Mobile Rates Going Up Due to 2 Year Plan Changes

[opendoor]

Those BYOD rates are absolutely hilarious. $63 for unlimited minutes with 250GB of data and no hardware subsidy from Rogers?

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by renny

I've had unlimited nationwide talk and text for many years now and I'm on Fido. We Canadians are just used to being gouged and are OK with it. That's the big problem.

I'm not sure we're okay with it so much as people were previously stuck to long contracts and there was no competition away from the Robelus triopoly. Hopefully more people flood to Mobilicity and Wind now. My retention plan contract is up and if I have to pay an additional $10+, I'll be switching to Wind.

[Bob]

So those of us with retention plans are completely screwed? I currently pay about $50/month with Rogers and my contract is up in October. I gather I won't be allowed to renew my old plan, but am I not allowed to continue month-to-month indefinitely or what?

[Mazrim]

Thanks for the info guys. It was only a couple years ago that I got my current plan with Rogers (the phone however is done in November), so it wasn't too long ago where their offering for long distance was My10 Canada Wide, which I took. I have decent anytime minutes, My10 Canada Wide, 1GB data and all the other usual stuff for $70 a month, which based on what some you say you pay is overpriced, but I feel it's good value.

I don't have any complaints about Rogers personally as they've treated me well since 2003, but I'll probably do some more shopping around this time around for plans when November rolls around.

[CaramonLS]

I think the Big 3 see the writing on the wall and they're determined to suck as much blood out as they can.

[Anduril]

Originally Posted by Bob

So those of us with retention plans are completely screwed? I currently pay about $50/month with Rogers and my contract is up in October. I gather I won't be allowed to renew my old plan, but am I not allowed to continue month-to-month indefinitely or what?

So what I had mentioned earlier is that you won't be able to renew (In other words, sign a 2 year contract, keep the same plan and get subsidy on a new phone)

After your contract is up in October, you can choose to renegotiate (and likely get a worse plan) in order to get subsidy on your new phone, or buy one outright while keeping the same plan.

[Super Nintendo Chalmers]

Originally Posted by Bob

So those of us with retention plans are completely screwed? I currently pay about $50/month with Rogers and my contract is up in October. I gather I won't be allowed to renew my old plan, but am I not allowed to continue month-to-month indefinitely or what?

You can continue month-to-month but you lose any discounts with a specified expiry date.

[Super Nintendo Chalmers]

OpenMedia.ca: Holes poked in big telecoms’ excuses for Canada’s high mobile rates

It is a popular myth that high prices are due to Canada’s size and population density. But as technology consultants at the SeaBoard Group argue, “Canada’s carriers do not actually provide coverage across 90% of the land mass” because most of our population is concentrated in a small number of cities.

As wireless providers are only serving a small percentage of this geography, the total size of Canada has little bearing on service costs. Big Telecom’s own lobby group, the CWTA, has noted that Canada has just 13,000 wireless towers—a small fraction of the 52,000 found in the U.K., which is only 1/40th our size.

[Rathji]

I was going to post and say "How does that make sense? A huge portion of the country is covered by towers" and I looked up a map to back up my point.



I didn't realize that our experience in Alberta was vastly different than elsewhere in Canada. I am guessing that is due to the oilpatch?

[Anduril]

The funny thing is with Western Canada coverage, Telus/Bell are better than Rogers overall.

After all, they do say they cover 97% of the population.

[Anduril]

The funny thing is with Western Canada coverage, Telus/Bell are better than Rogers overall.

After all, they do say they cover 97% of the population.

[Azure]

Telus/Bell coverage in Sask pretty much covers the entire province, IIRC.

MTS coverage in Manitoba covers most places where people live. So like 10% of the actual province.

Alberta is one of the most spread out provinces in terms of people living everywhere. I suppose that is why there is so much coverage.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Super Nintendo Chalmers

OpenMedia.ca: Holes poked in big telecoms’ excuses for Canada’s high mobile rates

But Canada is such a big country that even the 10% part of Canada would be the second largest country in Europe, only behind Russia, and bigger than continental France and Germany combined.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by accord1999

But Canada is such a big country that even the 10% part of Canada would be the second largest country in Europe, only behind Russia, and bigger than continental France and Germany combined.

Yeah, but look at the number of cell sites per country. Granted, it's a rudimentary way to look at it, but I'm not really seeing how there's so much more infrastructure required to serve Canada:

-Canada has 13K sites for a population of 34 million

-The UK has 52K sites for a population of 63 million

-The US has 190K sites for a population of 314 million


So Canada has 25% the number of sites compared the UK while having 54% of the population and compared to the US we have under 7% of the number of towers with about 11% of the population. So on a per capita basis, we have about 50% fewer sites than the UK and 35% fewer than the United States.

Obviously that's not the whole story as I imagine things get cheaper as they're scaled upwards, but I'm really not seeing the infrastructure argument for cell phone rates in Canada.

[Super Nintendo Chalmers]

Originally Posted by accord1999

But Canada is such a big country that even the 10% part of Canada would be the second largest country in Europe, only behind Russia, and bigger than continental France and Germany combined.

Yet Canadian telcoms invest less in their infrastructure than many of their EU counterparts and paradoxically use this cost as justification for their pricing.

Also, Bell/Telus share a network. Why does this not translate into any pricing advantage over Rogers?

[rd_aaron]

Originally Posted by Azure

Telus/Bell coverage in Sask pretty much covers the entire province, IIRC.

MTS coverage in Manitoba covers most places where people live. So like 10% of the actual province.

Alberta is one of the most spread out provinces in terms of people living everywhere. I suppose that is why there is so much coverage.

Telus/Bell use SaskTel towers for service in Saskatchewan.

[Igster]

Originally Posted by Super Nintendo Chalmers

Yet Canadian telcoms invest less in their infrastructure than many of their EU counterparts and paradoxically use this cost as justification for their pricing.

Also, Bell/Telus share a network. Why does this not translate into any pricing advantage over Rogers?

Stop bringing logic into the conversation please. There is no place for that while the big three count their money...shhhhhhh.

[Igster]

In an extensive press release issue today, Bell Canada outlines the three main reasons, and few minor additions, why US wireless providers like Verizon should not be allowed to take advantage of several “loopholes” in the current spectrum acquisition and telecom investment environment.

Bell worried about a Canadian market that includes Verizon, urges government to make changes

...and here we go...

[MrMastodonFarm]

Third, and one that doesn’t hold a lot of water, is Bell’s assertion that if Verizon were to enter the Canadian market, it would be able to buy up new entrants like Public, Wind and Mobilicity at “fire-sale prices” because, by virtue of the CRTC’s prohibition against spectrum transfers that results in ”undue spectrum concentration.”

lol

[Igster]

Yeah...God help the big three if they had some actual competition that didn't want to play ball and actually wanted to provide good value to the consumer instead of meeting in back rooms ensuring pricing is pretty much the same across the board and everyone stays fat.