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Comment by snowwindwaves | Hacker News Reader

new zealanders have a rough go with their telecommunications as well. I recall seeing the vodafone CEO on the news saying they made 3-4x as much profit in new zealand as anywhere else (per customer probably). The only competion was the ex-public telecom.

canadians don't have it quite so bad as the new zealanders, but they get a worse deal than the americans for sure.

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I'd argue against that - the required plan for the iPhone 4 starts at 50CAD/month, and the phone isn't free either.

That's for a plan with: 200 minutes + 500 mb of data.

Hah. For the exact same price, Vodafone NZ provides the same 200mn and half the data[0]. 2500 texts though, I don't know what you get on the plan you quoted.

Although technically, to qualify for any phone rebate you need 24 months, which includes a rebate on the plan as well, so you would take the $85 plan for 24 months ($400 off of the phone and $15 off of the plan), yielding a $60 plan (same as the $65 one previously quoted but 300mn voice) and a free iPhone 4 (a 16GB 4S would be $150).

Belgium has cheaper prices (e.g. 40€ prepaid with 285mn, 2000 SMS and 2GB data[1]) but absolutely no phone subsidies (they're pretty much illegal) so an iPhone costs you the full price, 529€[2] (~730 CAD)

[0] https://www.vodafone.co.nz/phones-plans/plans/smart/

[1] https://mobilevikings.com/en/offer/price-plans/full-option/

[2] http://store.apple.com/be-fr/product/MD128

> 2500 texts though, I don't know what you get on the plan you quoted.

You get zero texts in the plan he quoted. A texting add-on is a minimum of $5 for... wait for it... 125 texts. Oh, and unsolicited/solicited incoming texts are subtracted from that total, if you don't have a texting plan you pay for them at a rate of 15c each.

No, I'm not kidding.

> Belgium has cheaper prices (e.g. 40€ prepaid with 285mn, 2000 SMS and 2GB data[1]) but absolutely no phone subsidies (they're pretty much illegal) so an iPhone costs you the full price, 529€[2] (~730 CAD)

I'm only a year and a half into my 3G contract, which is three years long and provides no early upgrade. I had to pay $750CDN for my iPhone 4 anyways. Upgrading in Canada is a joke.

Everyone wonders why Canada was one of the first countries to get officially unlocked iPhone 4s without a law in place requiring it. It's no big mystery, Apple saw the situation and realized that without the unlocked option on the table, many people would simply refuse to upgrade because their carrier wouldn't let them for another couple years.

I'm sure someone else already covered the fact that mobile long distance is a concept exclusive to Canada and still exists in the year 2011.

Honestly, besides some token niceties (the 6GB/$30 plan, free tethering, and one of the lowest subsidized prices for the iPhone in the world, $159) we are completely screwed. It's genuinely sad.

However, on the flip side, I have little sympathy for the guy who also owns and operates the North Korean cell network for the political and business elites in that country. WIND is not exactly the moral choice in my eyes IMO.

Canada has BY FAR the most expensive cell phone rates in the world. New Zealand is 19th according to this list. See:

http://www.mobilemag.com/2010/08/27/canadians-have-the-most-...

That graph doesn't even give justice to the true cost. Canada plans are almost always regional, so to call another city, even one nearby is a long distance call. VOIP phones are also rare because numbers are restricted, Skype and Google Phone do not exist here.

Canada's telecom industry can accurately be described as a mafia-style public cartel.

> Canada has BY FAR the most expensive cell phone rates in the world. New Zealand is 19th according to this list.

Technically, the graph is not about rates though, it's about average bill. So countries with higher prices who don't use cells much (on population averages) would have a "better" ranking than countries with lower prices where cell phone use is ubiquitous and permanent.

> Canada plans are almost always regional, so to call another city, even one nearby is a long distance call.

The fuck? The concept of "long-distance" call still exists in canada? I'm shocked.

That's what I'm saying, its worse than those numbers make it look. Canada has the highest average cost, and because a Canadian regional plan is more expensive than a nation-wide long distance plan in the US it is masking the true cost. Canadians can't afford to use their phones, so they typically don't make anything but quick calls or text messaging.

From the bell website: "Additional local minutes and Canadian long distance minutes are $0.45/minute"

And yeah I'm paying that for any call made to outside the current city in which I am located. Cell to cell its both ways (so I'm told), and the fact that I have a number from a different city means OH WAIT -- Everything is long distance.

I don't change my number because I'm a student and to change my number is $20 at the store + $35 on my bill, twice a year since I go home for the summers. Which basically means I make very few phone calls outside of my unlimited nationwide. Yeah I'm paying out the a to have a plan with unlimited text and nation wide fab 5.

Something else cute -- its $12 to add voicemail and caller id to that $50 package. Is this the same in NZ or do packages come with this sort of thing?

> From the bell website: "Additional local minutes and Canadian long distance minutes are $0.45/minute"

Heh. That's close to what I pay to call other EU countries (exact rate is 0.50€/mn, or 0.69CAD) (not that the rates are entirely sane, I pay less to call from an other EU country to an other EU country than from my "home" country to an other EU country: falls to 0.42/mn — 0.58 CAD)

> I don't change my number because I'm a student and to change my number is $20 at the store + $35 on my bill, twice a year since I go home for the summers.

