Cell Phones

The CRTC is revisiting the Wireless Code

  • Last Updated:
  • Dec 27th, 2016 11:42 am
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Mar 25, 2003
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bengigan wrote: http://business.financialpost.com/fp-te ... =3b31-88df

When 3 year contracts were lowered to 2 years, its undoubtedly true that prices went up.
Remember 5GB for $60? I member.
Wireless Code Review
In February, the CRTC will hold a hearing to determine whether the wireless code of conduct, which took effect in December 2013, needs to be improved.

After hearing from the public, the regulator created the code in part to help consumers understand their plans better, prevent bill shock, shorten contract lengths and lower cancellation fees.

The CRTC started gathering feedback on the effectiveness of the code in September and will accept more submissions from the public between Feb. 6 and 14.

So far, it has heard complaints about high prices, surprise charges, phone unlocking fees and wireless data limits, among other issues. If the CRTC concludes the code needs to be updated, some of those gripes could be addressed.
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Nov 10, 2005
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First things first

Get rid of $85 for 500mb plans. That's absolute bs.

Bring back pricing from before. I'll gladly pay $60/m with proper data "limits" if I bring my own device. And by proper I mean at least 10gb
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Mar 18, 2005
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Niagara Falls
Well I'm sure whatever improvements they come up with, the scum telcos in Canada will find a way to charge us more. Magically the big 3 can still charge somewhat reasonable rates in provinces with provincial telcos but in a city like Toronto which clearly has the most users per tower get charged significantly more.
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May 6, 2010
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Time to load up on telcos stocks?
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Nov 15, 2004
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Why the eff do I have to pay to unlock a phone when I've paid off the subsidy? That should be illegal.
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Mar 22, 2013
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Piro21 wrote: Why the eff do I have to pay to unlock a phone when I've paid off the subsidy? That should be illegal.
That's a good point! I should be free to go wherever I want without being caged up in their "locked" phones.
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Nov 21, 2008
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Piro21 wrote: Why the eff do I have to pay to unlock a phone when I've paid off the subsidy? That should be illegal.
Because it takes a lot of skill and effort to look up your unlock code and tell it to you?

It's just like the banking industry. Nickel and dime you for every little thing.

Oh well, people believe there's too much government intervention as it is.
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Dec 12, 2009
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The one revision they should have in the code is the banning of tied selling. Hardware and services should not be allowed to be sold as a package. Think banks and insurance sales; banks can't shill insurance policies in any of their branches. This will help to spur on greater competition in hardware sales and force greater transparency on the actual cost of service. Right now, the providers inflate the price of hardware to make the service plan look cheaper. Moreover, they refuse to sell hardware to you unless you get a plan with them. In what other situation where buyers are told to get stuffed when they are willing to shell out good money to make a purchase. The activation fee for hardware is nothing but a carrier tax. If they want to charge this fee, roll it into the hardware cost; think all in pricing for cars.

The commission structure for new activations is antiquated leading to the proliferation of bricks and mortar stores during an era where online sales is putting this type of business structure into the museum. This should be investigated and controlled for the benefit of the consumer.

They should bring back longer term service contracts, 3 years or even longer. Hopefully this will allow customers some loyalty leverage when bargaining. With hardware separated from service contracts, the ill informed shoppers would have no reason to complain about buying a contract that is longer than the useful life of the phone they got with the contract which is what started this mess in the first place.

/rant
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Dec 12, 2009
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robertz wrote: Because it takes a lot of skill and effort to look up your unlock code and tell it to you?

It's just like the banking industry. Nickel and dime you for every little thing.

Oh well, people believe there's too much government intervention as it is.
If carriers are forbidden to sell hardware and services in a single contract, trust me, locked devices will be the thing of the past. Locking a phone amounts to saying you are not permitted to use this with any other carrier. Why should anyone be restricted in what they do with their property, provided what they are doing is legal.
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Nov 3, 2014
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Toronto, ON
The only way to scare Robellus is if CRTC whispers the words "Google Fibre", and "Verizon"

Based off CRTC's a la carte cable packages, Robellus is going to laugh at their faces and screw the customers even more
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Jul 18, 2015
277 posts
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Petawawa, ON
I'd rather pay more up front for the phone and then a cheaper monthly plan.
No way I'm paying $70+ a month for unlimited talk/text and only 1GB of data.

I'm hoping that CRTC doesn't bugger this up again for us.
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Aug 20, 2008
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I would much like them to fix the second hand blacklist problem. Carriers shouldn't be allowed to blacklist phones for non-payment of bills. When I buy a car I can check if it has liens and, if it doesn't, I know they can't appear out of thin air, yet a cellphone can get blacklisted months after you buy it.
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Mar 26, 2011
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So CRTC is going to "help" the consumers again.
Consumers, get ready to get rocked by the telcos again!
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May 9, 2009
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Montreal
danny3526 wrote: The only way to scare Robellus is if CRTC whispers the words "Google Fibre", and "Verizon"

Based off CRTC's a la carte cable packages, Robellus is going to laugh at their faces and screw the customers even more
Verizon has no interest in coming to Canada and Google Fibre is a long way off.
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Apr 5, 2016
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Calgary/Vancouver
Problem is there are a vast majority of people that are willing to go on a higher monthly plan just so they can get their phone for free.
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Nov 28, 2013
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elwebmaster wrote: Carriers shouldn't be allowed to blacklist phones for non-payment of bills.
They're not allowed (and as far as I can tell, they don't - there was one news article about a phone being blacklisted for non-payment, but then it turned out that the phone was actually purchased fraudulently). The only thing they can do is block it from their own network.

What I'd LOVE to see is the CRTC forcing carriers to explain how they can offer, for example, a 10GB plan in Saskatchewan for $75 a month while the same plan in Ontario costs $145.
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Sep 3, 2009
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One of my coworkers got a new Iphone 7 ( The cheapest model) with Rogers 2 years plan, and he is paying $145/month for 10 GB data, I was like "WTF? Are you seriously paying that much?" He said it's peace of mind to not go over data limit and not paying more than $150/month for next 2 years. Well, I don't know what to say, that's close to $4k for next 2 years for cellphone services, and he did not even know we have free Wifi at work until I told him. If someone doesn't care their own money, no one can really help.
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Oct 29, 2016
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YYZviaYUL wrote: Remember 6GB for $30? I remember.
I think we are talking about the same thing. I used to have 6GB for $60 which was $30 voice + $30 data

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