I'm a Canadian and live in Ontario and we only have 3 major companies here that you pretty much have to go with. if you don't most of the others will have to charge roaming fees yup you heard it right roaming fees 10 minutes outside the major city like you were visiting the USA. Anyways this is our so called Big 3 and I wondered if you guys had this in the states too: Christmas Plans oh and tell me this is not planned: Rogers $55 for 200MB $65 for 1GB $75 for 3GB $95 for 5GB No voicemail or caller id included http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/11/07/rogers-goes-live-with-new-monthly-price-plans/ Bell $55 for 200MB $65 for 1GB $75 for 3GB $95 for 5GB No voicemail or caller id included http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/11/07/bell-launching-4-new-unlimited-talk-and-text-plans-this-friday-starts-at-55month/ Telus $70 for 1GB $80 for 3GB $100 for 5GB Voicemail and caller id included http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/11/07/telus-to-release-3-new-unlimited-talk-and-text-promo-plans-november-8th-base-price-is-70month-with-1gb-shareable-data/
Big three in the US are AT&T (HSPA, HSPA+, LTE in limited coverage), Verizon (EVDO and LTE in limited coverage), and Sprint (EV-DO, WiMax in some areas, and LTE in extremely limited coverage). One more not quite as big but definitely making an impact on at least one of the three is T-Mobile (HSPA and HSPA+ that they call 4G making AT&T have to call their HSPA+ 4G which then messes up calling LTE 4G). There are a plethora of other small carriers that use mostly 3G (EV-DO and HSPA) coverage and are mostly used less for data (or at least fast data) than voice. I recently (mid-Aug) relocated to Canada from the US (work-related). I already knew a bit about the Canadian carriers because of the work I do (I do testing on cellular data devices). It's because of that work I know who the big players are on both sides of the border (i.e. the only ones my company directly supports). As for the prices is it because of collusion (price-fixing) or competition? It's hard to have a price much different than your competitor when your competitor could just lower his price to your lowered price. The problem, though, with just a few big players (in both US and Canada) is that the prices never do get ratcheted down to rock bottom like they've become in India. However, when prices go down so low, you also don't get the better (more expensive to the carriers) technologies. Roaming fees are common in the US. Some of the carriers want the roaming indicator suppressed, they roam so much (sometimes to just their own subsidiaries), because it looks alarming to the customer. International roaming fees (especially international data roaming fees) are the worst no matter which carrier you have, US or Canadian. I'm less impressed with the 'roll out' of coverage in Vancouver, BC area (where I now live) vs San Francisco, CA area (where I used to live), but I like the scenery and weather better here (I really do like rain, I'm WA born after all).
