The CRTC announced on Monday that it's reached an important milestone to increase phone services competition in Canada.
Cheaper phone plans for Canadians could be closer than we think.
On Monday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that it’s reached a significant milestone in increasing phone services competition in Canada.
When I moved from Vancouver to London, loads of things shocked me, one of the ones that hit me hardest was the cost of phone plans here compared to back home. I can’t remember who I was with, mobilicity or wind or some such, I was paying basically $50/month, I got 15gb of data and unlimited calling. Except it was 3G, borderline 2G data. When I moved to the UK I got unlimited data (actually 4G) and unlimited calls/texts for £10/month
I was in Spain last June. Took a pre-paid SIM for the duration of the stay:
-50GB of data. I shared the connection all the time with 2 other devices, no issue, no warning.
-Unlimited calls through all of Europe
-30mins calls international (inc. back to Canada}
-15€ tax included, that’s ~21CAD
-valid 1month
-10€ to top up or extend, since I already had the SIM
They keep saying it’s because of the size of the country here, but they fail to mention that Australia which has lower population density than we have has way lower prices. They also fail to mention that that the federal government pays them billions to install the equipment in remote areas… Yeah
Why don’t we just have a state owned telecommunications provider? It works so well in Quebec with the electricity, some of the lowest prices in the world!
Fuck, I just got back from NZ and it was $88 for a SIM, 60 days unlimited calling, 100GB data, and 250 minutes to a big list of countries (incl Canada).And they’re working on using Starlink to improve the network in the South Island so they have less impact from towers in the mountains
Canadian telcos have the highest ARPU in the world, it’s ridiculous. The telephone/internet/cell towers should be run by a crown corp and the telcos pay into it. We fucked up privatizing, but that seems to be the status quo
Exactly! And if you don’t like the idea of having a state-owned telco, we could leave the infrastructure only to the state-owned company, and open access to all incumbents, same rate for everyone. While we’re there, we should just have the same with broadband: a state owned company deploys fiber. All ISP access it at the same rate.
No more complaining they need to make hundreds of % of margin otherwise they can’t invest, and even then they can’t invest if the government doesn’t heavily subsidize the network.
You said it man. The prices in Canada are fuckin criminal. And every time the government tries to rein in the Big Three, they go:
Oh, nooooooononono, you can’t restrict us, we’d have to do massive layoffs, and youuuuu wouldn’t want thaaaaaat would you?
It’s a goddamn joke.
Data is still horrible in Canada. Noone is texting hundreds SMS per month nor using 1000 minutes per month, so those are free unlimited but damn data… it’s still expensive.
Koodo has been decent, I’m at 75Gig for $55, with free unlimited calling to 28 countries . (pick a perk)
Also, not sure not sure what you mean about no one is texting nor using 1000 minutes per month?
Sometimes I wonder if people in cities have no idea the digital divide exists.
Texting and calling via a cellphone network is a far more reliable where I live, and even at that, there are known dead zones along my road (a main road) where calls drop, and texts either don’t send or a painfully slow.
Well not sure why you have downvotes, but for me its also used as work phone so texts via sms and regular phone calls are a thing because you can’t control customer app choices or device choices, so a standard sms or phonecall is required.
While the CRTC’s announcement about cheaper phone plans is promising, I’ll reserve my belief until I see these cost-effective options firsthand. I prefer to adopt a ‘seeing is believing’ approach and await the actual unveiling of these plans to gauge any tangible positive changes.
It’s reality already. Just look at Freedom’s $45+ plans. No more zones. The data bucket is nationwide. We might see more players as time goes on but this is already a result of this policy.
I tried to signup for Freedom but I could not retain my existing phone number since they didn’t offer services in my former area code. Hopefully this changes that, but yeah not holding my breath!
Let me start by saying I got a euro esim from the app and some sites like home depot block access.
dent is the app. They have a market place to buy data from people or you can buy it from them.
The sim is good in a lot of countries, like going to the USA you can still use data… Their price is $10USD for 1GB good for 365 days and goes up to $90 USD for 10GB that’s good for 365 days. Its cheaper in their market place.
They let you collect free dent daily and get 50MB free every 5 days. I don’t use much data and I can usually spend the free dent I earn daily on data every couple months.
What a joke, eh. Spinning it as helping Canadians. Where was the Canadian Competition Bureau when they allowed 3 companies to own the entire cellular network in a country second only in size to Russia?
the CRTC seems to be a little bit better without that corrupt pos that had a secret meeting with Bell’s CEO in a bar. Still not completely confident this will have a very significant effect on the prices. We just need basic plans for less than 20$ ffs. I don’t need 60GB for 60$, I need 5GB for 20$.
