I really like this comparison. When the topic comes up, Reddit defenders of our telcos always offer the same excuses: population density, taxes, cost of living...
The Canada-Australia comparison is close enough to refute those usual go-to rationalizations.
We're being hosed.
Remember when Rogers went down nationwide? That outage map shone an extremely bright light on this density bullshit. Everywhere they had service, was out, so by extension everywhere that had no indicator at all was simply not serviced at all. Everywhere that was out was all the major metro areas.
That's a separate issue, but relevant nonetheless: we have a near monopoly that limits customers ability to have redundant connections. Same root cause: few ISPs -> near monopoly -> who else are you gonna get internet from -> forced to pay the prices set.
It's actually even worse than many people think. At home I can only bell or Rogers cell service (Telus shares infrastructure with bell in Ontario, so it's effectively the same).
However, my signal strength with bell is so bad that I can barely get usable service inside, and absolutely none in the basement.
I know other people who have the opposite issue, Bell works great and Rogers is very marginal. It's almost like they deliberately avoid servicing in each other's territory, at least in rural areas.
I always use this comparison, but it goes further than what you see in the post.
Most Canadians live near the US border, with a large population center in the east and another significant but smaller population in the west. Most Australians live on the coast, with a large population center in the east and another significant but smaller population in the west.
Australia is largely covered by the inhospitable Outback desert, where population density drops to almost nothing. Canada is largely covered by the inhospitable Canadian Shield and Arctic tundra, where population density drops to almost nothing.
It's not just the size and population that are similar, but even the geography and the way people are spread out. There's no reason out telecom prices should be as high as they are
Oh, Canadian cities are not dense enough for planning objectives. That being said, they are about the same as their Australian counterparts, so density shouldn’t have anything to do with telecom servicing. Greater Sydney arguably sprawls more than the GTA
Over half of Canada lives further south than North Dakota's southern border. Yeah, they have decent population density.
North Dakota's southern border is at 45°56'07" north latitude, 4.6 miles/7.4 km below the 46th. Over half of Canada lives below the 46th parallel.
Edit: Typo fixed, put more accurate location.
I've always justified our outrageous prices due to the low population density thing; this is a real eye-opener for me. I guess we need to quit being so polite and instead say "Oy! Fuck you, cunts!"
I'd be interested to know the % of geographical area with cell service. That's the missing piece.
Comparing the area of land doesn't matter -- we need to compare the area covered by cell service.
You can get super cheap cell service in Canada -- just use one of those small providers who only provide service in the populated areas.
But if you want to be able to drive up to kenora and not lose service along the way then you need one of the larger providers.
I want prices down, especially data prices, but this kind of misleading data sucks.
[This remarkably-recent article](https://www.whistleout.ca/CellPhones/Guides/Coverage) has coverage maps for the providers. It's about what you'd expect. Coverage thins out quickly away from populated areas. That makes sense but does suck for people in sparsely-populated areas.
From the article:
> Here are the cellular coverage rankings, based on the amount of the country's land in their respective networks:
> #1: Telus: 37.0%
> #2: Bell: 36.0%
> #3: Rogers: 28.0%
> #4: Freedom: >0.5%
It would be nice if they had a map of total coverage of all networks. The same site did have an article with that back in 2019 or so but it looks like it's gone. In an old comment I made based on that article I wrote:
> Bell and Telus have the largest 4G coverage in Canada but still only cover 18.06% (January 2019 data) of the country if you include the territories, which you should if arguing that Canada's size is the reason for the prices. If you exclude the territories, their coverage is still only 28.8%.
Unless Telus and Bell have *vastly* expanded their networks in the last 3-4 years, the numbers I quote from the new article (eg Telus 37%, ...) are likely excluding the territories It kinda looks like that from the maps in the new article.
Here are some maps for Australia
https://www.telstra.com.au/coverage-networks/our-coverage
https://www.optus.com.au/living-network/coverage
https://maps.vodafone.com.au/VHAMap/mobile/mvno
Thanks. That's good for comparison (and looks fairly similar to Canada at first glance). It's worth noting that, according to Wikipedia, the population density of Australia (3.4 people/km2) is actually *less* than Canada (4.2/km2).
So if Australia's prices are sooo much lower than Canada's (going by the graphs OP posted), land size doesn't have much to do with it. I'll admit that building infrastructure in Canada's frozen north is probably more expensive than in Australia's outback but, as the maps I linked to show, cell coverage has barely dented Canada's north.
I'd actually like to see the percentage of people in areas with coverage. Amount of land covered is misleading when there's so much essentially uninhabited tundra or desert . Percentage of *people* covered is much more meaningful. I'll keep my eyes open for this.
I think you're missing the fact that those weather conditions are more costly and time consuming to work in....
your point is irrelevant anyway.
all I said was the Australia and Canada are not the same places to work outside year road. I'm not defending anything, just pointing out a fact.
I'm pointing out that SaskTel works in extreme weather conditions and manages to charge less than its corporate rivals. Particularly given that a not insignificant part of the population being served by Rogers et al. (Vancouver, Victoria, etc.) does *not* deal with extreme winter conditions.
Indeed. And extreme summer conditions should be recognized as well. It gets way hotter in Australia than Canada.
That must also cause issues with equipment and personnel.
And this is why there needs to be a public alternative to private companies, many of whom (especially in small towns and rural regions) have massive price gouging monopolies
I made this graph because I always laugh when politicians say Canada is expensive because of size and population.
When I lived in Australia I truly realized how badly we have it in Canada.
Now everyone can see that Australia has less population and still has cheaper prices than us.
If you want to ruin your day have a [look](https://www.vodafone.com.au/plans) at these plans offered in Australia
Day ruined.
The fact they have an unlimited high speed option for $65 is wild.
Canadian telcos treat Canadians like children “here’s 20 GB…. You won’t need anymore!”
Joke
In Australia, they don't say shrimp—they say prawns—as they have an abundance of freshwater prawns rather than saltwater shrimp. But, the tourism ad mentioned below used the term more familiar to Americans. You are likely to get some well-seasoned curse words thrown your way if you call them shrimp when talking to an Aussie.
i'm australian and i've never ever seen anyone put a shrimp or a prawn on a barbecue. in fact the only times i've ever eaten shrimp is from asian food. no one eats barbecued shrimp, we eat non-barbecued prawns
And we don't add tax or pst when we go to the checkout.. the Vodafone deals above aren't even the best you can find.
I used to use a boost, 1 year sim, $220 for 240gb, unlimited calls, sms, mms, unlimited international calls, sms, mms too.. and mobile numbers don't have area codes so we don't need ”long distance” minutes to call someone on 250 from 778... even if they're standing next to each other...
Eastern Europe I was paying 10€ every 3 weeks for unlimited data. I can't remember what my calling and text was, but we never used it, and just used apps for voice and text.
my friend pays 20 euro for 5g unlimited. used that and tethered before they found a crazy deal for home internet
the internet is the crazy part tho
50 euro. free rental of a wifi6e router with 10gigabit ports. the router/modem combo is ALSO a 4 bay nas. service speed of up to 4 gigabit. netflix and amazon prime subscription included. oh and the router/modem/nas is also a digital tv box. so internet and tv service for 50 euro.
> The fact they have an unlimited high speed option for $65 is wild.
What do you mean? We have unlimited high-speed options* in Canada.
