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Nickel and diming.
The previous post referenced an article about Canada falling behind - the article says almost last - in the wireless revolution. And there is one very good reason why that has happened - the fact that Canadian wireless carriers are intent nickel and diming their customers to death, for unspectacular service.
Most residents of Canada live within 100 miles of the US border, and those residents are overwhelmingly clustered in three major cities - Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto. I'm about 45 minutes west of Toronto in a fairly dense suburban area, but if I go 10 minutes out of the city I get the dreaded "searching for network" message. In fact, a couple of years ago, the service was spotty in my residential area of 500,000 people. So it isn't as if they are going bankrupt putting towers everywhere for excellent service.
Yet the service in Canada is far, far more expensive than that offered right across the border in the US.
For example, Cingular's cheapest plan is $39.99, and offers 450 anytime minutes, 5000 whenever minutes (almost 3 hours per day per month), unlimited mobile to mobile minutes (when I call another Cingular Wireless customer), voice mail, caller id, call waiting, call forwarding, with no long distance or roaming charges.
By contrastthe basic Rogers plan only offers 100 minutes plus 1000 evening and weekend minutes for $27. But my plan provides a better comparison, though it doesn't come close to the Cingular basic plan. My plan provides 350 anytime minutes and unlimited evening and weekends (from 9 pm to 8 am) for $55. On top of that I pay $12 for voice mail and caller id. And all Canadian carriers charge a $6.95 System Access Fee. On top of that there is 14% of federal and state tax. For a fair comparison we'll leave the tax out though. And I also pay any roaming or long distance charges as well.
So to get close (350 minutes versus their 450) to the Cingular minutes and services they provide for $39.99, I pay almost $74, or nearly double, plus any long distance charges.
With carriers charging like this, is it any wonder why wireless lags in Canada?
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