Wirelessnorth.ca

Very interesting to see.

Almost a good reason to move back to New Zealand. Almost …

Somebody Help us!

It's still cheaper to get iPhone plans in Canada than the United States.

Perhaps this means that Canadians are not picking the correct plans to suite their needs. There are a lot of budget pay-as-you-go providers that offer amazing rates.

not surprised.. lack of competition

There's a population density factor at work here, though I'm not convinced it would make up for this drastic disparity. It's important to note, since that's what the mobile companies drag out as their big excuse for high prices. :/

One more reason why Canada is not competitive in the new economy.

The Canadian government supports these media monopolies, and the price fixing that is going on here

[...] Es 2010 y los canadienses pagan las facturas de móvil más caras del mundo   wirelessnorth.ca/2010/08/27/its-2010-and-canadians-pay-the-h…  por maldito_milton_friedman hace 3 segundos [...]

:(

72.0% of the population is concentrated within 150 kilometres (93 mi) of the nation's southern border with the United States
The population density issue has always been a smokescreen to cover illegal price fixing in the oligarchy.

The core problems at work here are

a) The mandate of the CRTC is not to protect consumer rights but to ensure that the companies play fair with each other. As a result the companies in practice agree to keep the prices high, handsets few and service crappy, and we can't do anything about it.

b) Canadians are way too willing to accept the status quo. If people started contacting their elected representatives demanding better laws are regulations around carriage fees, access and consumer rights, things would happen. Just look to Europe where carriers are at the mercy of the consumer, handsets are unlocked and not tied to carriers by default and you own your own phone number outright. It wasn't always thus, but after persistent pressure from the public the politicians did what needed to be done and put a leash on the greedy carriers.

Bottom line: Speak up or nothing will change.

No there aren't.
Pay as you go is $0.30 a min
Signing up with the big 3 gets you down to $.2 a min.
There is simply no low cost option that gets you a reasonable amount of airtime.

[...] unlimited North American phone calls on (say) a 6 GB, $30/month data plan instead of paying the world’s highest cell phone bills for (limited) voice and long distance. I’m sure Rogers and other mobile carriers won’t [...]

typo fix : “worse relative affordability worse”

typo fix : “worse relative affordability worse”

Cell phones are stupid

Significantly smaller population + demand for latest and greatest = higher prices charged per user. Is it really all that tough to figure out?

Dude, no way man. Thats totally insane dude.

http://www.anon-tools.au.tc

if penetration is so important I guess Greece and Portugal should be world economic powers.
Is it really better to have 2 cell phones for every man, woman, child and the odd dog? Cell phones are disposable in Europe but I don't see why that's a better model.

Greece 205% penetrated and $20/month per subscriber. Suppose 85% of the population actually needs a cell phone (15% are under 14). 205% x $20 / .85 = $48. So for each potential cellphone carrying adult and teenager, they are spending $48/month.

Canada 65% penetrated and $55/month. 65% x $55 / .85 = $42.

So normalizing for all the people carrying 2 or 3 phones in Greece, they are actually spending more. Is there a benefit to that? Unless you can think of a good way to use 2 phones at once I can't think of anything.

Canada also leads the world in whiners (actually the riots in Greece when the government revealed it was nearly bankrupt might suggest they are pretty good on that measure too.)

I cannot get over how much EVERYTHING costs here…especially on the west coast.

and that accounts for the cost of cellphone coverage along highways how?

Low population density + demand for coverage outside of urban areas = costly infrastructure per subscriber.

That said, the $5 per month “admin fee” gouge really needs to DIAF.

[...] 28, 2010 by Pep| Leave a comment Mobile phone users in Canada can now proudly boast that they pay more per month than any other nation on earth. Surprise. Subscribers who have made the questionable decision of switching to the deceptively [...]

[...] This post was Twitted by F_Desjardins [...]