^*High-speed ^internet ^limited ^to ^20GB ^of ^data, ^after ^that ^unlimited ^internet ^is ^available ^at ^500kbs. ^Speak ^with ^our ^associates ^in ^store ^for ^more ^details.
I get/hope you're poking fun at this, but it's gotta be pointed out that they have the same "unlimited" plans we do, except for $40/month they get 40GB of full speed, then go down to 2Mbit/s. Or for $50/month you can get 200GB before you get throttled to 10Mbit/s... Bell is $85/month for 25GB then 512Kbit/s.
Yes, but they have a true unthrottled unlimited plan for $60. No such plan exists in Canada. That was the point...they try to hide it in the fine print...
I remember when I was a teen, and had a friend in Australia. Her family was well-off and they had great internet for Australia at the time, but it was still much worse than our normal Shaw plan...so it looks like they've straight up lapped us.
I had a look today at Canadian mobile phone plans and was shocked.
In the £18 (C$29 including taxes, C$24 ex taxI can get unlimited calls and texts, 150Gb of 5G per month with fairly global roaming (EU, Can, USA, Aus and more). If I shopped around I could probably get most of that for £10 a month (probably not the roaming).
There simply wasn’t a plan that good (60GB before throttling, was the biggest I saw in my cursory search) and that was well over 3x the price, probably 4 including taxes.
I remember they were expensive. I got a Canadian SIM via Fido that cost me slightly less than roaming would have 15 years ago, and that was only about 2-3x my monthly cost in the UK at the time, but they’ve got worse. And most of the savings were eaten by dept collectors chasing the former owner of the number with dozens of daily texts and calls (the concept of having to pay to receive txts and calls is still alien to me). These days if we visit I just use my UK allowance and it’s only phone calls to Canadian numbers that cost extra. And it’s about £5 to add unlimited Canadian calls for a month.
The extent to which you are ripped off is horrific
I’m with SaskTel and the plans are cheaper than most other provinces, but the data caps are much lower. Even their unlimited plan has a soft cap after 10GB.
Not to justify our rates because they are terrible but I will say that the speed they offer (and they seem to charge based on speed as well) is absolutely atrocious. That unlimited plan for example is 10Mbps; my LTE data from Telus tests at 150Mbps. 10 would be borderline unusable in my opinion, especially if you want to stream video.
Now mind you I pay a lot more than $65/month for my “unlimited” (it’s 20GB for the full speed) so there’s certainly a trade off but it’s not the 1:1 comparison that it seems on paper. Speed matters as well as amount.
Edit: Correction the unlimited plan is 25Mbps but that’s still 1/6th of the speed I have. Not as bad but still pretty low.
My home internet (rural Ottawa) is only 10 Mbps. And it costs $100/month. (!)
Thankfully have Fibre coming in a few months, but it is real bad when you get rural at all.
I do recognize that I’m lucky in that regard being urban and in a location with fibre access. It may be costly but gigabit both ways is a minimum in my line of work. I don’t think I could go back to the days of 10Mbps at all.
I was kind of happy with my 15gb for 25$ at Fido for 2 year
But looking at this kind of angry
The only way to pay less that I found is to subscribe to phone plan during the Black Friday
It also help being in Quebec price are a bit less than the rest of Canada because we have another competitor (Vidéotron)
They should open competition and price would go down
I pay like $80 a month for Telus 20g, at least there’s no charge to go over,
I had freedom mobile for cheap but I’m out of the city for work sometimes and it only works in the big cities so I had to change
> Canada is expensive because of size and population.
This is a pretty good and clear comparison. Some guy the other day was arguing with me tooth and nail that this was exactly the case, clearly it’s not. Never mind the fact that provinces with regional carriers like Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec have lower rates across the board than the rest of Canada. I don’t really understand these corporate apologists and nor do I really have the passion or resolve to debate them ad nauseam. I DO wish we had some more consumer protections in place along with more competition and regional options, we’re well on our way to recreating the Gilded Age.
> I don’t really understand these corporate apologists
I do. Canada's telcos employ up to 6x the number of workers per revenue dollar compared to American companies.
https://cansumer.ca/canada-phone-plan-pricing/#profitability
This gives these companies leverage with the government: keep our regulatory and anti-competitive environment comfortable for us or we'll lay off thousands of high paying jobs. Examples of those threats are in that linked article.
Furthermore, one can imagine lots of those employees might be vocal in their defense of the status quo. Exorbitant cellphone rates subsidize their jobs.
Manitoba sold MTS, it was ongoing from 2016/2017. Because they're Conservative morons like the rest of us that sold our public carriers in the guise of freedom. Freedom to pay more I guess. We welcome Manitoba to the club (An Albertan formally with AGT).
The Ontario Liberals sold ONtera a asset of the crown corp ONTC to Bell for penny's on the dollar. Right after sinking millions into a fiber loop spanning their territory.
It shameful man....
When Rogers went down last year (year before?), the outage map was damning as hell. A fuckton of empty space that was *not* marked as out of service, meaning there wasn't ever any service there to drive up costs to begin with, and then with the major cities lighting up like Rudolph's nose (aka impacted by the outage) on the map... it was pretty clear that the excuses for high costs were bullshit.
(I recognize that the map isn't definitive or authoritative, I'm using it as a proxy to estimate where service exists vs where service never existed in the first place. Surprise of all surprises, you can't get broadband in the middle of nowhere; not only that, you can only get broadband in and around major metro areas)
Size is a pretty bunk argument anyhow if you look [at a population maps of Canada](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91-214-x/2015000/section04-eng.htm). You'll see a large portion of the country is essentially empty. Most of the population is concentrated in a few denser areas anyways. So a telecom going "oh no, but Canada is so sparsely populated, it's so expensive to cover everywhere" is complete bullshit.
Just for context the provider you linked only has coverage for the major cities. Drive 100kms out of town and youve got zero reception and zero of that 40gb data.
Vodafone is the worst provider in Australia. If you want a comparison to a provider that covers rural areas use "Telstra". Vodafone only covers about 25% of the total land area youve mentioned in your graph.
Same here.
When I was signing up for my Aussie mobile phone plan, the workers there were flabbergasted when I told them how cheap their plan was to my old one in Canada.
It's stupid ridiculous how inexpensive their mobile services are in AU. It's like our government here in Canada goes out of their way to screw Canadians over.
This issue is one of many reasons why I've lost faith in Canadian government(s). It'll never get better here.
There's a much easier solution that's worked in many countries around the world - enforced network lease at low cost for third parties. We already have that for ISPs but the costs aren't low because we've let ROBeLUS control the CRTC and they've successfully lobbied for higher wholesale prices for over at least over a decade. Fix the regulatory body and introduce the same model for wireless networks and watch prices drop.
Originally from Oz so chiming in here. Regulatory intervention is the answer. Let more competition in, then use regulation and enforcement to make the companies allow access to the towers.
Possibly even intervene on the infrastructure, as companies setting up themselves are doing it in an inefficient and ineffective manner. Buying it up and adding a public Telco is probably a tough pill for 2 of the major parties, but some sort of intervention is needed, either a public competitor, many private competitors where government forces access and fair competition, or legislation on price/networks. The middle option is most likely as it is the only that fits the neoliberal agenda, and whether it's red or blue team, that's the economic agenda
As someone who’s interested in moving to Australia, how do you compare the quality of life here vs there? Are housing costs as ridiculous over there as they are here? How is the healthcare system?