I guess you can't get a prepaid SIM for when you're home or something? (that's what I do, although I change country so it makes sense that I have to, especially if I want to keep a data connection as roaming data is NOPENOPENOPENOPE)

I wonder why Skype In (Skype Online Number) - where people call a POTS number and get your skype account, isn't available in canada.

What is stopping everyone from making calls from mobile phones over data networks? surely skype is available for iphone and android?

Data costs in canada are even higher than voice costs!

skype is only available on some androids and charges calls against your voice minutes.

I had a t-mobile blackberry flip phone in the USA that could make calls over wifi. when it was connected to an access point I could turn off the carrier connection and just use the wifi, but it did still use my minutes and the quality was not good.

Does anyone know if a SIP soft phone app like X-lite and a smartphone that can use a wifi connection to so that at least outgoing calls could be made over data without long distance charges or ridiculous data rates?

Haven't used the iphone/android versions but I use this http://www.3cx.com/VOIP/sip-phone.html on my office PC instead of a 'real' voip phone.

I'm not sure if this is what you're asking about, but the Nokia business-oreinted phones E-series come with SIP capabilites natively (or one can use a third party client). I've used it on my E73.

> Data costs in canada are even higher than voice costs!

Most carriers have introduced a data-only plan, technically specifically to make iPad 3Gs work, that isn't nearly as gouging as the data plans for phones. You can get it set up for an arbitrary SIM card, then put that card into a phone: http://www.wifitalk.ca/iphone/ipad-3g-sim-gives-iphone-data-...

Thank the CRTC for that, there's a lot of complicated regulations regarding the telecom industry and the requirement for Canadian ownership. Which is ironic because we welcome foreign entities to setup and drill our oil but opening up the telecom industry to foreigners is a big no-no.

Well, how do you get access to the canadian POTS ? You'll need to inter-connect with the telephone network , and likely they won't let skype do that easily.

skype or other voip technologies is an option, but they're often much more incovenient. And I would be surprised if the teloc operators do deep packet inspection to block skype on their network.

FWIW, I pay $90 all in for unlimited North American Long Distance, 6GB of Data, Unlimited calling anytime, and all the "other" features. Basically an unlimited plan (iPhone 4S w/ Fido) - Good plans ARE available, you just have to work to get them.

6GB is not unlimited

Hence why I said "basically". I tether daily (including streaming the occasional leafs game, radio, etc) and haven't gone over 6GB.

6GB is a few dozen youtube videos, thats pretty far from even "basically"

Seriously? I have yet to meet a single person who has gone over 6GB on a mobile plan (even with tethering). In fact Rogers put out a statistic that something like only 3 people went over 6GB in the first month they offerred it.

As I said, I literally have streamed entire leafs (NHL) games and had plenty of space left to do normal things. If I'm not mistaken, Youtube data rate is 300kbps, which is 132 MB/hour. So 6GB would give you theoretically 46.5 hours of youtube videos. You're trying to tell me that that isn't "basically unlimited"? Seriously?

Hell, basic wired internet in Canada starts with a 25GB cap. 6GB is more then 99% of people need for mobile.

I'm on Fido with the 6GB plan. I've never gone above before, but might this month; on the 7th of November I received a notice saying I had used 75% of my data for the month.

My circumstances are pretty odd, though. I'm moving and sold my previous home at the end of October and don't get possession of the next till early December, and the space I'm in in the meantime has no internet, so all my internet usage is through my tethered iPhone. So it's possible; just really really hard.

>In fact Rogers put out a statistic that something like only 3 people went over 6GB in the first month they offerred it.

Rogers has a long history of blatantly lying about stuff like this, to skew the narrative in their favor.

>Youtube data rate is 300kbps

high definition video is far in excess of 300kbs

>You're trying to tell me that that isn't "basically unlimited"?

I think we use the internet in very different ways, if you consider 6GB "basicly unlimited" including tethering.

>basic wired internet in Canada starts with a 25GB cap

another sad result of the ISP oligopoly

I don't doubt that Rogers embellishes things like that. I'm still happy with $30 for 6GB.

I'm equal to any "power" user, I work on the road and tether daily while using the iPhone for basically everything. I'm still not getting anywhere near 6GB. You'd literally have to use the iPhone connection as your main internet source to get above 6GB. I'm not torrenting or streaming a TON while on my phone, but I watch mobile streamed hockey (they are at 400 kbps) fairly often.

HD video is indeed more then 300kbs - but are my Youtube videos on the iPhone 1080p? Hell no. Even netflix for mobile is severely compressed and still looks OK.

You may use more then 6GB of mobile data a month, but as I said before, I'm willing to bet you're in an extremely small percentage there.

>You'd literally have to use the iPhone connection as your main internet source

why is this so crazy? its perfectly possible in areas without insane rates and no competition

Example: approx 15% of Swedish broadband users have replaced their fixed line internet with 3G/4G. (source: http://www.pts.se/sv/Nyheter/Pressmeddelanden/2011/Nara-var-... )

It's a secondary internet connection. I just don't watch that many youtube videos during my morning coffeeshop rounds; I've yet to go past 4gb, and I stream an hour or two of video off the cbc website during the election.

That's you. Sometimes I need to pull down a giant repo.

On your iPhone? If you're trying to use 3G as a replacement for a home or office internet then I certainly see why you're disappointed.

Tethering :P

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