The country&#8217;s largest cellphone companies have been given a deadline to develop a plan to lower roaming fees for Canadians.
On Tuesday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that it conducted a study analyzing information from Canadian cellphone companies. The commission found that Canadians pay &#8220;too much in roaming fees.&#8221;
&#8220;Roaming fees for Canadian travellers are often inflexible, causing consumers to pay a flat fee of $10 to $16 per day regardless of how much they use their cellphone,&#8221; reads the <a href="https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/crtc-takes-action-to-help-reduce-roaming-fees-for-canadians-878541814.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">release</a>. &#8220;The CRTC&#8217;s priority is to ensure that Canadians have the flexibility to choose an affordable plan that best meets their needs.&#8221;
Bell, Rogers, and Telus have until November 4, 2024, to provide the CRTC with information on how they plan to &#8220;respond to these concerns.&#8221;
In an <a href="https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2024/lt241007.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">email</a> to company heads, CRTC Secretary General Marc Morin pointed out that Canadians lack choice regarding roaming.
<div id="attachment_2047893" style="width: 1930px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2047893" class="size-full wp-image-2047893" src="https://images-dh-production-baselayer.dailyhive.com/uploads/2024/10/shutterstock_2278193579.jpg" alt="roaming" width="1920" height="1325" srcset="https://images-dh-production-baselayer.dailyhive.com/uploads/2024/10/shutterstock_2278193579.jpg 1920w, https://images-dh-production-baselayer.dailyhive.com/uploads/2024/10/shutterstock_2278193579-500x345.jpg 500w, https://images-dh-production-baselayer.dailyhive.com/uploads/2024/10/shutterstock_2278193579-1024x707.jpg 1024w, https://images-dh-production-baselayer.dailyhive.com/uploads/2024/10/shutterstock_2278193579-1536x1060.jpg 1536w, https://images-dh-production-baselayer.dailyhive.com/uploads/2024/10/shutterstock_2278193579-1200x828.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" />Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock</div>
&#8220;In countries like the United States, Australia, and Germany, consumers can select plans tailored to their usage and duration of travel,&#8221; he stated. &#8220;Similar plans are not widely available from Canadian providers. This means that Canadians are typically charged the same daily fee when roaming, regardless of how much they use their phones.&#8221;
Morin also stated that the fees Canadians are charged exceed what the country&#8217;s providers have to pay foreign carriers for connectivity.
A report by the financial product comparison site <a href="https://dailyhive.com/canada/canada-most-expensive-countries-mobile-data-2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HelloSafe shows that</a> Canada ranked 10th among the countries with the most expensive cellphone data in the world.
&#8220;1 GB of mobile data costs ($7.36) 26 times more in Canada than in France ($0.28),&#8221; reads the report.
Recently, <a href="https://dailyhive.com/canada/canadian-tiktoker-cellphone-plans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a TikTok post by a Canadian cellphone user</a> sparked a discussion after he compared the roaming rate he pays for the US mobile provider T-Mobile versus Rogers.
According to <a href="https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/international-roaming-plans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">T-Mobile’s website</a>, the carrier doesn’t charge extra for international roaming costs. Calling costs US$0.25 (C$0.34) per minute. In comparison, Rogers charges a daily flat rate of C$12 for cellphone users travelling to the US and C$15 internationally.
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The country's largest cellphone companies have been given a deadline to develop a plan to lower roaming fees for Canadians.