Telecom Lobbyists Successfully Remove Canada from Wireless Pricing Report

https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/carriers/telecom-lobbyists-remove-canada-wireless-report/

by ericzawo • 7 years ago

259 117 7 years ago

For us living in Canada, we know we pay more than anyone else. And we're constantly reminded of how the Bell, Telus and Rogers mafia keeps it that way.

kennywinker• 7 years ago

Yeah, but the reason we know we pay more is reports like this. If this stands, five-to-ten years from now they can say "well actually that's not true anymore blah blah blah our fake reports" and there is no independent data to counter their claims. Smart move on their part.

gpm5• 7 years ago

I live in Canada and everyone says this, I don't think it's really that true.

I was in California for this summer - I paid about the same for a cell service there as I do here...

All numbers in USD.

For a quick comparison of "premium" cell providers, an unlimited (15gb before throttling) verizon wireless line is $70 per month [0]. A comparable Canadian plan for Bell is $56 per month for 10gb before throttling, or $71 per month for 20 gb before throttling.

Most people don't pay that much in reality, because of group discounts and so on, but that applies in both cases.

The story is similar if we look at budget cell phone providers. Google Fi (US) provides unlimited talk and text for $20gb/month with data for $10gb/month. Freedom mobile (Canada) doesn't provide as much flexibility, and you have to select your amount of data up front, but for any amount of data it's cheaper. E.g. for 2gb it's $30/month instead of $40. [2]

[0] https://www.verizonwireless.com/plans/ - change the number of lines to 1, this is 15gb data before throttling per their faq https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/verizon-plan-unlimit...

[1] Remember to convert CAD to USD https://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Cell_phone_plans/Unlimited-plan...

[2] Click on "Freedom Plans" here, remember to convert CAD to USD https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/plans

jammygit2• 7 years ago

My bell plan is 95 CAD and gives 4GB/mo so I’m not sure where your numbers came from. I must have missed that deal

Scoundreller17• 7 years ago

Verizon’s price drops by 50% once you get to 4 lines. You won’t find that in Canada.

And once you hit 15gb, you’re still getting 600kbps.

Freedom limits you to 256 (or 128 outside their limited footprint) once you go over.

T-mobile’s $40/month plans (if you can string in 4 friends/family) will have unlim streaming video, 5gb of roaming in Canada, an SD Netflix subscription, 1 hour of in-flight wifi and start throttling you at 50gb.

edit: That's $40 with taxes and fees included. They advertise it that way!

Each of the above are unthinkable in Canada. We choose phone plans based on their restrictions, not their extras.

I know, population density and all, but compare to Australia, Russia or Iceland, and Canadians are still getting hosed.

Don't even get me started on France. Going in a month and will soon order a SIM card. And the provider will mail anywhere in France at no charge...

Moru• 7 years ago

One of the providers[0] in Sweden: 8 GB data - $7.52, 25 GB - $12.6. $17.6 for 100 GB. All accounts carry over unused data up to 100 GB indefinitely. 13 GB data anywhere in EU/EES.

[0] https://www.hallon.se/mobiltelefoni

superhuzza• 7 years ago

I just moved from Quebec to the UK.

For a plan with exactly the same conditions and data amount, I am paying 10 GBP = 16.43 CAD instead of 46 CAD after tax. And that was a competitively priced plan in Quebec.

Telco in Canada is embarrassing.

post_below• 7 years ago

The problem is that you're comparing two corrupt markets. You're absolutely right, it's not much better in the US: Behemoth providers making absurd profits not based on any kind of free market with the money to afford the lobbying and advertising to keep it that way.

raydev• 7 years ago

Remember to convert CAD to USD

Absolutely not. We aren't importing data from the US. You can't tie exchange rate to CoL.

Scoundreller17• 7 years ago

Was visiting a relative without wifi in USA. Random person offers to tether us to their phone.

He said something that no Canadian ever says in this situation: “Go wild, it’s unlimited”.

dragosmocrii• 7 years ago

Sadly, telecommunications (Rogers, Telus, Bell) and air transportation (WestJet, Air Canada) are affected by oligopoly.

