Canadian Government threatens the "Big 3" cellular provider to cut their prices by 25% ... Or else!

[WkdPaul]

Canada’s Big 3 telecom firms will get 2 years to cut rates by 25%

 

Quote

Rogers, Bell and Telus — the three biggest Canadian cellphone companies — will get two years to slash their prices by 25 per cent, or face the consequences.

 

He also said if the Big Three don’t slash their prices, the government will “take action with other regulatory tools to further increase competition and help reduce prices.”

 

Bains said that while the government isn’t looking at levelling fines, it could look at restricting the Big Three’s access to future spectrum auctions that they need in order to expand their networks, and forcing them to let smaller providers piggyback on their networks.

 

So basically, the Federal Government just threatened the big cellphone providers to slash their prices by 25% to smaller data packages (between 2GB and 6GB), and if that doesn't happen, they'll use the CRTC (the regulatory board for telecommunication) to make sure they won't have access to new broadcast band that will become available (5G).

 

That's a bit heavy handed IMO, but any consumer in Canada is going to be happy to hear that!! Plans up here are ridiculously expensive, especially from the "Big 3".

 

Source ;

https://globalnews.ca/news/6634639/big-3-cellphone-price-drop-5g-auction/amp/

 

 

 

WAN show coverage of this topic ;

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edit ; shit, forgot to paste the link to the source!!! My bad!!!

Edited March 12, 2020 by wkdpaul

[Meganter]

Time to immigrate in Canada then

[Uptivuptiz]

Good job Canada.

[aaradorn]

Damn, checked some of the prices you guys have, 4GB for 55 Canadian Roebels, thats a shitload.

 

In my country you pay 35 euro's for unlimited inside the country and 10GB's in the rest of europe. (When I travel to the US or canada I will also have 10 GB)

[Dabombinable]

TBH data wise even before cuts: Its more than likely cheaper to message via an app than SMS (cost per SMS vs cost per MB).
Canadian telco/ISP pricing seems as shit as it is in Australia.

[Danioki]

1 minute ago, aaradorn said:

Damn, checked some of the prices you guys have, 4GB for 55 Canadian Roebels, thats a shitload.

 

In my country you pay 35 euro's for unlimited inside the country and 10GB's in the rest of europe. (When I travel to the US or canada I will also have 10 GB)

wow here in the third world i pay like 20us for 80GB

[Meganter]

1 minute ago, aaradorn said:

Damn, checked some of the prices you guys have, 4GB for 55 Canadian Roebels, thats a shitload.

 

In my country you pay 35 euro's for unlimited inside the country and 10GB's in the rest of europe. (When I travel to the US or canada I will also have 10 GB)

I pay 25€ for unlimited data (internet, phone call, sms/mms) in all Europe, USA and Canada, that's very neat

[GDRRiley]

Wow sounds nice. 
love it if the US did this wait, Pai would never hurt Verizon. 

[WkdPaul]

12 minutes ago, aaradorn said:

Damn, checked some of the prices you guys have, 4GB for 55 Canadian Roebels, thats a shitload.

 

In my country you pay 35 euro's for unlimited inside the country and 10GB's in the rest of europe. (When I travel to the US or canada I will also have 10 GB)

Bell Canada does offers an unlimited data plan (*) for $65 !!

 

 

Spoiler

* = It's a 10GB plan, after that, you're throttled to 500Kbps lol

 

And it's only for BYOD (bring your own device).

 

[Meganter]

3 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

 

That's... quite expensive @_@

[GDRRiley]

4 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Bell Canada does offers an unlimited data plan (*) for $65 !!

 

 

  Hide contents

* = It's a 10GB plan, after that, you're throttled to 500Kbps lol

 

And it's only for BYOD (bring your own device).

 

Sounds like the sh*t Verizon pulls. 

[191x7]

Here in Croatia we have an agency that regulates countrywide networks (wired and wireless, internet, phones, ...) and one of the main thing they do is preventing the main two telecoms / network providers from lowering prices. The largest provider was recently fined with a huge fine for decreasing prices and they had to reverse the price cut.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Dabombinable said:

Canadian telco/ISP pricing seems as shit as it is in Australia.

Must be a British colonial/Common Wealth thing, cellular prices and caps suck hard in NZ too.

[GDRRiley]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Must be a British colonial/Common Wealth thing, cellular prices and caps suck hard in NZ too.

It can’t be we here in the US have horrible prices. 

Dam it that’s right we were. 

