Broadband, mobile prices drop slightly; still high internationally in 2022: Wall report

The 2022 edition of the department of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development's annual report on pricing in the telecommunications sector shows that in the last year smaller wireless data plans have climbed in price while larger data plans have decreased. When it comes to fixed broadband internet, prices either stayed consistent or declined slightly. There was greater regional variation in fixed broadband than in wireless, and in all but the fastest internet speed packages wholesale-based competitors were generally cheaper than their incumbent provider counterparts. Compared to other countries, Canada is generally still more expensive than other countries for fixed broadband internet. The study, completed on Feb. 5 and released by ISED last Friday, was prepared for the department by Wall Communications Inc. and is commonly known as the Wall Report. “Increasing competition and improving affordability in the telecommunications sector is my top priority. Canadians pay too much for these essential services—full stop," Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said in a Friday release. "I’m pleased to see that prices continue to decline for most wireless and Internet plans; however, there is still more work to do," he said, and pledged to "pursue the policies necessary to increase consumer choice for telecom services across Canada." For the wireless sector, the report split wireless packages up in eight different speed tiers, ranging from a 450 minute plan with 300 SMS texts, all the way up to unlimited talk plans and up to 99 gigabytes per month of data. According to the report, the lower tiers – of between 450 minutes a month with no data and 6 gigabytes a month – got more expensive in 2022. Higher data plans decreased in price somewhat, while the general average price was down 2.6 per cent. The report also noted that plans for the regional providers – Shaw Communications Inc.'s Freedom, Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp., Quebecor Inc.'s Videotron and Bragg Communications Co.'s Eastlink – "typically resulted in average Canadian prices well below the average national price of incumbents," between six and 23 per cent. As is generally understood to be the case, flanker brands were lower – in some cases "significantly" so – than incumbent brand names. Similar to the wireless sector, the report split up fixed broadband plans into seven different service tiers, from slowest (three to nine Mbps) up to the fastest (greater than 500 Mbps). The report found that, contrary to 2021 when fixed broadband prices climbed, broadband prices either stayed consistent or fell modestly, with the largest decrease of 11.01 per cent in the 16 - 40 Mbps range. Most other decreases were in the two to four per cent range, the report found. Quebec tended to be the cheapest province, while Nova Scotia was the most expensive. "Unlike mobile wireless prices (which have gravitated towards uniformity over the past few years) average broadband prices can vary considerably by region," the report read. Wholesale-based competitors, the report added, were generally cheaper than incumbent providers, except at speeds greater than 250 Mbps. Across the four tiers between 10 and 249 Mbps, wholesale-based competitors were between seven and 13 per cent cheaper than incumbents, and their "plans can have considerable price variability across regions (due at least in part to the variability of wholesale prices in different regions)." At higher speeds, the report continued, Canadian internet plans were the most expensive of the surveyed countries. — Reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

Broadband, mobile prices drop slightly; still high internationally in 2022: Wall report

News | March 14, 2023

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Broadband, mobile prices drop slightly; still high internationally in 2022: Wall report

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