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Wireless Deals in Canada?

February 20, 2007 BY Mark Evans

There’s no wireless competition in Canada, right? I mean, how often do you see the carriers lowering prices to attract new customers? How about “never”. So, I had to double-take when I heard a deal on the radio from Rogers where they will give your four free Blackberrys if you buy one. Of course, you have to pay for Blackberry service, which will cost you about $500 to $750 a month but what do you expect for four free Blackberrys. Meanwhile, Fido (aka Rogers) is running TV ads touting by-the-second billing, which is a very good thing if you’re into very short phone calls. Of course, all carriers used to have by-the-second billing until they realized it made more sense financially – because it’s all about ARPU, right? – to charge someone for one-minute call even if they only talked for 20 seconds. Now, where’s that fourth national wireless carrier to stir things up!

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  • http://socialwrite.com Jevon

    Do we have any rumblings of who might be bidding on the new spectrum space? It would be terrible to end up with IzzyAsperCellular or some other entity that would just tow the status quo.

    I suppose whoever it is will have to fight hard for subscribers for the first few years at least.

    What about a European carrier wanting to make a NA splash?

  • http://www.markevanstech.com Mark Evans

    Hard to tell. It could be Shaw, Videotron or MTS. As for a European carrier, the foreign ownership rules would have to be amended unless a foreign carrier wanted to be a minority partner with a Canadian investor. I think T-Mobile, for example, might have had a small stake in Microcell before Microcell filed for bankruptcy protection.

  • http://thebigjc.org Jordan Christensen

    It’s amazing what Canadian cell companies get away with. There used to be a time you could get unlimited data plans from all 3 wireless companies. Now? The best you can get is 200MB for $100/month.

  • http://passtheremote.wordpress.com/ Eric

    There is way too much protection for the good of the consumer. Open up the telecoms market and really deregulate it in a maner where consumers would end up with more choice.

  • http://www.inter-canel.com Shaun

    Want to hear what’s sad? I bought a plan from Cingular over the border because it’s CHEAPER for me to roam on Rogers network using my Cingular plan and have a local number in Toronto forwarded to my American cell, than it is to just use Rogers as a local customer.

    Idiots.

  • http://sko.typepad.com/ Sean O’Mahony

    That comment from Shaun really sums up the ugly, sad situation in which we operate here in Canada. I’ve posted a couple of times on this subject on my blog (http://sko.typepad.com/).

    Apart from my post today, I’m with Eric on this one. Deregulation! Loads of it. And while we’re at it let’s go for the banking sector at the same time.

  • http://fitrans.blogspot.com Ryan Coleman

    Heh. I still have my by-the-second cell plan from back when Telus was Clearnet. Even managed to convince the rep to just add the data portion to my plan rather than force me to upgrade my voice plan too like the deal they were offering required…

    I considered switching at one point and it was prohibitively expensive, it was worth the odd month of penalties for overruning my 200 minutes then switching to a bigger plan.

    $20/month – 200 minutes plus all the features :)

  • Rod

    Per-second billing is good for any consumer that makes a lot of calls. Length of those calls is irrelevant. It’s entirely about the quantity of calls.

    Reason being, they always round up. 121 second call, you’re charged 180. Per minute billing means that on average, every call made results in paying for 30 seconds that wasn’t used. It adds up fast if you make a lot of calls…

    Make 60 calls a month, per minute billing grabs an extra 30 minutes. Go to three calls a day–180 in a month–and per minute billing gouges an extra 90 minutes compared to per second billing.

    Like you said Mark, there’s obvious business reasons they got rid of per second billing. The lack of competition on that feature alone hurts consumers. Business as usual in Canadian wireless.

  • Hardy

    I was born and raised in London England. I now live in Vancouver. I remember back in 1995 using the Orange network in London. I got a free phone, free incoming, unlimited evenings/weekends and something like 50-100 anytime minutes and per second billing. I have lived here for over 8 years now. Obviously you can’t compare the UK market to Canada but its quite sad.

    I wonder what the purpose of the CRTC is and who sits on their panel. As for the Competition Bureau they make me laugh. It was a helpful sustained push by Sir Richard Branson that got the CRTC to get a move on with number portability. Well for one, I am glad Virgin got of the ground here.

    My hope is that the “big three” arent in collusion for price fixing secretly with the advent of number portability only days away.

    I am currently with Telus (have been for 7 or so years) and want to be on GSM so I can use my phone with cheaper sim cards internationally. Hmmm who should I pick Fido or Rogers, oh dear me forgets how silly of me, Rogers owns Fido. So I guess Rogers wins!

    I would go with Virgin if they offered GMS. Come on Branson!

  • caroline

    My advise to all of you, Never use FIDO. They are the rudest people on the phone, and their customer service is never clear about their plans, all of a sudden you find yourself stuck with a bill that you can never imagine. We are 3 that use Fido and we hate it so much. Never again, I am hoping with the merging with Rogers we will get a break.

    Co