ATTN Canadians: Fight Our High Mobile Phone Bills!
July 7th, 2008 by Ed Lau |
I’ll be back with more posts from Japan tomorrow but I thought I should touch on an important topic for all Canadians. Dot Com Pho member iPhone Gary at iPhoneinCanada.ca recently mentioned a petition in regard to the high mobile phone service plan prices we get in Canada. Seriously, of all first world countries, we have one of the highest average rates if not the highest.
The important thing is…this isn’t some made up internet petition. It’s a real petition for a real act, started by parliament member David McGuinty. Petition C-555: Get Connected Fairly Act calls the government to do something about the fact that Canadians pay, on average, 33% more for our cell phones compared to our American neighbors.
Let’s also not forget that Americans don’t have the lowest rates either. If you look at many other countries around the world, they have far better plans for much less money…especially in most of Asia.
It looks more and more like I won’t be getting a 3G iPhone anytime soon due to Roger’s (and I assume Fido) absurd data plan rates and simply ridiculous voice plans aimed to gouge Canadians like you and me of our hard earned money so the executives at Rogers can buy themselves ivory handled back scratchers.
Sign the petition and voice your opinions about our high cell phone bills. In less than four days, there are already nearly 6,000 signatures (I’m 5,932) so maybe if enough people sign this, we can actually get something done.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my full feed RSS
Entries (RSS)
I can’t agree more. The costs of having a cell phone in Canada is outrageous. When comparing the costs of internet, cellphones, etc to other Asian countries, Canada’s costs are always higher. Not just a little more expensive, but ridiculously expensive.
BTW i am #2975 =D
We pay more than Mexicans. Nuff said.
And what’s up with that stupid System Access Fee?
Seriously… something needs to be done about this…
Yes, we get dinged big time. Owning an iPhone with a data plan will cost you big time. It’s too bad some people won’t see this and sign up anyways. Ouch…or, for a lack of better word…FAIL!!!!!
Here in South Africa at one stage they too were complaining about cell phone costs, virgin came in as a competitor and the prices change a lot.
i live in germany so first i want to apologize for my “bad” englisch…i want to tell you, that our cell phone costs are very cheap or low (don´t know how to say)…because we have flatrates
Where is the help?
I think it cant go further in this way.
Its really a serious theme, something should happen!
My best wishes for all you hopeful iPhone owners.
& I thought my bills were high!
[...] My Softbank 705px (a Panasonic) cost me a grand total of $60, $30 of which is for the phone and $30 for the pre-paid time. I’m not quite sure how much talk time that is but not much is necessary here in Japan as everyone communicates through e-mail. 300 yen ($3) of the $30 for my pre-paid card goes toward an unlimited text and e-mail plan. That’s right…unlimited text and e-mail for $3. Why on earth do we pay such ridiculous prices for mobile plans in Canada? [...]