Currently I use a 4GB data only tablet plan on my phone, its against their TOS but they can fuck themselves. I pay 21$ taxes in for my data and phone with a separate app (15$+3,60$). Until I can get that value without using weird workarounds, I won’t be happy. I don’t care about “ooga booga 0.1$/GB plan” but that forces me to get way too much. Even fizz is the same price as the others now
We fought with Bell to get a similar deal for our “corporate” (our small business + friends/family) plan.
Ours is 20GB/ea on 5G, but it’s pooled so we can support a few heavy users.
Bell making their wifi calling only available within Canada is the latest stupid thing I found. Otherwise I think we wrapped up most of the other extras.
They clearly will. Assuming you are not lying, your claim is demonstrative of it.
They just don’t usually have to because most people are more than happy give up more. If someone is begging to pay you $80 per month, why would you only charge them $45?
They won’t, those plans are exclusive for business users. I worked as a loyalty rep for Bell so I got to see all of the disgusting prices business-class people pay.
There are better plans you can get as ‘retention plans’ per say, but you have to really milk the system i.e, bitch to your rep until they cave and they’re not nearly as good as business class plans. But anythings better if you can get it tbh.
Also, no one is begging to pay $80. These are all hidden plans. If anything, the average customer is getting scammed.
They won’t, those plans are exclusive for business users.
They do. It is true that businesses are less likely to be emotionally driven, and more likely to have people on staff calculating exactly what a service is worth to their business. If you tried to charge them $80 they’d laugh and walk away.
There are better plans you can get as ‘retention plans’ per say
Yes, similarly the consumer who refuses to pay top dollar will see a lower rate come their way.
Granted, it is unlikely a consumer will put on as much pressure as a business. If the operator says: “Nope. It’s $80 or nothing” the business will, again, laugh and go use two-way radio or something else instead. A regular consumer is more likely to find value in having such service – their friends don’t have two way radios or some such – thus will be willing to pay more.
Also, no one is begging to pay $80.
They are. While the number was arbitrarily selected, it is pretty clear that lots of people are keen to pay an amount in that ballpark, if not more. The price is set by what the customer is willing to pay. Why would you charge them less?
The fact that there is no company advertising starting a new cell phone company in Canada after this announcement is all you need to know how significant this announcement is. It’s why the original founder of Wind/Freedom mobile pulled out of Canada and no American company bothered to look north since AT&T left.
Does anyone know of a Canadian provider that offers an IOT data plan for multiple SIMs that share the data pool? I have a pile of telemetry devices I’d like to move to LTE with minor data needs per month each, but I need a low monthly cost per device with a shared data pool of like 5GB.
I had ordered a SIM from them, then threw it in the drawer and promptly forgot about it. I’m going to see if I can find that again, thanks for the reminder.
Great news. The same should apply to internet rates as well. There is a problem when my ISP charges me almost as most as what I pay to insure my single family dwelling
Is that a problem? I’m not saying that we all wouldn’t like lower bills, but is comparing your internet bill to your insurance premium a pragmatic way to approach finance? Also, how much are you giving your ISP every month? You can get a gigabit fibre connection for $100 or less.
I think that depends on quality. A gigabit fibre connection is pretty damn good. Far faster than most households need by a good magnitude. And the fact that most places offer such a thing for under $100 is pretty decent.
The real question is how much does it cost to get a 10mBit connection. It’s been a while since I’ve checked, but I’m pretty sure that it’s also pretty close to $100, which is definitely a problem.
Bell is usually the only provider for fibre, as it usually replaces DSL and Rogers uses cable. Most of the time the starting price I’ve seen is about $100, but that’s for a gigabit minimum.
On the other hand, $13?! I’ve never seen any sort of internet connection going for so cheap in the entire country!
Canada is WAY WAY BEHIND in the MVNO game. It is RIDICULOUS that it’s taken THIS LONG for CRTC to implement what is already common everywhere else in the world. Honestly, CRTC is there to protect the telecom monopolies, NOT the Canadian consumers.
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When I moved from Vancouver to London, loads of things shocked me, one of the ones that hit me hardest was the cost of phone plans here compared to back home. I can’t remember who I was with, mobilicity or wind or some such, I was paying basically $50/month, I got 15gb of data and unlimited calling. Except it was 3G, borderline 2G data. When I moved to the UK I got unlimited data (actually 4G) and unlimited calls/texts for £10/month
I was in Spain last June. Took a pre-paid SIM for the duration of the stay:
-50GB of data. I shared the connection all the time with 2 other devices, no issue, no warning. -Unlimited calls through all of Europe -30mins calls international (inc. back to Canada} -15€ tax included, that’s ~21CAD -valid 1month -10€ to top up or extend, since I already had the SIM
We’re getting milked here!!