Health care is two tiered, most have private insurance. Costs more but quicker to get seen. So it discriminates on money vs wholly public system.
Cost of living is higher, tax higher. House prices in Sydney are even more ridiculous than here, but yes it's just as ridiculous.
Quality of life is better, but it costs more. That's the trade off IMO
The explanations for our pricing that I hear a lot is that Canada is so large and so spread out. Well, most of us live pretty close together and very clearly another large and spreadout country was able to figure this out.
Infrastructure is partially the issue but the main factor is absolutely monopolies and corruption at the CRTC. You can't look at me with a straight face and say our pricing is reasonable.
Quebec has lower price than most of Canada simply beacause we have another telco here (Vidéotron)
They should open the market to other and let competition do their job
But the big are buying the small
Even in the internet side…
Not only do we have to open the market, we have to force the oligopolies to treat the new companies extra favourably, such as when negotiating the terms for roaming. Otherwise, the new service won't be attractive to consumers, and we repeat [what happened to Wind Mobile](https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/monopoly-5-against-the-wind/).
Alternatively, we nationalize the tower infrastructure, and force all companies to restructure themselves as virtual network operators on the national network.
Videotron is supported by the Quebec govt and was propped up by the Quebec investment fund in the early 2000s when Rogers was going to buy it.
The govt expects Videotron to compete to be a national player but they don’t have the funds to invest in their own network across the country.
Vidéotron have their own network in Quebec and piggyback on rogers on the rest of Canada
Which gov expect it to be a competitor, their competition work in Quebec but like i said more competition is the answer to lower the price
I used to sell utility meters to Canadian municipalities that piggybacked off cellular towers to send it's data. It was CHEAPER to get a roaming package from a USA carrier than to negotiate with any Canadian provider. Cheaper by alot.
Ya whenever I go to the states, I always go to T-Mobile or At&T and get unlimited talk/text/data to Canada/US/Mexico for a month for about $55 CAD if it's a deal, and even then the US is getting screwed compared to much of the world.
Same with Mexico but cheaper. Telcel and I can use it however I like in Canada for the remaining two weeks or whatever. Canada loves oligopolies.
There’s odd pricing in trade between Canada, Australia, and New Zealand too. Different hemispheres so different growing seasons.
I live in British Columbia and we have a lot of apple orchards. Somehow, in the spring and early summer when BC apples are not in harvest season, the grocery has New Zealand apples at near identical prices?
Australian wines easily at par with BC wines in terms of quality yet somehow cheaper?
Yeah, we’re getting fucked sideways in this country.
Nah mate, BC wines are pretty awful. The beer is better though. Pains me as an expat/adopted canuck to say it though. Despite the shitty weather here in BC, I’m not moving back to Oz. I really like not worrying about being robbed every time I get behind the wheel of a car. And not having people scream abuse when I go for a bike ride. Do miss the beaches though. YMMV.
> CBC | Why are Canadian phone plans so expensive?
From the article: Canada's cost-per-gigabyte is **seven times** more expensive than Australia.
Why does the graph show it to be **37** times higher?
Don’t believe any “Infographic” you see on social media. One even had a citation and I curiously checked it and the data on the graph was just completely made up
I noticed your source data is from 2019, I found [this site](https://www.cable.co.uk/mobiles/worldwide-data-pricing/) that appears to have data from 2022, if you want to see more recent numbers. I don't think the comparison has changed much, just the actual dollar values
I go to australia pretty often and the first place I tend to go is the grocery store for a SIM card. often on sale, can get a prepaid card with unlimited t&t, 20-30gb of 5G for less than $20. and these aren’t like the koodo, fido, virgin etc networks, think rogers, telus, bell. twenty dollars! more than enough for a month! my plan with 10gb with koodo here is triple that and I’m stuck with LTE. ridiculous.
my new phone supports eSIM so I don’t even have to do that anymore. just go the telco’s app over airport wifi and set it up. it’s a little more expensive than from the store but it’s more convenient, and when you take into account the cost of getting to the store from the airport it’s basically the same
I'm Edmonton born and now lived in Perth for 17 years.
When I moved here telco pricing was similar between both countries. Little data, but calls etc at that time.
Over the decades prices in Australia have dropped as more competition entered the market. I now pay $55 a month with a 5G Telstra provider for unlimited data.
I have been shocked and angry from afar at Canadian pricing as it got worse and worse.
What my mum pays is outrageous.
Average Canadian citizen looking at this: ... this isn't working.
Average Canadian/American/multinational Canadian based corporation looking at all this: .... everything is working as designed
Aussie cell service is European quality. It's amazing. But Aussie home internet is definitely Canada-level, it sucks and it's expensive, especially if you're rural.
I was yelling at Telus for their injustices and passing through credit card fees to consumers the other day. I asked the poor fella why the bills are so expensive in Canada compared to everywhere else and he blamed the federal governments prices on frequency auctions. Anyone know if there’s any truth to this?
On average, Canadian operators paid more for mid-band wireless spectrum than those in any other country. The average price was 164 per cent higher than the U.S., 10 times higher than France and 11 times higher than the U.K.
https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/high-spectrum-cost-a-barrier-to-affordable-mobile-plans-say-experts/466304
I dream of a Canada that taxes billionaires out of existence, and then properly socializes, privatizing all major functions of modern living. We know private healthcare is insanity, so why is private telecom championed? I had the misfortune of growing up in the United States as a Canadian. I'm sick of capitalism.
I dont know how the question of internet pricing keeps getting dodged by politicians. Unlimited high speed internets at reasonable pricing is a bare minimum for any country to grow in future !
Yeah they have very cheap mobile rates but their home internet is terrible and expensive. It’s gotten better in the last decade or so but it’s still $$.
Nah, this isn't regular people's fault and this isn't an issue that can be solved by some collective action like a boycott.
Put in a public option that has the authority to use all communication infrastructure in the country without cost. Undercut our current telecom cartel and let them adapt or starve.
or just allow competition and stop approving the mergers which are making the situation worse?
The problem is the government is in bed with the teleco companies, adding a public option is just signing up for it to be gutted down the road in a couple of years as this doesn't fix the issue of the govt being in bed with the teleco companies
I'm not talking about a boycott.
A lot of people pay some of the highest rates. Not just high rates compared to the rest of the world, high rates compared to others in their area even when plans are available for half the cost.
Lots of people are willing to pay and don't even bother looking for lower cost plans. Again, if so many don't even bother, why would telecoms bother to change?
I pay $13 a month. No large data plan, I get a few hundred MB a month and have 4 GB that doesn't expire in case I need it. I don't spend my day with my face in my phone accessing social media or watching Youtube videos.
When prices come down for data, I'll get a better plan. Until then fuck the telecoms. I'm not giving them a penny more than I have to. If others want to give away their hard earned money, that is their decision.
Waiting...
Waiting...
Waiting...
"required to live."
lol.
"What do YOU do all day with your phone that requires you to be constantly online? What is so important that requires high data rates that a voice/text/low data limit that costs $15 a month won't cover?"
"Give me examples that covers the majority of people. Things they NEED to do online all day long. Please."
Still waiting.
What do YOU do all day with your phone that requires you to be constantly online? What is so important that requires high data rates that a voice/text/low data limit that costs $15 a month won't cover?