The situation in Quebec is slightly better thanks to a 4th telecom company, Videotron, which brings mobile plans and internet prices lower than in the rest of Canada.

It's funny how sometimes you'll see the exactly same "promotion" offerings from the Robelus trio...

Scoundreller17• 7 years ago

At least with air travel I have (and take advantage of) the opportunity to fly to Europe because it’s not much more than long-haul domestic.

Tons of ways to Paris. Not so for Vancouver.

And both AC and WestJet were heavily invested in developing a 737MAX fleet...

msbarnett4• 7 years ago

The situation in Quebec is slightly better thanks to a 4th telecom company, Videotron, which brings mobile plans and internet prices lower than in the rest of Canada.

Saskatchewan also sees better prices and promotions due to the presence of Province-owned SaskTel iirc.

tonyarkles2• 7 years ago

SaskTel is a bit... all over the place. Sometimes their plans are a great deal, sometimes not. When got my first smartphone, I had a $60CAD/mo unlimited everything plan. You get to stick with your plan until you do a subsidized phone upgrade, so I held onto that for a long long time. When I got a new phone, there were no unlimited plans for two upgrade cycles, and the high data (13GB was my last one) plans were expensive ($110/mo). My most recent upgrade they started offering a $90/mo unlimited plan again.

Edit: also, the three major carriers (Rogers, Telus, Bell) generally offer different packages in SK than they do for the rest of the country, to remain competitive with SaskTel. Another fun thing: while Rogers has some towers in the province, the LTE towers are all generally owned by SaskTel and there’s an agreement in place to let the other use them. In exchange, SaskTel customers get to use Bell and Telus towers in the rest of the country without incurring roaming charges. That used to not be the case and we’d be limited to 250MB of data out of province.

MAGZine2• 7 years ago

Iirc a large part of Canadian airline ticket prices come from the fact that airports impose large fees on tickets to pay for improvements to the facilities, rather than subsidizing the cost from municipal and provincial taxpayers.

Canadian airport usage is supported through user taxes rather than general revenue.

There are some startups now in Canada offering lower fares but it's not that much cheaper and they frequently fly to international destinations, which are more lucrative anyhow.

martinald3• 7 years ago

Most (all?) EU airports are not subsidised by govt (indeed I imagine it would be illegal under EU state support rules). Ryanair/easyJet/wizzair etc all offer crazy low fares.

angott5• 7 years ago

It's not just telecommunications and air transport. Everywhere you look, you'll find sectors where foreign competition is prohibited or strictly managed in a way that keeps prices artificially high.

An example? Cheese. Under CETA (the Canada-EU free trade agreement), only Canadian dairy producers can import cheese from the EU into Canada. These producers will set its price artificially high as to match the price of Canadian cheese plus a premium. This way, they ensure consumers will buy Canadian cheese instead, as it appears to be cheaper.

It's just crazy how much lobbying can do.

martinald3• 7 years ago

Interesting. What would stop someone else setting up a new dairy producer and import it without applying the crazy markup you mention?

generatorguy• 7 years ago

I have no love for telus, bell, or Rogers.

Should Canadians pay a bit of a premium to be able to supply some of the things that we depend on to live ourselves, in our own way, on our own terms? For food I think yes. I am happy to know that the milk and cheese I consume did not come from American mega farms with all their problems.

throw0101a3• 7 years ago

An example? Cheese.

I'm actually one of the people who don't have much of a problem with Canada's dairy (and poultry) regime, with its supply-side management:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_management_(Canada)

The fact of the matter is that just about everyone (US, EU) subsidies their farmers from general tax revenue. The US supposedly gives as much in subsidies as the entire Canadian market.

If Canada were to open its market to foreign product, Canadian farmers would probably be wiped out because of cheaper imports. So if Canada would want a domestic industry, they too would also have do subsidize their own farmers--and that would be done from general tax receipts.

So the taxes of someone who is lactose intolerant would be going to help produce milk. Someone who is vegan / vegetarian would be helping to grow chickens.

With the current system, the only people paying more are the folks who actually by the product(s).

gimmeThaBeet• 7 years ago

Videotron also has a network sharing agreement with Rogers though, so their retail behavior is different, but you're basically on Rogers outside Ottawa and Quebec.

