The IT Nerd

As if to underscore the need for competition in the cell phone space in Canada, this study appeared on The Globe And Mail website today. According to the OECD, Canadians pay some of the highest mobile phone rates in the Western world:

Those classed as medium users (making 780 calls, and sending or receiving 600 text messages and eight video messages per year) spent $500.63 (U.S.) per year on their cellphone packages on average. That’s third highest amongst OECD member countries, just behind Spain and well behind the United States, where users spent $635.85 per year.

Users in the Netherlands, Austria, and Scandinavian countries, by contrast, each spent less than $200 per year on average.

Hmmm….. I’ve heard this song and dance before.

This comes as no shock to Canadian cell phone users as I always hear about how expensive it is to have a cell phone from friends, customers, and associates. No wonder everybody I talk to is just waiting for competition to arrive in this market so that they can either switch over to a carrier that will bill them less, or they will force their existing carrier to give them a better deal. I’ve deliberately not agreed to a two or three year deal with Rogers on the phones that my wife and I own so that I can see what deals are available when competition finally arrives.

Of course, it would be nice if the existing cell phone carriers would recognize that this is a situation that needs to change and do something about it proactively. But I wasn’t born yesterday. They have to be forced to do so by having competition in the marketplace. Too bad that has to be the case as I really think that the first cell phone carrier that cuts their rates and got rid of the System Access Fee on their mainstream brands (rather than on their discount brands) for their existing customers would get a lot of positive press and be able to keep their customers from defecting to the competition.

Somehow, I don’t see that happening though. Which may be too bad for them.

This entry was posted on August 11, 2009 at 11:43 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, cellular. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.