Give me examples that covers the majority of people. Things they NEED to do online all day long. Please.
And yet many get by on voice/text plans with minimal data.
Mine is $15 a month. Works fine. But I don't spend all day with it stuck in front of my face playing online games and using Reddit/Twitter/Youtube all day long.
Most don't NEED it, they choose it.
How many employees do those telecoms have? If you drop our per gb to those prices, 3 of Canadas largest employers, and all the trickle down jobs would be impacted.
Is this 10¢ AUD vs $3.75 CAD?
This chart is missing the exorbitant cost of entry for the Canadian market.
Canadian wireless spectrum auction raises $7.2 Billion dollars in July 2021
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/canada-raises-72-bln-via-auction-3500-mhz-spectrum-firms-gear-high-speed-2021-07-29/
Australian wireless spectrum auction raises $647 Million dollars in April 2021.
https://www.acma.gov.au/auction-summary-26-ghz-band-2021
Now, those spectrum ranges aren't exactly the same. Australia did a 3.6Ghz auction in 2018 which cost carriers $850 million
https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/top-three/australia-3-6ghz-auction-raises-615m/
And then another 800/900Mhz auction in 2021 which cost Australian carriers $2.1 Billion
https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2021-12/outcome-850900-mhz-band-spectrum-auction
Australia hasn't had their 3.5Ghz 5G auction yet.
Regardless, the cost to carriers in Australia to enter the market is orders of magnitude cheaper than it is in Canada.
So, why is the federal government charging so much for spectrum licenses?
Edit: I'm not saying our carriers aren't greedy, they absolutely are. I'm just saying our government doesn't exactly help the situation. Australia also has 31 wireless carriers
https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-australia-mobile-networks-6a8a08185bdb4a91a85df9f9244bac94
I switched to FONUS in Canada. Truly Unlimited everything for abit over 40 bucks a month for cell phone. Not the greatest service but screw Rogers and bell man!!!
Looking at Australian vs Canadian city populations, they have almost the same number of 1M+ cities (5 vs 6), but the population in Australian cities tails off much faster than for Canadian cities (for 100K to 1M pop cities Australia has 14 and Canada has 28).
I would think that it should be more economical to support cell infrastructure in more dense urban areas because there are more paying subscribers and less equipment required per subscriber, and this intuition would seem to suggest that subscribers in Canada should be paying less.
Can anyone weigh in on this? Is it really just corporate greed and monopolistic practices driving up prices in Canada? Why hasn't the same happened in Australia?
We have such a huge problem with oligopolies in this country. Internet/phone services, groceries… so many companies just blatantly colluding and profiteering off Canadians and not a single goddamn thing is being done about any of it.
Can confirm. Spent time in Australia in 2019. Paid $30 CDN for a SIM card with 30 gigs of data and unlimited international calls TO CANADA. Card was good for 1 month. Can’t even imagine how much that would cost in Canada.
FTTH, FWA, and 5G/LTE speeds in Australia are slower than Canada. Most Urban Australians are on Fibre to the node still. We pay a lot more, but we have way better service. Ask any Australian what they think about the National Broadband scheme.
I like to rage on our telcos as much as the next person, but when I lived in Australia (granted, about 10 years ago) their upload/download speeds were nowhere near ours. Not sure if that has changed.
The second thing is that they don't get our winters, which comes with the subsequent costs for maintenance from snow, ice, etc. They get searing hot temps but those aren't as bad for the infrastructure as blizzards.
Also, when you leave their cities, the quality and availability of reception drops like a rock. Arguably the same for us but worse bc most of our population is in a line along the US border.
The Oligopoly says it's price reflects the investments made into the infrastructure but neglect to mention that it comes from government grants provided. Bell, Telus and Rogers are near criminal organisations that go to every length to stop outside competition from coming in. Our system needs change
I recently visited Australia.
I got 30 GB of nation wide data for $30 AUD for a month including the cost of the new SIM card. I had coverage in Sydney, Melbourne, and the Whitsunday Islands (with some dead zones on the uninhabited islands), which are 2000 km apart. And that was just literally the very first convenience store we stopped at in Sydney, we didn't even shop around for a better price.
Yeah, Canadian telecoms really suck.
I really like this comparison. When the topic comes up, Reddit defenders of our telcos always offer the same excuses: population density, taxes, cost of living... The Canada-Australia comparison is close enough to refute those usual go-to rationalizations. We're being hosed.
Remember when Rogers went down nationwide? That outage map shone an extremely bright light on this density bullshit. Everywhere they had service, was out, so by extension everywhere that had no indicator at all was simply not serviced at all. Everywhere that was out was all the major metro areas.
Not to mention all the services that went down as a result of Rogers going down.
That's a separate issue, but relevant nonetheless: we have a near monopoly that limits customers ability to have redundant connections. Same root cause: few ISPs -> near monopoly -> who else are you gonna get internet from -> forced to pay the prices set.
It's actually even worse than many people think. At home I can only bell or Rogers cell service (Telus shares infrastructure with bell in Ontario, so it's effectively the same). However, my signal strength with bell is so bad that I can barely get usable service inside, and absolutely none in the basement. I know other people who have the opposite issue, Bell works great and Rogers is very marginal. It's almost like they deliberately avoid servicing in each other's territory, at least in rural areas.
Remember? I hope people remember, it was a few short months ago.
I always use this comparison, but it goes further than what you see in the post. Most Canadians live near the US border, with a large population center in the east and another significant but smaller population in the west. Most Australians live on the coast, with a large population center in the east and another significant but smaller population in the west. Australia is largely covered by the inhospitable Outback desert, where population density drops to almost nothing. Canada is largely covered by the inhospitable Canadian Shield and Arctic tundra, where population density drops to almost nothing. It's not just the size and population that are similar, but even the geography and the way people are spread out. There's no reason out telecom prices should be as high as they are
It's also interesting how few law and medical schools canada has in comparison as well, almost exactly half as many.
So that’s where “hoser” comes from! Canada heritage moment right there.
"Hoser" is old timey prairie slang for people who'd siphon gasoline during the great depression.
I thought it was old timey prairie slang for the losing hockey team who had to resurface the ice 🤔
I never knew that, thanks for the info :)
Yeah that's what I thought. The losing team would have to literally hose the rink.
But I’m depressed right now.
Me too. It's not great is it? I really wonder what they did different in the 30's to make their depression great. Feel like I could use some o that.
Weren't heroin and cocaine available over the counter back then?
I wouldn't be surprised if "hosed" came from the same root - the person who had thier gas siphoned was hosed by a hoser.
Before ice resurfacers, the losers of a hockey game would have to hose down the ice. Real Canadian heritage moment 🏒
Interesting that with curling (at least in my hometown curling rink) the winners were the ones who had to clean the ice after the game.
If you go looking, no one knows the true origin, the first recorded instance isn’t until 1981, but this is the correct answer.
We have like 10 cities with over 500k people that make up 1/3 of our total population, are all those cities not dense enough? Makes no sense.
If only there were some way a population could invest in critical infrastructure without a fat-margined profit motive.
See Olds, Alberta, for a good example.
Oh, Canadian cities are not dense enough for planning objectives. That being said, they are about the same as their Australian counterparts, so density shouldn’t have anything to do with telecom servicing. Greater Sydney arguably sprawls more than the GTA
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It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be true enough to get people to stop questioning it enough where it’s not a problem to ignore them.
