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Why is mobile data in Canada so expensive? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I read once that we pay the highest rates for mobile data (or at least I think I did) in the world but I don't recall reading why. Maybe it had something to do with near-monopolies or infrastructure?

Are there any changes coming that may change this?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Because profits can be leveraged. I went on holiday to India. I got a local 4G Sim card there and it worked everywhere. It cost less than £6 per month for 4Gb data per day allowance and unlimited calls. The infrastructure and hardware costs will be fixed and not much different to Canada, Europe etc.

[+] [email protected] -9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm not sure that is a great comparison. I'm no capitalist, but you make people pay as much as they will. More importantly for this example, everything including the hardware will be cheaper in India, especially the entire labor force of the telecom company. A better comparison would be the US or EU.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Even the EU is a lot better. Hardware and staff costs are higher here, but there's no reason for it to be the highest in the world.

It's an oligopoly with laws that prevent any new competition or effective change

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

EU is better for a particular reason tho, we can all thank Xavier Niel, (ex ?) CEO of Free. It's a provider that emerged after the others, and started slashing the prices for internet at home, and then mobile.

The slashing was so big and the others providers lost so much, they had to align even tho at first they were providing a much better service. (Although Free also had a very good customer service at first)

This kind of thing barely happen anymore nowadays, if at all, Terminal capitalism and all that

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

A better comparison would be the US or EU.

30gb a month, 5G, 20 bucks.