If you live in Canada and own a smartphone, things are not good.
It’s no secret, after all, Canadians pay more than anyone else in the world for wireless. And it’s not like we’re getting much for it, either. According to a study published by tefficient, a Sweden-based research firm, Canadian wireless carriers generate the highest revenue with lowest data usage.
What that means is Canadians are paying a lot of money for very little product. Here’s a visualization of the hellscape:
And here’s another fun graph, this one showing that Canadian telecom giants made the most money on the least amount of data used by customers:
“Canadian consumers should be particularly unsatisfied with that – given how few gigabyte they can consume for that ARPU,” says tefficient aptly about the frustrating state of affairs.
The problem, of course, is lack of competition. The Big 5 – Bell, Quebecor, Rogers, Shaw and TELUS – claim 83 per cent of total industry revenues. As University of Ottawa Law Professor Michael Geist explains, “It is difficult to overstate how much the lack of wireless competitiveness is holding back the Canadian market. With the CRTC refusing to take act and carriers continuing to increase fees (particularly on overage fees that generate more than a billion in revenue per year), it falls to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains to recognize that longstanding failed Canadian wireless policies must change.”
Oh yeah, and about those overage fees: Canadian telecommunications companies are now raking in more money from mobile data overage charges than revenues from roaming.
Something tells me things won’t change anytime soon.