They keep saying it’s because of the size of the country here, but they fail to mention that Australia which has lower population density than we have has way lower prices. They also fail to mention that that the federal government pays them billions to install the equipment in remote areas… Yeah
Why don’t we just have a state owned telecommunications provider? It works so well in Quebec with the electricity, some of the lowest prices in the world!
Fuck, I just got back from NZ and it was $88 for a SIM, 60 days unlimited calling, 100GB data, and 250 minutes to a big list of countries (incl Canada).And they’re working on using Starlink to improve the network in the South Island so they have less impact from towers in the mountains
Canadian telcos have the highest ARPU in the world, it’s ridiculous. The telephone/internet/cell towers should be run by a crown corp and the telcos pay into it. We fucked up privatizing, but that seems to be the status quo
Exactly! And if you don’t like the idea of having a state-owned telco, we could leave the infrastructure only to the state-owned company, and open access to all incumbents, same rate for everyone. While we’re there, we should just have the same with broadband: a state owned company deploys fiber. All ISP access it at the same rate.
No more complaining they need to make hundreds of % of margin otherwise they can’t invest, and even then they can’t invest if the government doesn’t heavily subsidize the network.
You said it man. The prices in Canada are fuckin criminal. And every time the government tries to rein in the Big Three, they go:
Oh, nooooooononono, you can’t restrict us, we’d have to do massive layoffs, and youuuuu wouldn’t want thaaaaaat would you?
It’s a goddamn joke.
Data is still horrible in Canada. Noone is texting hundreds SMS per month nor using 1000 minutes per month, so those are free unlimited but damn data… it’s still expensive.
Koodo has been decent, I’m at 75Gig for $55, with free unlimited calling to 28 countries . (pick a perk) Also, not sure not sure what you mean about no one is texting nor using 1000 minutes per month?
I text 0 characters a month and use 0 minutes.
It’s all Skype, fbmsgr, hangouts.
Because it’s 2023.
Urbanite spotted.
Sometimes I wonder if people in cities have no idea the digital divide exists.
Texting and calling via a cellphone network is a far more reliable where I live, and even at that, there are known dead zones along my road (a main road) where calls drop, and texts either don’t send or a painfully slow.
Hangouts in 2023?
Well not sure why you have downvotes, but for me its also used as work phone so texts via sms and regular phone calls are a thing because you can’t control customer app choices or device choices, so a standard sms or phonecall is required.
I’ve never thought of using Skype as being modern. Maybe Discord, Matrix, Teams, Whatsapp…
I’ll believe it when I see my bill get lowered.
While the CRTC’s announcement about cheaper phone plans is promising, I’ll reserve my belief until I see these cost-effective options firsthand. I prefer to adopt a ‘seeing is believing’ approach and await the actual unveiling of these plans to gauge any tangible positive changes.
It’s reality already. Just look at Freedom’s $45+ plans. No more zones. The data bucket is nationwide. We might see more players as time goes on but this is already a result of this policy.
I tried to signup for Freedom but I could not retain my existing phone number since they didn’t offer services in my former area code. Hopefully this changes that, but yeah not holding my breath!
I’m never going to leave the $15 public mobile plan. I have a travel app that let’s me download e-sims for data, if I need it.
me too, but do tell about this e-sim app 😮
Let me start by saying I got a euro esim from the app and some sites like home depot block access.
dent is the app. They have a market place to buy data from people or you can buy it from them.
The sim is good in a lot of countries, like going to the USA you can still use data… Their price is $10USD for 1GB good for 365 days and goes up to $90 USD for 10GB that’s good for 365 days. Its cheaper in their market place.
They let you collect free dent daily and get 50MB free every 5 days. I don’t use much data and I can usually spend the free dent I earn daily on data every couple months.
What a joke, eh. Spinning it as helping Canadians. Where was the Canadian Competition Bureau when they allowed 3 companies to own the entire cellular network in a country second only in size to Russia?
CRTC is helping nothing.
What does size have to do with anything? We are a tiny country population wise.
Global warming-related migrants: “Hold our beer.”
the CRTC seems to be a little bit better without that corrupt pos that had a secret meeting with Bell’s CEO in a bar. Still not completely confident this will have a very significant effect on the prices. We just need basic plans for less than 20$ ffs. I don’t need 60GB for 60$, I need 5GB for 20$.
