It seem like carriers in Canada are raising their rates lately – not only raising their rates, but also in most cases, lowering the data that comes on their plans. We saw this in both Fido and Koodo over the past couple of days, although it looks as though Rogers, TELUS and Bell simply restructured their plans – bumping them up $5 but also increasing the Data. Let’s take a closer look at the plans and see what differentiates them from one another.
TELUS was the first to raise rates back on January 20 when they jumped up Unlimited Nationwide Talk and Text component of SharePlus. The pricing will jump up $5/per month with the Smartphone Lite plan hitting $50/month and the Smartphone plan jumping to $60/month. They were apparently trying to get all of their price increases in before the first of March before the Spring rush of new devices arrive on the market, and was shortly followed by Rogers with similar price changes.
Bell altered their plans to be in-line with TELUS and Rogers – their 3GB/$105 plan for one line was eliminated and replaced with a 4GB/$110 plan while they also added a 2GB/$90. These two were added to the unchanged 500MB/$80 and 1GB/$85 plans.
In the high-end Data plans, a single line with 6GB of Data increased from $120 to $125 a month. Keeping with the $5 increase the 10GB plan went to $145 and the 15GB plan is now $165. If you BYOD (bring your own device) you will receive a $20 per month discount on all plans.
The new Voice & Data Plus Share plans are as follows: 500MB – $80, 1GB – $85, 2GB – $90, 4GB – $110, 6GB – $125, 10GB – $145 and 15GB – $165. For additional lines, if you BYOD it will add $40 for each device, on the Voice & Data Lite you can add an additional line for $50 and for the Voice & Data Plus programs you need to add $60. The Voice & Data Plus Plans also allow the users to receive 10 hours of Mobile TV access each month.
The Canadian carriers can claim that the change from a three-year to two-year contract may warrant a slight increase in plan prices, but the fact remains that Canadians are paying a great deal more for data than they were before the two-year contracts were enforced. With more and more social media happening there is a need for more data – unlimited minutes and texting are great, but the need for data keeps growing and they just keep raising the prices.
Let us know on our Google+ Page how you feel about your carriers prices and what plan you are using – do find yourself using more data.