CRTC reaches major milestone to make cellphone plans cheaper for Canadians
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.
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!
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 $50/month, I got 15gb of data and unlimited calling. Except it was 3G, borderline 2G data. When I moved to the UK I got unlimited data (actually 4G) and unlimited calls/texts for £10/month
Data is still horrible in Canada. Noone is texting hundreds SMS per month nor using 1000 minutes per month, so those are free unlimited but damn data... it's still expensive.
I was in Spain last June. Took a pre-paid SIM for the duration of the stay:
-50GB of data. I shared the connection all the time with 2 other devices, no issue, no warning. -Unlimited calls through all of Europe -30mins calls international (inc. back to Canada} -15€ tax included, that's ~21CAD -valid 1month -10€ to top up or extend, since I already had the SIM
We're getting milked here!!
They keep saying it's because of the size of the country here, but they fail to mention that Australia which has lower population density than we have has way lower prices. They also fail to mention that that the federal government pays them billions to install the equipment in remote areas... Yeah
Why don't we just have a state owned telecommunications provider? It works so well in Quebec with the electricity, some of the lowest prices in the world!
You said it man. The prices in Canada are fuckin criminal. And every time the government tries to rein in the Big Three, they go:
Oh, nooooooononono, you can't restrict us, we'd have to do massive layoffs, and youuuuu wouldn't want thaaaaaat would you?
It's a goddamn joke.
the CRTC seems to be a little bit better without that corrupt pos that had a secret meeting with Bell's CEO in a bar. Still not completely confident this will have a very significant effect on the prices. We just need basic plans for less than 20$ 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.
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.
I'll believe it when I see my bill get lowered.
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.”
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.
Inb4 they put $5 back in one pocket and take $10 from your other pocket
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?
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.