The release this week of the Montreal Economic Institute’s telecommunications report has the feel of a last gasp for a dying argument about the state of Canadian wireless. Gone are the days of telecom companies and their supporters denying that Canadian wireless prices are high relative to other countries. In its place are arguments seeking to justify high prices on the basis of claims that Canada has better networks and challenging geography. What is striking about the latest report is how these arguments fail upon closer inspection with the MEI resorting to creating incomplete data charts on network quality and failing to grapple with countries that have better networks, better pricing, and less wireless density.
Post Tagged with: "Wireless"
World’s Worst Wireless Pricing?: Report Finds Canadian Wireless Broadband Pricing Offers Least Bang for the Buck in Developed World
The sad state of Canadian wireless pricing is old news for consumers and the government, but a new report graphically demonstrates how Canadians face some of the least competitive pricing in the developed world. The Rewheel study measured pricing in EU and OECD markets by examining how many gigabytes of 4G wireless data consumers get for the equivalent of 30 euros. This chart from Rewheel says it all:
Back to Bains: Why the CRTC Has Left Fixing Canada’s Wireless Woes to the Government
Few policy issues have proven as frustrating as the state of Canadian wireless pricing. For the better part of a decade, Conservative and Liberal governments have grappled with overwhelming evidence that Canadian consumers pay some of the highest prices for wireless services in the world. The solution has always seemed obvious: more competition. Yet despite repeated efforts to nudge the market and regulator toward a more competitive environment, the needle has barely moved.
My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that the latest failed effort was sparked by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains’ June 2017 request to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to reconsider a decision on how regional and smaller wireless companies access wholesale roaming services from larger providers.
Why Abandoning Net Neutrality in the U.S. Matters in Canada
Earlier this week I appeared on CBC’s On the Money to discuss the U.S. decision to abandon net neutrality and its implications for Canada. I’ve written about these issues in columns and posts, but this interview provided the opportunity to highlight the implications for Canadian business and consumers, the prospect of including net neutrality in future Telecommunications Act reforms, the connection to NAFTA, and the ongoing concerns with telecom competitiveness in Canada. The interview is embedded below.
Canada’s Billion Dollar Wireless Cash Grab: CRTC Data Shows Overage Fees Now Exceed Roaming Revenues
The CRTC’s release of the 2017 Communications Monitoring Report ushered in the usual conflicting reports on the state of communications services in Canada. I found the most compelling take to be Tefficient’s data charts that show Canadian wireless companies generating revenue per GB that is the highest in the developed economy world (literally off-the-chart) alongside mobile data usage growth rates that are among the slowest on record. The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association described the growth rate as “impressive”, but when just about everyone has faster growth rates, it is readily apparent that high wireless costs in Canada have a negative impact on usage.
Digging further into the data, the CRTC provides insight into an oft-overlooked source of revenue for the carriers: overage charges, which represent an ongoing source of frustration for many consumers. While many carriers have unlimited broadband plans, unlimited wireless plans are rare, leaving subscribers to carefully monitor their data usage. Based on the CRTC data, however, many find themselves exceeding their monthly cap fairly regularly as data overage charges constitute 6 per cent of total retail wireless revenues:
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