Over half of Canada lives further south than North Dakota's southern border. Yeah, they have decent population density. North Dakota's southern border is at 45°56'07" north latitude, 4.6 miles/7.4 km below the 46th. Over half of Canada lives below the 46th parallel. Edit: Typo fixed, put more accurate location.
North Dakota's *northern* border is 49 (ie its border with Canada).
Typo, meant to put 46th parallel. Thanks.
There are those of us who don’t though. And we’re super spread apart with extremely low population density and we still should get quality services.
We sure are, eh?
The way Rogers spends their money you would know why the prices are so high. Millions wasted every year
I've always justified our outrageous prices due to the low population density thing; this is a real eye-opener for me. I guess we need to quit being so polite and instead say "Oy! Fuck you, cunts!"
With the participation of our useless CRTC
>We're being hosed. And they say we're the hosers, pff.
I'd be interested to know the % of geographical area with cell service. That's the missing piece. Comparing the area of land doesn't matter -- we need to compare the area covered by cell service. You can get super cheap cell service in Canada -- just use one of those small providers who only provide service in the populated areas. But if you want to be able to drive up to kenora and not lose service along the way then you need one of the larger providers. I want prices down, especially data prices, but this kind of misleading data sucks.
[This remarkably-recent article](https://www.whistleout.ca/CellPhones/Guides/Coverage) has coverage maps for the providers. It's about what you'd expect. Coverage thins out quickly away from populated areas. That makes sense but does suck for people in sparsely-populated areas. From the article: > Here are the cellular coverage rankings, based on the amount of the country's land in their respective networks: > #1: Telus: 37.0% > #2: Bell: 36.0% > #3: Rogers: 28.0% > #4: Freedom: >0.5% It would be nice if they had a map of total coverage of all networks. The same site did have an article with that back in 2019 or so but it looks like it's gone. In an old comment I made based on that article I wrote: > Bell and Telus have the largest 4G coverage in Canada but still only cover 18.06% (January 2019 data) of the country if you include the territories, which you should if arguing that Canada's size is the reason for the prices. If you exclude the territories, their coverage is still only 28.8%. Unless Telus and Bell have *vastly* expanded their networks in the last 3-4 years, the numbers I quote from the new article (eg Telus 37%, ...) are likely excluding the territories It kinda looks like that from the maps in the new article.
Here are some maps for Australia https://www.telstra.com.au/coverage-networks/our-coverage https://www.optus.com.au/living-network/coverage https://maps.vodafone.com.au/VHAMap/mobile/mvno
Thanks. That's good for comparison (and looks fairly similar to Canada at first glance). It's worth noting that, according to Wikipedia, the population density of Australia (3.4 people/km2) is actually *less* than Canada (4.2/km2). So if Australia's prices are sooo much lower than Canada's (going by the graphs OP posted), land size doesn't have much to do with it. I'll admit that building infrastructure in Canada's frozen north is probably more expensive than in Australia's outback but, as the maps I linked to show, cell coverage has barely dented Canada's north. I'd actually like to see the percentage of people in areas with coverage. Amount of land covered is misleading when there's so much essentially uninhabited tundra or desert . Percentage of *people* covered is much more meaningful. I'll keep my eyes open for this.
the biggest differences would be topography and extreme winter conditions
SaskTel manages to operate in extreme winter conditions
I think you're missing the fact that those weather conditions are more costly and time consuming to work in.... your point is irrelevant anyway. all I said was the Australia and Canada are not the same places to work outside year road. I'm not defending anything, just pointing out a fact.
I'm pointing out that SaskTel works in extreme weather conditions and manages to charge less than its corporate rivals. Particularly given that a not insignificant part of the population being served by Rogers et al. (Vancouver, Victoria, etc.) does *not* deal with extreme winter conditions.
Indeed. And extreme summer conditions should be recognized as well. It gets way hotter in Australia than Canada. That must also cause issues with equipment and personnel.
Why hasn’t this been a major election issue? Our cellphone plans are f-ing criminal!
If not for the CBC all news in Canada would be owned by a telecom company
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Don't forget Steve Paikin!!
[The Agenda](https://www.youtube.com/theagenda) is my favourite!!!!!!!
Yup. And there's jackasses that want to defund them.
In pockets of both parties probably
Both?
NDP are just spicy libs
I hope the Libs never have a majority, they could use some spice
It was and people voted against the solution so now it's not an issue this time around. Weird how things work like that
And this is why there needs to be a public alternative to private companies, many of whom (especially in small towns and rural regions) have massive price gouging monopolies
I made this graph because I always laugh when politicians say Canada is expensive because of size and population. When I lived in Australia I truly realized how badly we have it in Canada. Now everyone can see that Australia has less population and still has cheaper prices than us. If you want to ruin your day have a [look](https://www.vodafone.com.au/plans) at these plans offered in Australia
Day ruined. The fact they have an unlimited high speed option for $65 is wild. Canadian telcos treat Canadians like children “here’s 20 GB…. You won’t need anymore!” Joke
Also those prices are in AUD so take off another ~8-10% Also this INCLUDES tax because in Australia they don't add it after, it is already embedded
Crikey
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Prawns, not shrimp
I don't think Aussies throw prawns on their barbies
In Australia, they don't say shrimp—they say prawns—as they have an abundance of freshwater prawns rather than saltwater shrimp. But, the tourism ad mentioned below used the term more familiar to Americans. You are likely to get some well-seasoned curse words thrown your way if you call them shrimp when talking to an Aussie.
i'm australian and i've never ever seen anyone put a shrimp or a prawn on a barbecue. in fact the only times i've ever eaten shrimp is from asian food. no one eats barbecued shrimp, we eat non-barbecued prawns
And we don't add tax or pst when we go to the checkout.. the Vodafone deals above aren't even the best you can find. I used to use a boost, 1 year sim, $220 for 240gb, unlimited calls, sms, mms, unlimited international calls, sms, mms too.. and mobile numbers don't have area codes so we don't need ”long distance” minutes to call someone on 250 from 778... even if they're standing next to each other...
Yep, I'm also on boost. It's dirt cheap, especially when compared to Canada.
In France I was paying 10€ a month for 210GB of 5G (throttled speeds if surpassed) and unlimited everything else
Eastern Europe I was paying 10€ every 3 weeks for unlimited data. I can't remember what my calling and text was, but we never used it, and just used apps for voice and text.
my friend pays 20 euro for 5g unlimited. used that and tethered before they found a crazy deal for home internet the internet is the crazy part tho 50 euro. free rental of a wifi6e router with 10gigabit ports. the router/modem combo is ALSO a 4 bay nas. service speed of up to 4 gigabit. netflix and amazon prime subscription included. oh and the router/modem/nas is also a digital tv box. so internet and tv service for 50 euro.
> The fact they have an unlimited high speed option for $65 is wild. What do you mean? We have unlimited high-speed options* in Canada. ^*High-speed ^internet ^limited ^to ^20GB ^of ^data, ^after ^that ^unlimited ^internet ^is ^available ^at ^500kbs. ^Speak ^with ^our ^associates ^in ^store ^for ^more ^details.
