While much of the focus of yesterday’s Rogers quarterly call was on the wireless sector (see part one on roaming rates), it should be noted that company executives indicated that consumer broadband Internet prices – which the OECD recently reported were among the ten most expensive in the developed economy world – will continue to increase. Moreover, the company called unlimited bandwidth offers “short-sighted” and recent price increases just one step in the efforts to monetize broadband services.
Archive for July 25th, 2013
Rogers Reveals, Part One: Threat of Regulation Driving Down Roaming Costs
In 2011, the OECD released a report that found Canadians face some of the highest wireless roaming fees in the world. Some tried to downplay the findings – the National Post’s Terence Corcoran claimed that the roaming fees actually looked pretty cheap, while Rogers pointed to several packages that it said “would rank us among the lowest cost of countries surveyed.” Yet as regulators in other countries began aggressively targeting high roaming fees – EU costs have dropped 91 percent over the past six years given regulatory initiatives – Canadian companies apparently began to fear that similar regulations could make their way here. Indeed, according to Rogers, it was necessary to get “roaming in line” or face the prospect of regulation.