Canadians continue to pay way, WAY too much for cell phone data when compared to the rest of the world.
It’s infuriating to look at a Canadian cell phone bill. Why are we paying so much for data?
“Well,” apologists will say, “Prices are coming down. But you have to remember that Canada is a big country with a lot of open space. It costs a lot of money to build out and maintain the necessary infrastructure.”
Hah. Right. We pay on average $7.36 per gigabyte. Australians, another big place with huge empty bits, pay $0.60 per gig. That is not a typo.
- India: $0.22 per gig
- France: $0.28
- Russian: $0.35
- China: $0.51
- Brazil: $0.55
- Spain: $0.66
- UK: $0.86
What about the US? I was surprised to see that Americans pay $8.22 per gig. Switzerland is the worst at $9.99. New Zealand isn’t great, either, with an average cost of $8.07.
Canada’s data costs are tenth in the world, so it could be worse.
- Zimbabwe: $59.97
- Yemen: $21.48
- Turkmenistan: $15.65
- Central African Republic: $14,94
- Zambia: $10,97
- Seychelles: $7.45
If you live in Saskatchewan, you get the best deal on 1GB of data with the average plan costing $20 compared to $28-29 in the rest of the country. Why? Because SaskTel still exists and offers competition to Rogers, Telus, and Bell.
I have a sweet Freedom plan and pay about 40 cents a gig. 74.5 GB good across Canada for $30/mth with a loyalty plan and bonuses. If I somehow consume all that data, it’s not even cut off, just throttled.
People keep claiming Freedom isn’t as good as the major carriers but I haven’t had an issue for years. I hope Quebcor ownership of it doesn’t ruin it.
My new phone supports eSims which I’ve already used for cheap data across the border. Looking forward to the feature when I visit Europe this summer.