Mounting anger over Canadian mobile pricing
The drums continue to beat this morning for lower cost cellular service in Canada.
- Jim Courtney explains, at length, the impact of Rogers' monopolostic pricing on advanced services like UMA/GANs.
- Returning from VON, Jon Arnold writes about how wireless service in Canada is no bargain.
- In yesterday's Globe and Mail, Catherine McLean write about the price gap between Canadian and US or European plans. It's unfortunate that the online edition doesn't show the table that the print edition does. Net net, Rogers plans are uniformly 2x to 3x plans in the other industrialized nations of the world.
- Mark Goldberg asks if Apple could bypass Rogers altogether, by simply including a microphone on the iPod Touch and allowing a SIP client to be installed.
When the Globe and Mail writes that consumers in Canada are being raped by the mobile phone companies the story has finally gone mainstream. It's not too late for the carriers to pull this one out of the fire, however. Despite the waves of criticism, only a few early adopters like myself and Jim are making extensive use of WiFi on mobile devices. A price cut, and an iPhone launch (rumours at VON say it will be March of next year) would likely quell that criticism.
However, by keeping prices high Rogers (and by extension Bell and Telus) are inviting a CRTC-led review of their monopolistic pricing practices in response to mounting consumer criticism.
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