[Soppro]

3 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Canadian telco/ISP pricing seems as shit as it is in Australia.

Not really, cellular pricing has gotten a lot better in the past 2-3 years. In 2015, for 30 bucks I could’ve only got 1.5GB data. Now, I can get 10 times that for 20% less.

 

From what I’ve seen, in Canada you guys have to shell out 40-50 stones for 5~10GB of data. That’s ridiculous, considering how data hungry apps are getting especially with streaming ... how is that still tolerated 

[TetraSky]

I honestly don't expect anything from this.

Yes prices are ridiculous, but it gets better... slightly... over time. A few years ago, prices for the service was ridiculous, like 5GB for 100$ and if you went over you could easily rake up a bill of multiple hundred dollars, crazy like that. Now it's "unlimited", even if it gets throttled after 10GB. No more bills of 500$ just because your kids used a few MB of extra data.

 

So the way I see this, prices won't go down. They will just "increase" their service and pretend that the "new price" for this "new service" is actually the old price minus 25%... When it's basically the same price as right now, if not more.

[WkdPaul]

@TetraSky

 

I was thinking they could do that, but it seems the minister is specifically targeting the small data packages (the article mentions this will only apply to the 2GB to 4 GB plans), so raising the cap and keeping the price won't work for this specific case, but I'm sure they'll find some workarourd so they can keep milking us

[wanderingfool2]

5 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

TBH data wise even before cuts: Its more than likely cheaper to message via an app than SMS (cost per SMS vs cost per MB).
Canadian telco/ISP pricing seems as shit as it is in Australia.

I get $45 unlimited text; calls in Canada; and 2GB data.

5 hours ago, Danioki said:

wow here in the third world i pay like 20us for 80GB

Very few people ever consider or mention population density

https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/canada/chile

 

I am not saying that Canadian's aren't being gouged, but if you look at population densities Canada and Australia are very close.  There is quite a bit more costly infrastructure that needs to be built out and maintained.

[WkdPaul]

6 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I get $45 unlimited text; calls in Canada; and 2GB data.

I have the same plan, but I'm paying $25. But I got this by joining this new smaller provider when they were in beta ; fizz.ca

 

The same plan as I have (2GB with unlimited calls and SMS in Canada, with voice mail) is now $32, since they're now out of the beta phase.

[IrshaadH]

About time. Even at a 25% discount, Canadian cellular rates are still overpriced compared to other nations.

[Xiee]

Wew... I guess we have it on the cheaper side over here. You can get 1GB for 2USD on a 4G LTE Network.

[Touch My Hamm]

About time. In Sask we had a good deal as SaskTel was cheaper as it is a crown corp. But when they increased their prices (tinfoil hat reasoning beside) it made all prices the exact same. So all carriers have the same price with minimal different features. It wasnt a small jump in price. I had unlimited data and talk across Canada with good rate for international for under $100 with my Wifes plan making the total around $110. After my upgrade to Note 10+ the same plans now cost around $200.... how did the price almost double in 1 year? So silly...

[Touch My Hamm]

6 hours ago, aaradorn said:

Damn, checked some of the prices you guys have, 4GB for 55 Canadian Roebels, thats a shitload.

 

In my country you pay 35 euro's for unlimited inside the country and 10GB's in the rest of europe. (When I travel to the US or canada I will also have 10 GB)

Note that Canadian dollar is worth less than the USD. 55 Cad is around 36 Euro. still shitty prices and it depends where you live. Bigger cities you get more data for cheap, if you live in the middle of nowhere Canada north it can get expensive. 

[wanderingfool2]

47 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

I have the same plan, but I'm paying $25. But I got this by joining this new smaller provider when they were in beta ; fizz.ca

 

The same plan as I have (2GB with unlimited calls and SMS in Canada, with voice mail) is now $32, since they're now out of the beta phase.

Smaller providers really don't count when comparing pricing, especially when it is introductory rates that are there to try getting new customers.  Since they are smaller they essentially get what amounts to preferential regulations and don't need to provide access in rural locations.

[WkdPaul]

29 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Smaller providers really don't count when comparing pricing, especially when it is introductory rates that are there to try getting new customers.  Since they are smaller they essentially get what amounts to preferential regulations and don't need to provide access in rural locations.

Totally agree, I was just trying to point out that there's no need for the expensive prices we're getting, a small provider can offer a plan for $25-$30, while the "big 3" offer similar plans for $45-$55.