The comment I wanted to make there is the main reason why Rogers signed that agreement was they got unused Toronto spectrum licenses from Videotron.

The big 3 are monsters, but the set-asides that the government does in spectrum auctions imo does more damage in making spectrum more expensive than it does in supporting anyone not named Rogers/Bell/Telus.

ehsankia2• 7 years ago

It's funny how each of these companies also have sub-companies with different brand, like how Videotron started Fizz.

I moved back to Quebec a month ago and was doing a survey of the mobile plans: Videotron, Bell, Rogers, Telus, Virgin Mobile, Koodo, Fido and Fizz. It was hilarious, 6/8 companies had the exact same 4 + 5GB for 55$ deal.

In the past, every single graph of pricing I've seen shows them all moving together in lock step. It's unbelievable to me that after all these years nothing has been done to solve this. Here's hoping this election this will get more attention from the politicians...

aledalgrande4• 7 years ago

You forgot banks. And alcohol (in BC)

tonyarkles2• 7 years ago

Alcohol is Canada-wide too! Each province runs its own liquor distribution system. Up until this year, it was impossible for me, in SK, to order a case of wine from a vineyard in BC without having that wine go through SLGA (sask liquor and gaming). The feds seem to have dropped this requirement though [1] and now it’s up to the provinces to work out the rules for interprovincial liquor.

[1] https://www.google.ca/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/5149144/bc-in...

throw0101a3• 7 years ago

* Sadly, telecommunications (Rogers, Telus, Bell) and air transportation (WestJet, Air Canada) are affected by oligopoly.*

With ISPs, the CRTC (~FCC) has at least forced the incumbent telcos so allow independents access to their Layer 1:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network

I think the US would benefit from such a policy, and it did exist for a short spell around 2000.

Doesn't help much in the area of mobile phones though.

With regards to air transportation, I would think that most traffic flows more north-south and less east-west, so I'm not sure how many airlines can survive given Canada's population and the distribution thereof. Certainly we do have some 'regionals', Porter out of CYTZ being fairly well-known.

MrBuddyCasino• 7 years ago

Time to post this again: https://palladiummag.com/2019/09/19/how-not-to-build-a-count...

dang• 7 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21101065

obtino• 7 years ago

Pricing in Canada for mobile plans are downright awful! I can buy a plan from Australia and use it there in Canada for cheaper with international roaming.

I remember only 10 years ago that Canadian telcos still considered moving between state lines as ‘roaming’. I don’t know if it’s still the case.

angott5• 7 years ago

Some Canadian carriers are indeed still selling plans with local calls only. In 2019. It's depressing.

Scoundreller17• 7 years ago

It also means people keep changing their phone number when they move.

Whereas US family all still have the same phone number they got in HS/college.

aledalgrande4• 7 years ago

Yeah! Freedom. Paying CAD45 for 4GB, when in UK I had unlimited data for GBP10.

Edit: did the low UK price offend someone?

tpmx6• 7 years ago

I remember the spectacular pricing of around $10-15/MB in Canadian mobile networks back around 2004-2005, just when 3G was getting started. (So it was really 2G pricing.)

As a reference, typical European pricing was around $2/MB at the time, IIRC. The US of course had their typical "plans" that made price comparisons hard.

It's fascinating that the network owners in Canada have managed to keep prices so high, for so long.

We were launching a mobile J2ME-based service back then; I remember thinking we'd get back to Canada when they'd got their data pricing in order but that never happened...

Scoundreller17• 7 years ago

Canadians' situation is definitely an after-thought for app developers.

The NPR app keeps pre-buffering several hundred mb of audio when I start it and chews through my data. Ugh.

And then there's the time my bank forced me to update their app and I wasn't on wifi...

Scoundreller17• 7 years ago

$10/mb vs $2/mb...

