Nowak: Internet Prices Climbing With No End in Sight

Image from Paulo Barcellos Jr. on Flickr

Canadian wireless and broadband Internet prices are high by international standards. In the case of broadband, those high prices are climbing even higher, which jibes with a recent report from PwC. Canada and Australia are the only countries in the study where data caps are prevalent, yet Australia is an island where broadband capacity is limited by undersea cables while Canada is right next door to a good chunk of the entire world’s internet infrastructure.

In short, while we've made progress in stopping Big Telecom from forcing metered billing on all Canadians, we have a lot of work to do. More to come on this file, but for now you can make your voice heard with the CRTC through the tool we set up at Pricehike.ca

Article by Peter Nowak:

How badly are Canadian internet users getting spanked? It’s amazing they can sit, according to numbers from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Internet access revenues at service providers jumped by 17.5% in 2011, largely thanks to tiered usage plans, the professional services firm says in a new report.

“Canada’s broadband fees were lower than those in the United States in 2007-09, but as a result of large increases during the past two years, the average Canadian broadband subscriber paid 3.9% more in 2011 than the average U.S. subscriber did,” the report says.

But wait, there’s more. The average Canadian internet user can expect their bill to rise to $45 in 2016, from $38.43 in 2011. That’s another 17% increase. Overall broadband access spending, meanwhile, will grow by 9.9%, or nearly double the 5.5% in the United States. Ouch. Read more »

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