Currently I use a 4GB data only tablet plan on my phone, its against their TOS but they can fuck themselves. I pay 21$ taxes in for my data and phone with a separate app (15$+3,60$). Until I can get that value without using weird workarounds, I won’t be happy. I don’t care about “ooga booga 0.1$/GB plan” but that forces me to get way too much. Even fizz is the same price as the others now
I’ve watched them for decades. I don’t believe CRTC has changed. They are there for the monopolists not the Canadians.
My work plan is 50GB high speed, unlimited data, unlimited call/text North America.
For $45.
They can offer these plans, thet just won’t.
We fought with Bell to get a similar deal for our “corporate” (our small business + friends/family) plan. Ours is 20GB/ea on 5G, but it’s pooled so we can support a few heavy users.
Bell making their wifi calling only available within Canada is the latest stupid thing I found. Otherwise I think we wrapped up most of the other extras.
They clearly will. Assuming you are not lying, your claim is demonstrative of it.
They just don’t usually have to because most people are more than happy give up more. If someone is begging to pay you $80 per month, why would you only charge them $45?
They won’t, those plans are exclusive for business users. I worked as a loyalty rep for Bell so I got to see all of the disgusting prices business-class people pay.
There are better plans you can get as ‘retention plans’ per say, but you have to really milk the system i.e, bitch to your rep until they cave and they’re not nearly as good as business class plans. But anythings better if you can get it tbh.
Also, no one is begging to pay $80. These are all hidden plans. If anything, the average customer is getting scammed.
They do. It is true that businesses are less likely to be emotionally driven, and more likely to have people on staff calculating exactly what a service is worth to their business. If you tried to charge them $80 they’d laugh and walk away.
Yes, similarly the consumer who refuses to pay top dollar will see a lower rate come their way.
Granted, it is unlikely a consumer will put on as much pressure as a business. If the operator says: “Nope. It’s $80 or nothing” the business will, again, laugh and go use two-way radio or something else instead. A regular consumer is more likely to find value in having such service – their friends don’t have two way radios or some such – thus will be willing to pay more.
They are. While the number was arbitrarily selected, it is pretty clear that lots of people are keen to pay an amount in that ballpark, if not more. The price is set by what the customer is willing to pay. Why would you charge them less?
My personal plan is $55 for $75 gig and unlimited calling to 28 countries. Via koodo.
The fact that there is no company advertising starting a new cell phone company in Canada after this announcement is all you need to know how significant this announcement is. It’s why the original founder of Wind/Freedom mobile pulled out of Canada and no American company bothered to look north since AT&T left.
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Does anyone know of a Canadian provider that offers an IOT data plan for multiple SIMs that share the data pool? I have a pile of telemetry devices I’d like to move to LTE with minor data needs per month each, but I need a low monthly cost per device with a shared data pool of like 5GB.
Have you looked at https://www.hologram.io?
I haven’t used them yet, but a business associate does for his IOT deployments, and he’s pretty happy with them.
I had ordered a SIM from them, then threw it in the drawer and promptly forgot about it. I’m going to see if I can find that again, thanks for the reminder.
So like, a regular family plan?
Great news. The same should apply to internet rates as well. There is a problem when my ISP charges me almost as most as what I pay to insure my single family dwelling
Is that a problem? I’m not saying that we all wouldn’t like lower bills, but is comparing your internet bill to your insurance premium a pragmatic way to approach finance? Also, how much are you giving your ISP every month? You can get a gigabit fibre connection for $100 or less.
You’re conditioned to think $100 is good.
I think that depends on quality. A gigabit fibre connection is pretty damn good. Far faster than most households need by a good magnitude. And the fact that most places offer such a thing for under $100 is pretty decent.
The real question is how much does it cost to get a 10mBit connection. It’s been a while since I’ve checked, but I’m pretty sure that it’s also pretty close to $100, which is definitely a problem.
I’m my area, cable internet goes for about 13$/Mbps.
I don’t know about fiber. The only provider is Bell and I hate them and will never give them my money again.
Bell is usually the only provider for fibre, as it usually replaces DSL and Rogers uses cable. Most of the time the starting price I’ve seen is about $100, but that’s for a gigabit minimum.
On the other hand, $13?! I’ve never seen any sort of internet connection going for so cheap in the entire country!
I’m in Montréal and I’m using Teksavvy as a provider. That’s the price they offer.
I think having Vidéotron as a local competitor helps with prices.
Wow. I’m on Teksavvy as well, but I don’t think they offer anything near that price in Toronto. Just goes to show that competition means a ton.
Inb4 they put $5 back in one pocket and take $10 from your other pocket
Canada is WAY WAY BEHIND in the MVNO game. It is RIDICULOUS that it’s taken THIS LONG for CRTC to implement what is already common everywhere else in the world. Honestly, CRTC is there to protect the telecom monopolies, NOT the Canadian consumers.