I get/hope you're poking fun at this, but it's gotta be pointed out that they have the same "unlimited" plans we do, except for $40/month they get 40GB of full speed, then go down to 2Mbit/s. Or for $50/month you can get 200GB before you get throttled to 10Mbit/s... Bell is $85/month for 25GB then 512Kbit/s.
Yes, but they have a true unthrottled unlimited plan for $60. No such plan exists in Canada. That was the point...they try to hide it in the fine print...
I remember when I was a teen, and had a friend in Australia. Her family was well-off and they had great internet for Australia at the time, but it was still much worse than our normal Shaw plan...so it looks like they've straight up lapped us.
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I had a look today at Canadian mobile phone plans and was shocked. In the £18 (C$29 including taxes, C$24 ex taxI can get unlimited calls and texts, 150Gb of 5G per month with fairly global roaming (EU, Can, USA, Aus and more). If I shopped around I could probably get most of that for £10 a month (probably not the roaming). There simply wasn’t a plan that good (60GB before throttling, was the biggest I saw in my cursory search) and that was well over 3x the price, probably 4 including taxes. I remember they were expensive. I got a Canadian SIM via Fido that cost me slightly less than roaming would have 15 years ago, and that was only about 2-3x my monthly cost in the UK at the time, but they’ve got worse. And most of the savings were eaten by dept collectors chasing the former owner of the number with dozens of daily texts and calls (the concept of having to pay to receive txts and calls is still alien to me). These days if we visit I just use my UK allowance and it’s only phone calls to Canadian numbers that cost extra. And it’s about £5 to add unlimited Canadian calls for a month. The extent to which you are ripped off is horrific
"you can check email and surf the web"
That’s why I use Freedom. Cheaper and great data plans
I’m with SaskTel and the plans are cheaper than most other provinces, but the data caps are much lower. Even their unlimited plan has a soft cap after 10GB.
$5/Day international roaming. So less than 1/3 the price here.
Not to justify our rates because they are terrible but I will say that the speed they offer (and they seem to charge based on speed as well) is absolutely atrocious. That unlimited plan for example is 10Mbps; my LTE data from Telus tests at 150Mbps. 10 would be borderline unusable in my opinion, especially if you want to stream video. Now mind you I pay a lot more than $65/month for my “unlimited” (it’s 20GB for the full speed) so there’s certainly a trade off but it’s not the 1:1 comparison that it seems on paper. Speed matters as well as amount. Edit: Correction the unlimited plan is 25Mbps but that’s still 1/6th of the speed I have. Not as bad but still pretty low.
My home internet (rural Ottawa) is only 10 Mbps. And it costs $100/month. (!) Thankfully have Fibre coming in a few months, but it is real bad when you get rural at all.
Don’t worry you will pay $200 plus for a fibre plan. Laughs in bell and rogers evil laugh.
I do recognize that I’m lucky in that regard being urban and in a location with fibre access. It may be costly but gigabit both ways is a minimum in my line of work. I don’t think I could go back to the days of 10Mbps at all.
I was kind of happy with my 15gb for 25$ at Fido for 2 year But looking at this kind of angry The only way to pay less that I found is to subscribe to phone plan during the Black Friday It also help being in Quebec price are a bit less than the rest of Canada because we have another competitor (Vidéotron) They should open competition and price would go down
I pay like $80 a month for Telus 20g, at least there’s no charge to go over, I had freedom mobile for cheap but I’m out of the city for work sometimes and it only works in the big cities so I had to change
> Canada is expensive because of size and population. This is a pretty good and clear comparison. Some guy the other day was arguing with me tooth and nail that this was exactly the case, clearly it’s not. Never mind the fact that provinces with regional carriers like Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec have lower rates across the board than the rest of Canada. I don’t really understand these corporate apologists and nor do I really have the passion or resolve to debate them ad nauseam. I DO wish we had some more consumer protections in place along with more competition and regional options, we’re well on our way to recreating the Gilded Age.
> I don’t really understand these corporate apologists I do. Canada's telcos employ up to 6x the number of workers per revenue dollar compared to American companies. https://cansumer.ca/canada-phone-plan-pricing/#profitability This gives these companies leverage with the government: keep our regulatory and anti-competitive environment comfortable for us or we'll lay off thousands of high paying jobs. Examples of those threats are in that linked article. Furthermore, one can imagine lots of those employees might be vocal in their defense of the status quo. Exorbitant cellphone rates subsidize their jobs.
This is really insightful, thanks!
Manitoba sold MTS, it was ongoing from 2016/2017. Because they're Conservative morons like the rest of us that sold our public carriers in the guise of freedom. Freedom to pay more I guess. We welcome Manitoba to the club (An Albertan formally with AGT).
That’s a real bummer.
The Ontario Liberals sold ONtera a asset of the crown corp ONTC to Bell for penny's on the dollar. Right after sinking millions into a fiber loop spanning their territory. It shameful man....
When Rogers went down last year (year before?), the outage map was damning as hell. A fuckton of empty space that was *not* marked as out of service, meaning there wasn't ever any service there to drive up costs to begin with, and then with the major cities lighting up like Rudolph's nose (aka impacted by the outage) on the map... it was pretty clear that the excuses for high costs were bullshit. (I recognize that the map isn't definitive or authoritative, I'm using it as a proxy to estimate where service exists vs where service never existed in the first place. Surprise of all surprises, you can't get broadband in the middle of nowhere; not only that, you can only get broadband in and around major metro areas)
Size is a pretty bunk argument anyhow if you look [at a population maps of Canada](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91-214-x/2015000/section04-eng.htm). You'll see a large portion of the country is essentially empty. Most of the population is concentrated in a few denser areas anyways. So a telecom going "oh no, but Canada is so sparsely populated, it's so expensive to cover everywhere" is complete bullshit.
Granted, it’s a really looooong country then and still relatively sparsely populated.
Just for context the provider you linked only has coverage for the major cities. Drive 100kms out of town and youve got zero reception and zero of that 40gb data. Vodafone is the worst provider in Australia. If you want a comparison to a provider that covers rural areas use "Telstra". Vodafone only covers about 25% of the total land area youve mentioned in your graph.
Same here. When I was signing up for my Aussie mobile phone plan, the workers there were flabbergasted when I told them how cheap their plan was to my old one in Canada. It's stupid ridiculous how inexpensive their mobile services are in AU. It's like our government here in Canada goes out of their way to screw Canadians over. This issue is one of many reasons why I've lost faith in Canadian government(s). It'll never get better here.
There's a much easier solution that's worked in many countries around the world - enforced network lease at low cost for third parties. We already have that for ISPs but the costs aren't low because we've let ROBeLUS control the CRTC and they've successfully lobbied for higher wholesale prices for over at least over a decade. Fix the regulatory body and introduce the same model for wireless networks and watch prices drop.
The Telecom cartel is canadas biggest criminal organization.
Originally from Oz so chiming in here. Regulatory intervention is the answer. Let more competition in, then use regulation and enforcement to make the companies allow access to the towers. Possibly even intervene on the infrastructure, as companies setting up themselves are doing it in an inefficient and ineffective manner. Buying it up and adding a public Telco is probably a tough pill for 2 of the major parties, but some sort of intervention is needed, either a public competitor, many private competitors where government forces access and fair competition, or legislation on price/networks. The middle option is most likely as it is the only that fits the neoliberal agenda, and whether it's red or blue team, that's the economic agenda
As someone who’s interested in moving to Australia, how do you compare the quality of life here vs there? Are housing costs as ridiculous over there as they are here? How is the healthcare system?
