Alec Saunders has a great post on the harm caused by Canada's uncompetitive mobile data rates.
Saunders on Canadian Data Rates
March 31, 2008
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When I worked at a call centre that did outsource support for Sprint cell phone sin teh USA, a few years ago I found out that for $10/month Spritn customers coudl get unlimited data on their cell phones. Up here, 1.5 megabytes a month (barely enough to chat on IRC while on the bus to work every day) with Rogers was $15/month. Sucks be Canadian for wireless access. 🙁
Beyond the point
Based on Alec’s analysis, data rates in Canada have been set beyond the point of diminishing returns. It is priced above what most people are willing to pay, so they have a smaller customer base. Of course, this is good for the “average revenue per customer” number… not so good for total revenues.