This clearly is a hot topic as five people asked me this question yesterday. But let me recap. The CRTC yesterday announced new rules for wireless carriers. Now there are good things and bad things about this. Here’s the good:
- You get to cancel your contract at no cost after a maximum of two years instead of three years.
- You can get your phone unlocked after 90 days, or immediately if you paid in full for your phone
- You get the right to receive a notification when you are roaming in a different country, telling you what the rates are for voice services, text messages, and data usage
- Carriers have to limit your data overage charges to $50 a month and your data roaming charges to $100 a month
- No extra charges for a service described as “unlimited”
- Your contact must be easy to understand.
Here’s the bad news. If a carrier breaks those rules, they can expect to pay a fine of $5000 per occurrence. If you find that to be absurdly low amount, you’re right. After all, the three big carriers make hundreds of millions of dollars. A few thousand dollars means nothing. That’s the cost of business for Telus, Bell, and Rogers.
As for increasing competition, the jury is out on that. With the ability to switch carriers after 2 years and the ability to unlock phones, it may make things a bit better. My feeling is that true competition will only come when a deep pocketed foreign carrier sets up shop in Canada and rapidly builds a nationwide infrastructure. That will make wireless service affordable. Having said that, this is a start. But it’s only a start.
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This entry was posted on June 4, 2013 at 7:59 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, CRTC, wireless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Hey IT Nerd! What Do You Think Of The CRTC Bringing In New Rules For Wireless Companies?
This clearly is a hot topic as five people asked me this question yesterday. But let me recap. The CRTC yesterday announced new rules for wireless carriers. Now there are good things and bad things about this. Here’s the good:
Here’s the bad news. If a carrier breaks those rules, they can expect to pay a fine of $5000 per occurrence. If you find that to be absurdly low amount, you’re right. After all, the three big carriers make hundreds of millions of dollars. A few thousand dollars means nothing. That’s the cost of business for Telus, Bell, and Rogers.
As for increasing competition, the jury is out on that. With the ability to switch carriers after 2 years and the ability to unlock phones, it may make things a bit better. My feeling is that true competition will only come when a deep pocketed foreign carrier sets up shop in Canada and rapidly builds a nationwide infrastructure. That will make wireless service affordable. Having said that, this is a start. But it’s only a start.
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This entry was posted on June 4, 2013 at 7:59 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, CRTC, wireless. 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.