[Newsbot]

Title: Canadian cellphone rates among world's worst
Category: Business
Posted By: Hyack
Date: 2009-08-11 21:22:05
Canadian

[saturn_656]

I paid about $600 a year for my cell. I said screw it and I am getting a pay as you go with our regional carrier.

No more of my money to Bell, Rogers or Telus.

[Brenda]

$1:

Dutch users had the cheapest rates

Tell me about it! Canada is terribly expensive with a lot of things, not only cell phones.
Cable television, groceries are things that are expensive. I think I mentioned it all before somewhere...

[saturn_656]

FFS Because I mentioned Bell in the article I get a bell ad.

[Proculation]

The market is so concentrated... A friend from Morroco was amazed by the cost. He says that in Morroco, there are dozens of carriers. For 10$ you have unlimited time for phone and Internet and they give you the phone.

[Lemmy]

Good. Maybe high cell rates will start to influence people to throw the fucking things in the garbage and go back to communicating like humans.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Oh man, I could NOT agree more!!

[ridenrain]

Classic lack of competition collusion because of government regulations.

[Scape]

$1:

The United States had the highest rates for this "medium-usage" package, followed by Spain.

If that so why isn't the US the cheapest?

[Praxius]

This is the whole reason why I never bought a cell phone yet myself.

3 year damn contracts, service fees up the wazoo, charged for sending and receiving text messages, getting threat letters of being sent to collections from the phone company three days before the bill in question even arrives in the mail (Rogers and my ex's experiences)

My gf from Australia won't even think about getting a cell plan here in Canada because it's so screwed up.

And should I even mention that about a couple of years or so ago an investigation was on-going in regards to additional hidden fees each cell company charges their customers?

Those hidden fees were actual fees in the early 90's that were used to help fund the further development of towers and reception accross Canada.

Those same fees were supposed to stop by the end of the decade, considering the majority of location services were all up and ready by that time..... yet it's been found those same fees are still being billed to customers under alternative charges.

Source: (I'd hate to post the whole thing, but serously, you got to read this)

Sask. court certifies class-action cellphone suit
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/s ... 9/20070919

$1:

The lawyer at the head of a massive class-action lawsuit against Canadian cellphone companies said the service providers have become "addicted" to collecting unnecessary fees from customers.

"When the companies first had cellular service you had to have a wireless fee, and the companies got into the habit of charging this," Tony Merchant, the lawyer who initiated the suit, told CTV Regina.

"When they weren't required to pay the wireless fee, it was sort of like a crack cocaine that they were used to," he said. "They just kept charging, taking the money and mis-describing the money they were receiving."

A Saskatchewan court certified the lawsuit against Canada's cellphone providers on Tuesday.

The suit, first launched in 2004, alleges Canada's cellphone users are owed $12 billion plus interest for unfair "system access" fees collected over the years.

After two weeks of arguments from lawyers for the class action and the cell phone companies, the Court of Queen's Bench in Regina ruled Tuesday that the suit has enough validity to go forward.

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.

"As a financial story for these companies it has an absolute blockbuster impact upon them. So if the industry has a judgment of $20 billion delivered, the impact would obviously be huge," Merchant said

The suit claims the companies are practicing "unjust enrichment" by charging the so-called "system access" or "licensing" fees.

Merchant maintains cellphone service providers have convinced customers the fees are required under federal regulations.

"They're gouging people. They're receiving money they ought not to receive and people believe they're paying it with good and just cause, and they're not."

The practice effectively allows companies to advertise lower prices, then boost the cost of cellphone plans through hidden fees, he said.

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

An investigation by the Toronto Star several years ago revealed many employees of cellphone companies were incorrectly telling customers the fees were required by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.

While required by the CRTC when the cellphone industry was in its infancy, the fees are no longer legally required, but are still being charged.

The investigation also found the fees would generate about $800 million annually for the industry.

Merchant said that number is now closer to $1.3 or $1.5 billion.

Critics argue the fees are necessary in order to allow cellphone companies to continue doing business, and point out that the court's certification of the class-action suit doesn't mean the case has been deemed to have merit.

Doesn't that just piss you off?

This is why I haven't bought a cell yet, and probably never will until I move to another country. Canada's Cell Phones are a friggin racket that's been allowed to go on for far too long.

[Akhenaten]

The article The article:

Canadians falling into this usage category shelled out an average of $500 US a year for their cellphone service, compared with $635 for Americans and $508 for Spaniards. Dutch users had the cheapest rates, with an annual expenditure of only $131 for the sample plan."

I realize there are many bad deals and stupid contracts etc, but has anyone considered the maintenance costs of a country like the US or Canada compared with the Dutch? You can fit 5 Hollands inside Eastern Canada alone. I'm not really trying to defend these rates but merely comparing what people pay from country to country doesn't really tell us much.

[coaster_dot]

I use my cell phone to call and maybe a few texts if I need to. I had the highest bill I ever had when I went on my last trip. I got charged $1 a min plus $4 a day when I used my phone anywhere in Canada. And I got no service in the Rockies, barely in Calgary through Edmonton, and as well as Saskatchewan.

Normally my bill is $40 but last month it was $100.

[Scape]

So does this mean the Dutch an Morricans are ardent capitolists and the US/Canada a socialist paridise?

[Brenda]

Holland is more socialist than Canada

[bootlegga]

I have to agree that service here is insanely over-priced. When I lived in Japan, you could get a top of the line cell phone (years ahead of the product here) for less than $100 without signing a contract. And rates were very affordable, but the best feature was that incoming calls were FREE! That's right, if someone called you, it didn't cost you a dime. Taiwan was virtually the same when I lived there too.

The price of phones and insane contracts prevented me from getting a phone for almost 5 years after I got back. When I did, I bought a cell phone for $50 and went on pay-as-you-go.

It's not collusion or lack of competition as some people here have speculated. We have three national cellular competitors, which should be plenty of competitors (Japan has three as well and their prices are far lower than here).

The problem we have is the fact that we as a nation are so spread out. We have 32 million people in an area 27 times the size of Japan or the UK. Therefore, providers have to spend a fortune building the infrastructure to support cellular service. I had a cell phone back in the late 80/early 90s and the service area was very small. A lot of services that require a big infrastructure commitment (like rail service for example) are simply not economically viable without a dense population base.

That's why Regina doesn't have a subway/LRT, but there is rail service between Toronto and Montreal. In places like Holland or Japan, the population is far denser, so investing in infrastructure is easier because you have far more potential customers once it is complete. The constant innovation in cellular technology (analog-digital-3G) has cost us too, because our providers are constantly spending money to upgrade existing networks, instead of expanding coverage areas.