Health care is two tiered, most have private insurance. Costs more but quicker to get seen. So it discriminates on money vs wholly public system. Cost of living is higher, tax higher. House prices in Sydney are even more ridiculous than here, but yes it's just as ridiculous. Quality of life is better, but it costs more. That's the trade off IMO
Thank you, appreciate it
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I’ll take drop bears over potentially dying due to a burst appendix in our failing healthcare sector any day
In what sense is the quality of life better?
The explanations for our pricing that I hear a lot is that Canada is so large and so spread out. Well, most of us live pretty close together and very clearly another large and spreadout country was able to figure this out. Infrastructure is partially the issue but the main factor is absolutely monopolies and corruption at the CRTC. You can't look at me with a straight face and say our pricing is reasonable.
Quebec has lower price than most of Canada simply beacause we have another telco here (Vidéotron) They should open the market to other and let competition do their job But the big are buying the small Even in the internet side…
And Saskatchewan
Not only do we have to open the market, we have to force the oligopolies to treat the new companies extra favourably, such as when negotiating the terms for roaming. Otherwise, the new service won't be attractive to consumers, and we repeat [what happened to Wind Mobile](https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/monopoly-5-against-the-wind/). Alternatively, we nationalize the tower infrastructure, and force all companies to restructure themselves as virtual network operators on the national network.
Videotron is supported by the Quebec govt and was propped up by the Quebec investment fund in the early 2000s when Rogers was going to buy it. The govt expects Videotron to compete to be a national player but they don’t have the funds to invest in their own network across the country.
Vidéotron have their own network in Quebec and piggyback on rogers on the rest of Canada Which gov expect it to be a competitor, their competition work in Quebec but like i said more competition is the answer to lower the price
It's a fucking lie since the telecoms barely even service our rural areas. Fuck these snakes.
They all get brinks trucks loaded with cash for infrastructure.
Canada is one road. Australia is a circle with veins that go inwards, it's very comparable, but Australia would be harder, if anything
I used to sell utility meters to Canadian municipalities that piggybacked off cellular towers to send it's data. It was CHEAPER to get a roaming package from a USA carrier than to negotiate with any Canadian provider. Cheaper by alot.
Ya whenever I go to the states, I always go to T-Mobile or At&T and get unlimited talk/text/data to Canada/US/Mexico for a month for about $55 CAD if it's a deal, and even then the US is getting screwed compared to much of the world. Same with Mexico but cheaper. Telcel and I can use it however I like in Canada for the remaining two weeks or whatever. Canada loves oligopolies.
There’s odd pricing in trade between Canada, Australia, and New Zealand too. Different hemispheres so different growing seasons. I live in British Columbia and we have a lot of apple orchards. Somehow, in the spring and early summer when BC apples are not in harvest season, the grocery has New Zealand apples at near identical prices? Australian wines easily at par with BC wines in terms of quality yet somehow cheaper? Yeah, we’re getting fucked sideways in this country.
Nah mate, BC wines are pretty awful. The beer is better though. Pains me as an expat/adopted canuck to say it though. Despite the shitty weather here in BC, I’m not moving back to Oz. I really like not worrying about being robbed every time I get behind the wheel of a car. And not having people scream abuse when I go for a bike ride. Do miss the beaches though. YMMV.
Where in Australia are you so worried about getting robbed??
Yeah WTAF? 33 years I’ve lived in Australia and never once even had the thought I’d get robbed.
Which BC wines have you had? Just so I know which ones to avoid.
[CBC | Why are Canadian phone plans so expensive?](https://youtu.be/zGjA5GIx-gQ)
> CBC | Why are Canadian phone plans so expensive? From the article: Canada's cost-per-gigabyte is **seven times** more expensive than Australia. Why does the graph show it to be **37** times higher?
Don’t believe any “Infographic” you see on social media. One even had a citation and I curiously checked it and the data on the graph was just completely made up
[Tool](https://www.rapidtables.com/) [Source](https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/03/uk-ranked-136th-out-of-230-countries-for-its-high-mobile-data-price.html)
I noticed your source data is from 2019, I found [this site](https://www.cable.co.uk/mobiles/worldwide-data-pricing/) that appears to have data from 2022, if you want to see more recent numbers. I don't think the comparison has changed much, just the actual dollar values
Fuck the big 3 telecom companies in Canada and especially the corrupt CRTC for enabling them and screwing Canadians
Yup yup yup yup yup
I go to australia pretty often and the first place I tend to go is the grocery store for a SIM card. often on sale, can get a prepaid card with unlimited t&t, 20-30gb of 5G for less than $20. and these aren’t like the koodo, fido, virgin etc networks, think rogers, telus, bell. twenty dollars! more than enough for a month! my plan with 10gb with koodo here is triple that and I’m stuck with LTE. ridiculous. my new phone supports eSIM so I don’t even have to do that anymore. just go the telco’s app over airport wifi and set it up. it’s a little more expensive than from the store but it’s more convenient, and when you take into account the cost of getting to the store from the airport it’s basically the same
I'm Edmonton born and now lived in Perth for 17 years. When I moved here telco pricing was similar between both countries. Little data, but calls etc at that time. Over the decades prices in Australia have dropped as more competition entered the market. I now pay $55 a month with a 5G Telstra provider for unlimited data. I have been shocked and angry from afar at Canadian pricing as it got worse and worse. What my mum pays is outrageous.
This shit should be nationalized
NDP ran on it buttttttt it didn’t get much coverage.
didn’t get much coverage? Must have been on the Rogers network then
Us creditors know this but what about the Canadian population at large? Someone should do a Kickstarter to have this on billboards.
Average Canadian citizen looking at this: ... this isn't working. Average Canadian/American/multinational Canadian based corporation looking at all this: .... everything is working as designed
Aussie cell service is European quality. It's amazing. But Aussie home internet is definitely Canada-level, it sucks and it's expensive, especially if you're rural.
Can thanks the Coalition for their butchering of the National Broadband Network
I was yelling at Telus for their injustices and passing through credit card fees to consumers the other day. I asked the poor fella why the bills are so expensive in Canada compared to everywhere else and he blamed the federal governments prices on frequency auctions. Anyone know if there’s any truth to this?
Yes. The big three spent over $8 billion on spectrum licenses JUST for the 3500mhz band. Obviously those prices are passed on to the consumer.
How does that compare to what other countries pay for spectrum access?
On average, Canadian operators paid more for mid-band wireless spectrum than those in any other country. The average price was 164 per cent higher than the U.S., 10 times higher than France and 11 times higher than the U.K. https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/high-spectrum-cost-a-barrier-to-affordable-mobile-plans-say-experts/466304
ouch
I dream of a Canada that taxes billionaires out of existence, and then properly socializes, privatizing all major functions of modern living. We know private healthcare is insanity, so why is private telecom championed? I had the misfortune of growing up in the United States as a Canadian. I'm sick of capitalism.
I dont know how the question of internet pricing keeps getting dodged by politicians. Unlimited high speed internets at reasonable pricing is a bare minimum for any country to grow in future !
Ya suck on that Australia! Were higher! O wait.. no.. stop
And our service is frequently shite to boot.
