If you find yourself wishing your province had a competitive fourth provider, you could move to friendly Manitoba or set up shop under Saskatchewan’s living skies. But you wouldn’t have to stay for long. It’s hard to believe, but this is the truth: it’s cheaper to buy a roundtrip plane ticket to Regina or Winnipeg, subscribe to one of these plans and then use it back home, than it would be to sign a contract in Toronto or Calgary.
For the Telus 1GB plan, you could fly roundtrip from Calgary to Regina for $369 and save yourself $350 (after paying for the plane ticket) on a two year 1GB plan.
For the Rogers 10GB plan, you would save a whopping $1,180 dollars after the price of airfare if you flew from Toronto to Winnipeg and signed up for service there.
It might sound crazy, but check for yourself. If you decide to fly to Winnipeg, look me up. I’ll even pick you up at the airport.
Aside from pushing up demand for air travel, it’s hard to see how this kind of pricing is beneficial to anyone but the wireless carriers’ shareholders and management. Canadian carriers like Bell, Telus, and Rogers are supposed to be affected with the public interest – not opposed to it.
We as a country won’t even get close to having a fair market until you can walk, not fly, to a provider offering reasonably priced service.
Ben Klass, “Wireless Carriers’ High Flying Prices”
Ben’s written a nice, punchy, piece about the new cellco price hikes. You should go read it.
Excited Pixels 