Things have diverted more. French plans now have 25x the data for lower prices than Canadian plans...

pm90• 7 years ago

This is insane... how can the Canadian populace (and by extension, the government) not pass laws that forbid this nonsense? Its incredible that the Canadian people are not up in arms over this shit.

angott5• 7 years ago

Around 2013, the Canadian government considered allowing Verizon to enter the Canadian market by buying WIND Mobile, a small budget carrier which was looking for foreign investors. They were faced with a huge fearmongering campaign orchestrated by the big three carriers, with TV ads like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndQv6wwaNyM

Needless to say that Verizon backed out of the deal immediately.

paulsutter• 7 years ago

Watch that video! It’s a very effective ad (thanks for posting)

microcolonel• 7 years ago

Fun, if a bit rough, parody of that too. https://youtu.be/kC0uMKXsVM4

When I was travelling in the U.S. a few weeks ago, I was able to buy a month's unlimited data and North American calling and SMS on some random MVNO from some random phone shop in middle of nowhere NY, including a new SIM and activation, for less than one pays for a month with a cap here in Ontario.

Even the corrupt, cronyistic telecom arrangements in the U.S.† are dramatically better than those in Canada.

† Not that the U.S. is particularly bad for this, by world standards.

LeonM3• 7 years ago

I recently had a discussion with a colleague about this:

Wouldn't it be much more efficient to start a telco with just 1 plan: unlimited everything for a fixed price.

Literally just charge $30/month or so (I haven't done the math on what is economically viable) for a flat fee plan. No strings attached, except maybe rate limit after a substantial amount of data to prevent abuse (like 50gb/day).

Also: no contracts, let people cancel when they want. And don't sell devices, just the SIM card.

This way you'll have:

- no need for usage metering systems

- very simple billing systems

- minimal need for marketing

- much less support calls (at least no angry customers due to unexpected costs)

- a very simple self-service portal

Now, I know I'm being naive here, it'll be next to impossible to start a service like this because the physical infrastructure (the base stations) are owned by the ancient behemoth telcos that have roamed the earth for past century.

But just imagine how great a telco can be if you were just to trim the fat, legacy and greed away.

nahtnam• 7 years ago

I think this will happen with the new wave of telecom companies that rely on satellites instead of ground towers (probably in the next decade or so)

nordsieck• 7 years ago

I think this will happen with the new wave of telecom companies that rely on satellites instead of ground towers

Maybe. If you look at the total available bandwidth of the satellite systems vs their potential subscriber base, I think metering will probably happen at a lower level than many people expect.

Perhaps they'll upgrade to much better radios in the future and the whole issue will be resolved.

LeonM3• 7 years ago

If only that was technologically feasible...

pjc502• 7 years ago

As you say, really unlimited will get abused. But in a functional market with unbundling, the "MVNO" virtual operators can exist. The UK has lots.

Here's a recent review of available unlimited plans in the UK: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/09/comparison-of-...

LeonM3• 7 years ago

Now that I'm thinking about it: you could just limit a connection to ~30mbit permanently and remove any data limit.

30mbit is enough to stream 4K video, so there is currently no actual use-case for more bandwidth on mobile devices. Those who are 'abusing' the unlimited plan to replace their wired internet connection at home will now have a choice: 30mbit 'slow' internet from their mobile plan, or get a separate fiber/cable/adsl line for more bandwidth.

The base stations are very much capable of sharing their available bandwidth equally through TDM, so it wouldn't impact other users that much.

Again, I'm probably being naive here...

Nursie• 7 years ago

This is effectively what I have from Three Mobile here in the UK.

They seem to have stopped offering my plan, but I pay around £22 per month, SIM only. Ihave used in excess of 100GB per month a few times (we used it as our home internet while the cable line was being sorted out), and am very happy. I even get the "Feel At Home" package that means I can use up to 12GB a month in the US, Australia and a ton of other countries for no extra charge.

But as a small business customer I have no access to their web portal (!?) and they seem to have stopped selling this plan.

seanalltogether• 7 years ago

To play devils advocate, a more fair system would charge you a flat fee to maintain the connection, and a price per gigabyte to use the pipes. The more that people use the pipes, the more money you can put toward investment in fatter pipes.

on_and_off• 7 years ago

You have just described how a lot of MVNO operators work.

In France, you can get an unlimited subscription for 20€ / month.

As far as I remember, no strings attached, no phone either unless you want to, unlimited voice, texts and data. There is some kind of data cap, it is pretty high and if you reach it, you don't have to pay anything, your speed might just be limited for the month (although it has never happened to me afaik).