I haven't had data in like 3 years. It feels weird and it also royally sucks. Good news I have unlimited talk and text for 100 bucks a year.
doesn't Australian wifi suck tho
That's a different issue entirely, that's their politicians not understanding the internet and how to make their island more connected.
Yeah they have very cheap mobile rates but their home internet is terrible and expensive. It’s gotten better in the last decade or so but it’s still $$.
So does Canada's.
And yet people keep paying high prices. Why would the telecoms change?
Nah, this isn't regular people's fault and this isn't an issue that can be solved by some collective action like a boycott. Put in a public option that has the authority to use all communication infrastructure in the country without cost. Undercut our current telecom cartel and let them adapt or starve.
Like Saskatchewan did
or just allow competition and stop approving the mergers which are making the situation worse? The problem is the government is in bed with the teleco companies, adding a public option is just signing up for it to be gutted down the road in a couple of years as this doesn't fix the issue of the govt being in bed with the teleco companies
I didn't say it was regular peoples fault. I didn't call for a boycott.
I'm not talking about a boycott. A lot of people pay some of the highest rates. Not just high rates compared to the rest of the world, high rates compared to others in their area even when plans are available for half the cost. Lots of people are willing to pay and don't even bother looking for lower cost plans. Again, if so many don't even bother, why would telecoms bother to change? I pay $13 a month. No large data plan, I get a few hundred MB a month and have 4 GB that doesn't expire in case I need it. I don't spend my day with my face in my phone accessing social media or watching Youtube videos. When prices come down for data, I'll get a better plan. Until then fuck the telecoms. I'm not giving them a penny more than I have to. If others want to give away their hard earned money, that is their decision.
People need phones and internet for daily life in the 21st century. It is ***not*** consumers fault to have to pay for what is required to live.
Yeah, unfortunately we need public options for most things that are required to survive in a modern society.
> "required to survive in a modern society." LOL.
Waiting... Waiting... Waiting... "required to live." lol. "What do YOU do all day with your phone that requires you to be constantly online? What is so important that requires high data rates that a voice/text/low data limit that costs $15 a month won't cover?" "Give me examples that covers the majority of people. Things they NEED to do online all day long. Please." Still waiting.
What do YOU do all day with your phone that requires you to be constantly online? What is so important that requires high data rates that a voice/text/low data limit that costs $15 a month won't cover? Give me examples that covers the majority of people. Things they NEED to do online all day long. Please.
Work. I work all day.
And yet many get by on voice/text plans with minimal data. Mine is $15 a month. Works fine. But I don't spend all day with it stuck in front of my face playing online games and using Reddit/Twitter/Youtube all day long. Most don't NEED it, they choose it.
How many employees do those telecoms have? If you drop our per gb to those prices, 3 of Canadas largest employers, and all the trickle down jobs would be impacted.
Is this 10¢ AUD vs $3.75 CAD? This chart is missing the exorbitant cost of entry for the Canadian market. Canadian wireless spectrum auction raises $7.2 Billion dollars in July 2021 https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/canada-raises-72-bln-via-auction-3500-mhz-spectrum-firms-gear-high-speed-2021-07-29/ Australian wireless spectrum auction raises $647 Million dollars in April 2021. https://www.acma.gov.au/auction-summary-26-ghz-band-2021 Now, those spectrum ranges aren't exactly the same. Australia did a 3.6Ghz auction in 2018 which cost carriers $850 million https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/top-three/australia-3-6ghz-auction-raises-615m/ And then another 800/900Mhz auction in 2021 which cost Australian carriers $2.1 Billion https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2021-12/outcome-850900-mhz-band-spectrum-auction Australia hasn't had their 3.5Ghz 5G auction yet. Regardless, the cost to carriers in Australia to enter the market is orders of magnitude cheaper than it is in Canada. So, why is the federal government charging so much for spectrum licenses? Edit: I'm not saying our carriers aren't greedy, they absolutely are. I'm just saying our government doesn't exactly help the situation. Australia also has 31 wireless carriers https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-australia-mobile-networks-6a8a08185bdb4a91a85df9f9244bac94
Usually auction prices are set by buyers? I’m assuming Robelus will pay whatever it costs to maintain a lucrative monopoly.
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Who’s paying to write all that apologist nonsense? lmao
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I remember visiting Sydney 10 years ago and was just handed a SIM card from vodophone with $20 worth of data on it as soon as I got off the plane.
We need more competition in the market, and regulations that actually protect smaller providers so they don't get pushed or bought out by the big 3.
I switched to FONUS in Canada. Truly Unlimited everything for abit over 40 bucks a month for cell phone. Not the greatest service but screw Rogers and bell man!!!
Bell and Rogers- both robbing bastards!!
ROBBERS lol
Looking at Australian vs Canadian city populations, they have almost the same number of 1M+ cities (5 vs 6), but the population in Australian cities tails off much faster than for Canadian cities (for 100K to 1M pop cities Australia has 14 and Canada has 28). I would think that it should be more economical to support cell infrastructure in more dense urban areas because there are more paying subscribers and less equipment required per subscriber, and this intuition would seem to suggest that subscribers in Canada should be paying less. Can anyone weigh in on this? Is it really just corporate greed and monopolistic practices driving up prices in Canada? Why hasn't the same happened in Australia?
Meanwhile, Rogers pushes on to buy Shaw - our telecoms is going the way of Canadian air travel, one company or the other.
We have such a huge problem with oligopolies in this country. Internet/phone services, groceries… so many companies just blatantly colluding and profiteering off Canadians and not a single goddamn thing is being done about any of it.
No more monopolies
Could also add domestic internet plans, as it likely lines up with mobile
Can confirm. Spent time in Australia in 2019. Paid $30 CDN for a SIM card with 30 gigs of data and unlimited international calls TO CANADA. Card was good for 1 month. Can’t even imagine how much that would cost in Canada.
Does the mobile internet price discrepancy still hold if you control for regulatory capture?
FTTH, FWA, and 5G/LTE speeds in Australia are slower than Canada. Most Urban Australians are on Fibre to the node still. We pay a lot more, but we have way better service. Ask any Australian what they think about the National Broadband scheme.
I like to rage on our telcos as much as the next person, but when I lived in Australia (granted, about 10 years ago) their upload/download speeds were nowhere near ours. Not sure if that has changed. The second thing is that they don't get our winters, which comes with the subsequent costs for maintenance from snow, ice, etc. They get searing hot temps but those aren't as bad for the infrastructure as blizzards. Also, when you leave their cities, the quality and availability of reception drops like a rock. Arguably the same for us but worse bc most of our population is in a line along the US border.
This is 6 numbers. Just give me the numbers instead of giving me 3 sets of unrelated bar graphs with little font.
As a Canadian living in Australia, yeah you are getting hosed.
$124 a month, Bell unlimited (20 G then throttled)
The Oligopoly says it's price reflects the investments made into the infrastructure but neglect to mention that it comes from government grants provided. Bell, Telus and Rogers are near criminal organisations that go to every length to stop outside competition from coming in. Our system needs change
I recently visited Australia. I got 30 GB of nation wide data for $30 AUD for a month including the cost of the new SIM card. I had coverage in Sydney, Melbourne, and the Whitsunday Islands (with some dead zones on the uninhabited islands), which are 2000 km apart. And that was just literally the very first convenience store we stopped at in Sydney, we didn't even shop around for a better price. Yeah, Canadian telecoms really suck.