This is misleading. The first plot shows revenue per user, which means that our networks could actually be cheapest in the world but we consume so much more that we end up paying more. Unless you correct for usage, or plot revenue per minute of talk time or per kilobyte, you can't use this data to make the conclusions in this article.

not only smaller population but extremely large land mass in which is “generally” covered for cell phones, thus causing higher cost for companies

[...] Wireless North took a look at cell phone plan rates in a few countries and it looks like the feeling of being taken for a ride is probably pretty common here in Canada. [...]

[...] Headline says it all: It’s 2010 and Canadians pay the highest cell phone bills in the world. [...]

Who honeslty cares about calltime apart from people that waste their lives discussing inane nonsense? Let's see a comparison of data tarrifs

[...] more here: It's 2010 and Canadians pay the highest cell phone bills in the … if(typeof(hyperweb_adcount)=="undefined") hyperweb_adcount [...]

Hello Editor (or whomever wrote this article). Can you provide us with more details about the base data that you drew this information from? What particular BofA Merril Lynch report is this based on and can you provide the report itself (or a link to it?).

It's hard to find a good fine grained population density map that doesn't stop at the border (maybe here: http://maps.howstuffworks.com/north-america-pop…), but density is fairly similar if you compare network coverage. Perhaps an argument can be made for the States' greater economies of scale (10X population and much higher penetration).

The strongest argument against is that if density were really the issue, then you would think that the most populous provinces (AB,BC,ON,QC) would have lower pricing. In fact, the opposite is true. Don't believe me? Go to http://cellplanexpert.ca (disclaimer: I built it), build a usage profile, then switch between provinces and compare results. The effect is less pronounced now that the new players have arrived in the biggest provinces, but the prairies and Atlantic provinces consistently get better deals. Rogers (w/ the broadest single network coverage) has more minutes/features and at lower prices on it's equivalent plans in the lower density provinces.

This to me is very strong evidence that pricing is completely based on what the market will bear and has nothing to do with input costs.

The $15 CID/Voicemail pkg mentioned above and other things like ridiculous $0.15/txt rates have a cost that approaches zero, yet are billed exorbitantly. Further evidence of a duopoly (Rogers, Bellus) that compete on marketing, not cost reduction.

If you take a hard look at the the plans and how they are marketed, it's pretty hard to blame low density more than lack of competition.

One other argument against the low density argument is the Finnish example. Finland has both a lower density and smaller population than Canada, but it has had ubiquitous coverage for a long time (including large swaths of the countryside and north of the Arctic circle when I was there back in 2002)

[...] have the most expensive cell phone carrier plans in the world? This is not an exaggeration! Here are the stats to prove it! I think they problem is caused by the “Big three” carriers who have up till this point [...]

I don't think we needed a report for this. Canada is the only country in the world that I know that charges for call display and regular voice mail in their monthly packages. Only one country in the world to have “System Access Fee” or how it is called now “Government Regulatory Recovery Fee.” So whiners or not, the fact is that we have oligopolies here that make big companies not care about consumer. That is why Rogers would rather launch a fake brand and spend millions on advertising to take out new entrants, rather than actually care about their customers and lower their fees.

Where can one get the original report?

[...] http://wirelessnorth.ca/2010/08/27/its-2010-and-canadians-pay-the-highest-cell-phone-bills-in-the-wo... [...]

[...] http://wirelessnorth.ca/2010/08/27/its-2010-and-canadians-pay-the-highest-cell-phone-bills-in-the-wo... [...]

[...] It’s 2010 and Canadians pay the highest cell phone bills in the world | Wirelessnorth.ca. Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Leave a comment [...]

[...] story really pissed me off this morning, especially after reading last week’s report that we are already getting the The Great White Shaft by paying some of the highest cell phone [...]

[...] cost doesn't really change, but the amount of people supporting it does. Here's a comparisson of average cell phone rates in the world Happy [...]