It is also unlimited in many other countries.

wmf• 7 years ago

That sounds like the T-Mobile One plan that they offered for a while, but it was $70/month and they were still struggling. The network is expensive and customer acquisition is really expensive.

chipperyman573• 7 years ago

I think they had a data cap of 23gb/mo before you'd get really slow speeds

remote_phone• 7 years ago

Canada is a cesspool of oligopolies, from TV to Cell Phone to Banks, etc.The excuse is always “if we don’t then some foreign/US company could come in and destroy our culture.” Which of course is bullshit. A handful of companies are making billions and billions off the backs of Canadian with worse service and it won’t get any better unless the oligopolies are broken.

crashcrashcrush2• 7 years ago

I actually sympathize - Canada is nice. Quebec especially so; doubly for Montreal. Perhaps it's a bit of this protectionism and isolationism that keeps it that way.

rogerkirkness• 7 years ago

Certainly almost no aspect of Quebec would survive actual competition with the outside world, as you imply.

dmix• 7 years ago

Quebec is nice if you're a tourist.

I tried living there and that sheen quickly fades. Especially after living in a US city. It's a joke if you think anyone in the world is even attempting to try to imitate Quebec. Montreal is nice because of what is left from the past greatness in the pre 1970s and because of its decline it's now a dirt cheap urban playground with economy-class hipster NYC lite for the unemployed artists whose parents can afford paying their $400/m shared living rent.

Otherwise the economy is incredibly behind the times and incredibly lucky for the political influence it's established over the years being the special child who gets preferential treatment despite having none of the excuses the have-not east coast provinces have, despite receiving the most aid of all of the provinces.

There's a very good reason MTL rents are 20x cheaper than NYC despite the large stock of high quality old buildings. And it has nothing to do with what they’ve achieved recently.

tpmx6• 7 years ago

This sounds a bit like the general situation in Australia.

It annoyed me to no end when I lived there but the locals didn't seem to worry.

tybit• 7 years ago

I know the feeling, I regularly bemoan Telstra here, while many friends happily pay a fortune for sub par service from them.

jbarham2• 7 years ago

This sounds a bit like the general situation in Australia.

As a Canadian living in Australia since 2011, I have to disagree. Politically Canada is much more of a protectionist nanny state than Australia.

For mobile service in particular (i.e., the topic of this dicussion), Australia is much more competitive than Canada despite also being a very large, sparsely populated country. I pay $25/month for unlimited calls and 18 GB of 4G data (https://www.aldimobile.com.au/plans/value-packs/). Unlike Canada, Australia allows strong, foreign competitors to provide mobile service (e.g., Vodafone and Optus).

Other ways in which Australia is less protectionist than Canada: - parallel private healthcare system - parallel private education system (although not at university level) - buy alcohol anywhere, not just at government owned stores - no dairy and poultry "supply management" - foreign owned supermarkets (e.g., Aldi)

Australia is far from perfect (e.g., the natural gas cartel is far too powerful) but on the whole there's far less government interference that protects cozy domestic oligopolies compared Canada.

reaperducer• 7 years ago

Don't forget radio. A lot of USAians don't realize that in Canada (and a lot of other countries) you can't start a radio station, or change your programming, without the government approving the format you choose.

Want to play country music on your radio station? Woah there, podner. There's already a country station in this town, and if you play country music, too, there won't be enough advertising money to go around. So the incumbent stays, and the idea of competition allowing the better station to survive can go pound sand.

bstar77• 7 years ago

I lived in Canada for 2 years. The week I moved there is when T-Mobile started offering free unlimited roaming in Canada. In my time in Canada I kept my T-Mobile plan and didn't even have to get an unlimited plan since I already had unlimited roaming. Since my bill was sent to a Washington address, I guess I got in on some loophole. The best part was that my coverage was phenominal... I had access to Telus, Wind and Bell in my area.

My prior trip to BC scouting for a home (a month earlier) cost me hundreds of dollars in international calls and data usage. The phone plans in Canada are shockingly bad. Being able to circumvent them was a godsend.

Telecom Lobbyists Successfully Remove Canada from Wireless Pricing Report

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