Why are Canadians’ cellphone bills higher than other countries?
Despite government promises to lower the cost of mobile wireless plans and efforts to promote more competition in the market, many Canadians feel they’re paying too much with few options for getting better rates.
But the industry will tell a different story: that of a market with fierce or at least adequate competition, and companies providing Canadians with rates comparable to the rest of the world despite extraordinary challenges.
A Marketplace investigation into the cost of telecom services in Canada has found that many of the oft-quoted industry explanations for high wireless prices — costly operating margins and a sparse Canadian population, for example — are insufficient to explain lower prices found in other countries and even between some provinces.
This is an evergreen Canadian story.
