Wirelessnorth.ca

In Europe POTS was traditionally managed by the country's PTT (Post Telephone and Telegraph) which was either a government ministry or the equivalent of a Crown Corporation. So for a call to cross carrier boundaries, it needed to cross borders, in which case the call was a long distance call. All carriers, including North American carriers, had (and still have) commercial agreements to compensate each other for the cost of carrying long distance calls not originated by one of their subscribers (including calls transiting through an intermediate carrier). And until deregulation allowed local POTS competition, all local calls were always terminated on the same carrier on which the call was originated. What some European countries had was the concept of “local measured service” i.e. local POTS calls were not free and Europeans payed a lot more for their phone service than North Americans.

The situation is reversed for wireless services: we, North Americans (and Canadians in particular) pay a whole lot more for wireless services than just about any place else in the developed world. Why? and why in particular are we charged for incoming calls? Because of weak competition. In my opinion, this weak competition is mostly enabled by the fact that cell phones are bundled with and locked to a given carrier. In Europe, cell phones are not locked to a given carrier; to change carrier, simply change the SIM card and keep your phone if you want to. In Canada, changing carriers means changing phones; if you want something else than a basic phone, you are faced with an up-front expense of a few hundred dollars and a 3-year contract (2-years in the US); if you try to buy the phone outright, you pay an inflated price for it since the carrier has a monopoly on the phones that work on his network AND you pay the same fee for the service!!!

Imagine how different the situation would be if you could buy (and sell) your phone independently of the local carrier! You could buy the phone YOU want and use the service provider YOU want with the level of service to meet YOUR needs. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen for as long as there are incompatible cell phone technologies such as CDMA and GSM.

A question about Jajah (and similar services):
If I'm not in my local calling area, dont I pay for the LD on the incoming side?
If that's the case (and I believe it is), then an alternate call-through service like JustDial.ca is more cost-effective when making LD calls from outside of one's local calling area.

The thing that people don't realize is that calling a cell phone from a land line in Europe is worse than a racket. The incoming call you have to pay here in North America you end paying less than in Europe.

The cell-phone provider will have more incentive to reduce that incoming cost for cell-phone owners (their customers) than in Europe for people who don't really have the choice of the tariff when calling somebody else cell-phone.

It's really hard to call long distance, but it is the way to stay connected to your love ones.

I got the same problem. Recently I arrived to Victoria from Europe 2 weeks ago and wanted to have a prepaid plan and I was seeking all gsm providers that shouldnt charge me for receiving calls bc as it doesnt make any SENSE AT ALL!!! everytime when I ask why paying for incoming calls got always same answer as AIRTIME .. what the f..k is airtime ??? DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL AND i realized ppl are Canada ripped off by the cell providers and they are not complaning at all ! well Canadians open your eyes and see the world !!!

A good post, CharlesT.

If you ask me, it's typical of the whole 'user pays' mentality of North America which is to blame here, the same way that taxes get added after a purchase. It makes prices look 'cheaper', everyone gets to blame the government for taxes, and business wins. Again. Same thing as making everyone use one cent pieces to pay for things… just round up or down and stop forcing me to carry around so much change!

Back in Australia, we scrapped the dual user mobile phone payment system YEARS ago… After all, why should I have to pay when someone calls me?! I moved to Canada last year and it infuriates me that they can get away with this, especially when I get a pre-recorded telemarketing service calling me!

I don't think it has as much to do with the level of competition here because in Australia, there are even fewer carriers. Canada should be benefiting from the huge American infrastructure but instead, Canadians get stung with 3 year contracts when those in the U.S. get the same phones on a 2yr plan.

Sorry… I had to vent!

I couldn't have said it better Jez. 

My husband and I came to Canada from Australia two years ago and I still can't wrap my head around the way this country operates. I'm originally from here but I can safely say that I will be happy to return to a better way of life in Australia or Europe.Most Canadians are unaware of how badly they are being ripped off, as well as being too complacent to do anything about it. Our government relies on this ;-)