Can the CRTC help?
So, I think we've got agreement on the ridiculous costs of mobile data in Canada. But is it the "fault" of the CRTC?
I did a follow up comment on Thomas Purves' image post on Flickr:
I skipped over any mention of the CRTC: the focus here really is the short sightedness of the companies involved, that 100,000 customers at a lower cost is more money than 1,000 customers at a high cost (never mind the network effects of lots of people doing interesting things with mobile data, which intuitively would lead to even more revenue). I may do another post today that explores this a bit: can the CRTC help? I think government support / intervention is the only likely option, given the cost of infrastructure buildout here in Canada.
What if the CRTC had blocked the sale of Fido to Rogers?
Something to think about....(and maybe change the inflammatory title).
Living in Canada, I'm not against regulation in all its forms. I honestly don't know enough about the ins and outs of all the issues, or what twiddling the levers of intervention / regulation do to economies and businesses.
But it's likely that the right people to lobby are the mobile carriers themselves. The comments on Digg (surprisingly!) have some other useful points. Martin Cleaver in particular points to what we can do (lobby your carrier!) and describes in more detail the issues that the CRTC faces.
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Anatomy of a wireless phone bill (my rogers bill)
I think I found a way to beat them.
I use a simple callback service with my mobile phone and have reduced my wireless bill from an average of $350+ to $100 per month.
First I down-graded my wireless plan from my old 1500 minutes plan. This use to cost me;
- $157 for the 1500 minutes
- $40 for the data plan
- $16.95 for other stuff
- THEN my usage charges, oh my...
And help me if I dare use the plan to make an overseas call, I believe the rate is $1.95 per minute or some outrageous rate.
Overall, my bills used to be well over $350 per month.
Now I changed my plan to the MEGA Unlimited Incoming plan.
- $30 gives me 150 day time calling, 1000 evenings/weekends
- $40 for the data plan
- $16.95 for other stuff
But here's the kicker. I use the www.itokk.com callback service. It's a very simple plug-in where I simply pick from my address book the number i wish to call and call. Or if I don't want the plug-in I user www.itokk.mobi on my phone.
The plugin sends the number (and my mobile number) to a VoIP network. The network calls my phone back, then calls the destination number and conferences the call. What I get is an Incoming call (which is FREE for me) so I can call all day long.
I have to buy credits at itokk which is used for my calls, but I haven't burned over $20 per month yet. And I call India twice a day, Europe and Asia often and lots of calls to the US. So in total, my wireless bills are now averaging around $100 now. This is phenomenal.
www.itokk.com is only a public beta so far, but if you submit your email you will get easy instructions how to try out the beta. And itokk is giving FREE minutes for a limited time until the site is commercially launched.
There's going to be a lot of services like this coming online soon so the wireless providers are going to notice. And I agree fully with the post about better 10,000 customers paying less than 1000 customers paying more. This will lead to a greater critical mass for the wireless providers and a much greater ability to generate other additional revenues. Maybe they'll see it this way... maybe they won't.
my blog at http://kevinpenstock.wordpress.com
Regulation
Unfortunately, the CRTC doesn't regulate cell prices or cell company behaviour, but they should. With one GSM provider, Rogers has a virtual monopoly, and the result of that is $250 to unlock your phone, when it can be done for $30 elsewhere.
And not only pure data rates, don't forget text messages - Rogers/Fido charges 5 cents per text message on a $5/month plan. That's 25% more than pure data rates, for what is essentially data itself. In the US, Verizon was recently exposed for marking up text messages over 4000% above its data rates.
Rogers pulled the rug out when it was allowed to swallow Fido. Fido's customer service tanked, prices went up, and Rogers has a monopoly, letting it do what it wants.
Regulation, however, will only help if there is no competition. If there is competition, then regulation isn't necessary, competition can do a lot more than regulation can. I'd support that. We don't need Rogers to be regulated, we need some European carriers to come and set up shop. Helio would be a good candidate, since they lease their infrastructure, and they're as advanced as it gets in North America in terms of technology and features, and they appeal to teens a lot with their custom social networking apps. I've emailed Skye Dayton about the possibility, but haven't heard back just yet.
Customers
So I have to ask the question -- do we really think they are losing business because of this? Almost everyone I know, including teenagers, has a cell phone now, so it's not like they cost too much for most people to acquire. If we're talking about using the data features, then it really only applies to a small subset of the cellular phone market doesn't it? Namely, the people who have portable computing and require a versatile means to get online and use it. In my head that's really the enterprise/business market, and for the most part the people I know just suck it up and pay.
I agree that if they lowered prices perhaps they would get more customers and potentially make more revenue. But my point is everyone I know who needs to use their mobile networks for data is already paying those steep prices. Perhaps the high prices are stiffling innovation, which in term might limit potential customers, and in the long term profit for these customers. I could see that.