Well I am from New York City, and moved to Toronto about a year ago for 3 years on a business project. Anyways, WHY ARE THE BLACKBERRY RATES SO DISGUSTINGLY EXPENSIVE!

I am currently with Rogers, and it's $50/month + Caller ID + System Access Fee = Over $60/month for 2MB of use with BIS (Blackberry Internet Service). WHAT THE FLIP!?! In NYC I used T-Mobile and it was $40/month (including 550 minutes air time and caller ID AND UNLIMITED EMAILS AND DATA..UNLIMITED!!)

So can anyone here please explain to me WHY data plans up here in the Great North are high priced for extremely low bandwidth? :confused:

I agree.. Wireless data fees in Canada are obscene... I guess we can also ask why we're paying $3.50 a gallon for gas (.92 cents per liter). I dunno..

I guess Canadians just enjoy paying more.

It has alot to do with the amount of people.Put it this way new york has the same pop as the whole prov as ontario.

I agree that Canada has a smaller population, BUT that is no excuse for Rogers/Bell/Telus to take MAJOR advantage of data rates. RIM is definitely a smart Canadian company..wouldn't you think that lower prices for higher data would equal more Blackberry customers?!

We are in the bandwidth age! How in the world is Rogers going to support their 'Rogers Vision' plans with a 2mb data plan?!

Maybe because I am so used to the cell plans in the US that I miss it more now that I'm here :rolleyes:

Why?

Because we Canadians keep paying these obscenely high rates and the three big companies know this!

And what about the CRTC? Do they play a role in cell phone rates?

Why?

Because we Canadians keep paying these obscenely high rates and the three big companies know this!

And what about the CRTC? Do they play a role in cell phone rates?
The CRTC do not have anything to do with wireless providers, they do not play any role in cell phone rates.

The problem here is lack of competition. Rogers should never have been able to buy Fido and Telus should not have been able to buy Microcell (Celarnet??). Our government policies when it comes to allowing mergers to eliminate competition are woefully inadequate. We essentially have three carries and I suspect they collude when it comes to pricing.

The problem here is lack of competition.

Bingo. We have a winner!

Microcell operated Fido and was on the verge of bankruptcy and shutting down when Rogers bought it. Bell and Telus were also interested but Rogers was able to close the deal. At the time Fido service was limited to a few large cities.

Memory fails me as to how viable Clearnet was when Telus moved in, but it was far from a national carrier.

I know prices are high in Canada compared to the USA, but no one can compare the infrastructure required here to serve a small population with that required in the USA. The US population is roughly 10x that of Canada. Are there 30 major national cell phone carriers there? Of course not. Canadian competition is very strong and, I expect, going to get stronger with Bell under new ownership. Witness how quickly Rogers responded to Bell's $75 unlimited mobile internet offer with a $65 monthly offer which may not be unlimited but meets the needs of a huge portion of the mobile market.

Counter to the argument that licensing more carriers would increase competition is the reality that any new carrier will have huge costs to build a network and market it to customers and will need years to build a nation-wide network. The need for cash will mean new carriers will not be able to reduce prices and survive. It can be argued just as easily that a m limited number of strong national carriers, such as we have, is the best assurance of good service and reasonable prices.

There appears to be only one serious contender for a new cell licence and that is for a Quebec-only business, i.e. they are not planning on offering a nation-wide service anytime soon. Sounds to me like Microcell all over again and nothing more than an attempt to reap a huge profit selling out to "Bellusgers" in a couple of years.

Are the high speed data networks that the cell companies built currently running at full capacity? I would assume not, but that seems like the only sane reason a company would charge such ridiculous prices.

I'd much rather have 50% of my customers paying me $25 or $30/month than 5% of my customers paying me $100/month. Unless, of course, I was in a position to only service 5%.

So, does anyone know - what capacity are they running at with their HS networks?

Valid points are made by outinthornhill. I am not too familiar with the Canadian telcos, and I suppose that competition and population, as well as land size have a lot to do with the equation.

It's just puzzling, from a RIM point of view. Lowering data rates and upping the bandwidth would just fall into their hands. Why haven't they approached Rogers/Telus/Bell about the fees?

Anyways, I guess we all wish something could be done but who knows if it will. I always thought that you Canuks wanted to keep up with us Yanks ;)

Cheers!

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070919/cellphone_suit_070919/20070919

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...70919/20070919

That link has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

Check out this discussion regarding the system fees:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=69859

I had a $500 bill from Telus last month. Why? The only thing that I can figure out is that I downloaded Google maps (OTA) on my blackberry. This is what really get me. I bought this unit (8830) because it had GPS and I needed the maps for Europe. When I went to Europe I discovered that the GPS and maps were not functional yet. Telus still has not released Navigator that they said was "coming soon" in early July. I called and complained that I downloaded a software that merely makes up for the deficiency in the service they were suppose to provide. They relented and reversed the charges. $500 bucks for one piece of software to download and try for a few days!

The author of this article doesn't have all his facts straight, but there is an interesting graph comparing Canadian cell data rates to other countries.

Canada Worse than 3rd World Countries when it comes to Mobile Data Access (http://www.thomaspurves.com/2007/04/09/canada-worse-than-3rd-world-countries-when-it-comes-to-mobile-data-access/)

I should have gone to Rwanda. :o

Ridiculous. It's probably cheaper for me to pay roaming with T-mobile with all the emails I'm getting. Disgusting.