Comcast and such prohibit any competition for service to your house. Ontario, at least, requires Rogers, Bell to lease their lines to anyone. So I contract with VMedia and get cable with a couple of premium packages and 35 mbit down for about CAD$70 a month, much cheaper than what I was paying in the US ($70 a month for 1.5 mbit down. Really. Try living in Qwest territory.)

    OTOH the US prohibits telcos from owning cell towers, and the cell tower operators must lease to anyone so competition is fierce. As a result there's lots of competition and mobile prices are reasonable. In Ontario, Rogers owns Rogers towers, and no one else can use them. Each telco has to build its own tower network, decreasing competition and driving up prices.

    What the numbers in the report don't show is that in the US you can get family bundles that substantially lower the bill; I have 5 lines and pay about US$120 a month for the service; the first line is $60 and then each additional line is $10. If I was to contract with Rogers, I'd pay CAD$60 PER LINE with no discount. Sure I can share data, but I have to pay full freight for each line.

  2. Re:$ or it didn't happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    But population density in Canada is much lower than in the countries in comparison and weather is much worse as well.

    Canada 3.4/km2

    UK 255/km2

    Japan 337/km2