This is crazy, as a Canadian resident I did not know cell phone statics were at this rate.
http://www.canadadeal.ca

[...] It’s 2010 and Canadians pay the highest cell phone bills in the world | Wirelessnorth.ca. [...]

[...] It’s 2010 and Canadians pay the highest cell phone bills in the world | Wirelessnorth.ca. [...]

[...] and PeopleAdd QuestionAdd QuestionDo Canadians pay the highest mobile bills in the entire world?http://wirelessnorth.ca/2010/08/…Cannot add comment at this time.  BIU     @   Edit [...]

It's pretty crazy how expensive it's gotten and continues to be despite all of the new competition. I've been able to make a business out of helping people with high cell phone bills in Canada. Truth is, I shouldn't be in business but the large telecom companies made it so I can be…

[...] jump ship entirely (however doubtful that may be). After a bit of research, knowing quite well that Canadians pay some of the highest cell phone rates in the world, I determined that it didn’t really matter who I went with, the deal would be pretty much the [...]

I can think of many good reasons to move to New Zealand

Disagree. I moved back to Canada after two years in Australia, a country with a similar population density and size. In Australia, if you have an unlocked phone, you can walk into any supermarket and pick up a pay-as-you-go SIM card from any of the major carriers, usually pre-loaded with 10-20 dollars of air time. Sometimes these are as cheap as $2.00 to buy. No contract, no monthly charges.

So what, you might ask. You can buy pay-as-you-go cards in Canada too. Yes, but in Canada, the air time you purchase expires after 30 days, regardless of how much you have used. As an example, i bought $20.00 air time with Fido for my wife last month. After 30 days and only a handful of calls, the remaining balance went poof! In Australia, the pay-as-you-go air time is good for 365 days, much less of a rip-off.

Maybe part of the difference is that Australia does not have the same anti-competitive and protectionist bullshit that restricts mobile services in Canada to Canadian companies only. Vodafone, for example is one of the major players in Australia. Allow foreign players like Vodafone, Orange etc into the Canadian market and watch things change. As long as the unholy trinity of Bell, Telus and Rogers have an oligopoly on Canadian communications, aided and abetted by a compliant CRTC, nothing will change.

[...] average bill in the world for some of the poorest network coverage ranking slightly behind Peru.. http://wirelessnorth.ca/2010/08/27/its-2010-and-canadians-pay-the-highest-cell-phone-bills-in-the-wo…  One of the key reasons for this is restrictions Industry Canada, a federal regulatory agency, [...]

[...] Canadians have it far worse. According to a recent global telecom report from BofA Merrill Lynch (via Wireless North), the country that pays the most for cell phone use per subscriber is Canada, at $55 per [...]

[...] Canadians have it far worse. According to a recent global telecom report from BofA Merrill Lynch (via Wireless North), the country that pays the most for cell phone use per subscriber is Canada, at $55 per [...]

Your Canadian voice can be heard. There is a volunteer group that is going up against the CRTC but needs your help.

They said “By bringing your voices to the table. OpenMedia.ca is attending the Internet metering hearing on your
behalf. When it’s our time to speak, we’ll be representing the
interests of the nearly half-a-million Canadians who signed the Stop The
Meter petition. We’ve got your back. On your behalf. When it’s our time to speak, we’ll be representing the
interests of the nearly half-a-million Canadians who signed the Stop The
Meter petition. We’ve got your back”

You can join in and sign – electronically, a petition that is sent to Government representatives. http://openmedia.ca

[...] tenu que la facture moyenne de cellulaire s’élève à 55$ par mois au pays, et que la plupart des contrats sont pour une durée de 36 mois, cela signifie que [...]

[...] smartphones. • Overpriced mobile contracts hold back development, which seems to be the case Canada which has the world’s highest phone bills, while being ranked 43rd in the world for mobile [...]

sounds like amazon.com versus amazon.ca and why I have to pay $10k more for a BMW. Gongshow supremo