Loading ...The High Cost of Data
Why Expensive Data Services are Stifling Canadian Mobile Services
Canada has some of the most expensive data services in the world. Right now Canadians looking for 3G service are looking at having to pay around $0.05 per MB, approximately 4 times more than what a customer would pay in the USA at the same price point. Even so, it might not seem like paying $0.05 per MB is that bad.
But a single HTML5 format Youtube video is going to be 7.5 MB / min. What that means is that the Arcade Fire video you watched on the bus cost you about $2.50 to watch just once.
Fully Exploiting Smartphones
Smartphones are awesome. You can use them to stream video remotely, to listen to music, to download apps, and (of course) you can even make phone calls on them. A lot of Canadians want to get into smartphones.
But a lot of Canadians don’t want to take out a second mortgage just to get the latest technological gadgets. It’s not uncommon to see people paying as much as $100 per month for what is effectively basic smartphone service and one of the biggest culprits is the high cost of data.
Thing is that even if you only want the device for the (much cheaper) wi-fi functionality you can not get a smartphone without a data plan. The devices are in constant communication with the Internet to update e-mails, keep track of Facebook, Twitter and Google+ status updates and keep abreast of software updates even for pre-installed apps.
None of these functions take much of your 3G bandwidth – they aren’t all that expensive in and of themselves – but they mean you will have to buy a 3G package and that means a minimum increase in your mobile bill of $25 for 500 MB of data.
Last year Canadian smartphone market penetration was only 12%, considerably behind the USA and about half of the EU nations and the culprit appears to be the high cost of smartphone services. There is no doubt that smartphones are the future of the mobile industry, younger users, just entering the market, don’t want their parent’s mobile phones. But with the price being kept artificially high a serious question remains of whether they will be able to afford the next-generation phones they want.
It Isn’t Just Phones
A lot of people have predicted that data-enabled mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets will eventually replace the personal computer. However there are certain obstacles to this – and an imbalanced data pricing scheme between desktop Internet and 3G is one of the biggest.
That isn’t to say that Canadian desktop Internet pricing is cheap. At up to $0.57 per GB for Cable and as much as $1.04 per GB for DSL and Fibre-optic solutions Canadians pay a hefty price for desktop Internet access.
However even those high prices pale next to the costs of 3G Internet coverage. If people want to start using increasingly powerful mobile devices in the same manner that they currently use desktop devices they simply can not go on paying what they do for digital services.
There is Help
At myCELLmyTERMS we want Canadians to be able to get access to 3G devices without having to spend an arm and a leg. Our experienced team of mobile service consultants can regularly achieve savings of 40% on our clients mobile service bill through the use of our competitive bidding process.
Sign up for our service today and we will help you to get the best possible savings on mobile data services, allowing you to obtain the phones of the future whether you are looking for a consumer plan, a small or medium business solution or corporate mobile phone savings.
