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Old 01-19-2016, 02:46 PM
dmcbride dmcbride is online now
 
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Default Wireless rates rise with hikes in internet, home phone ahead

Apparently the low dollar effects more than just food.



http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/telc...ikes-1.3410425


Bell, Rogers and Telus customers should get set for rate hikes.

The three largest telecommunications companies have raised or plan to raise the prices of their wireless packages in January, and are warning of increases to home phone and internet prices in February.

Telus will be tacking on $5 to its Smartphone and Premium Smartphone tiers beginning Thursday.

The change affects new customers buying phones — including Apple and Android devices — through Telus.

Rogers increased the cost of its Share Everything plans with 5GB, 9GB or 15GB of data by $5 a month on Jan. 12.

Bell also announced price increases effective Jan. 12, an additional $5 for both Lite and Plus Share plans, with increases of $3 to $8 for Mobile TV.

Together, Rogers, Telus and Bell control 89 per cent of the wireless telecom market in Canada.

Blame the low dollar

Telus told CBC News the low Canadian dollar is pushing up the price of new equipment to build out its networks.

"The modest wireless rate plan increase reflects increasing costs for network components resulting from a weaker Canadian dollar, as well as the annual multibillion-dollar investments required to keep up with the growing demand for wireless data. The change applies only to new contracts and renewals, so existing customers won't notice a change to their monthly bills," said a Telus spokeswoman.

Bell said it spends $3 billion annually to expand its broadband networks, but that most equipment comes from suppliers who charge U.S. dollars.

"The massive and ongoing investment required to build world class infrastructure is coming at a significantly higher cost due to the weak dollar," a company spokesman said in an email.

All three telcos also plan to weaken the attraction for bring-your-own-device plans by raising the price of base service.

According to MobileSyrup's Daniel Bader, the telcos are finding average revenue per user is dropping as people adopt more all-inclusive plans, including long distance and unlimited roaming, prompting price increases for some options.

Cost of internet, TV to rise

At the same time, the cost of residential service is rising.

Both Bell and Telus have announced price increases effective Feb. 1 on home phone, and internet and TV packages.

"Price adjustments support our continued investments in network, product and service enhancements," Bell said in a statement.

Rogers has already raised internet prices and plans to boost the cost of TV packages later in February.

In March, cable and satellite companies must introduce a $25 "basic" package and offer consumers either a choice of individual channels or small bundles of channels.
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Old 01-19-2016, 05:27 PM
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Okotokian Okotokian is offline
 
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I'm a dinosaur that still has a home phone, on top of cell phones for myself and wife. My son's are like "Why?????" I think the only reason I can come up with is that we have given our home phone number for so many different registrations and services over the years that we simply couldn't remember them all to update!
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In this case Oki has cut to to the exact heart of the matter!
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Old 01-19-2016, 09:58 PM
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kujoseto kujoseto is offline
 
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Home phones are also great for emergency calls. Work when the power is out, can be readily traced to an address, don't need to charge the battery. ...

This isn't too surprising that these companies are going to pass their costs down the line to the consumer.
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Old 01-19-2016, 10:49 PM
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Selkirk Selkirk is offline
 
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Thumbs up Bye-Bye Landline!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Okotokian View Post
I'm a dinosaur that still has a home phone, on top of cell phones for myself and wife. My son's are like "Why?????" I think the only reason I can come up with is that we have given our home phone number for so many different registrations and services over the years that we simply couldn't remember them all to update!
Your sons are right, Oki!

The wife and I had agreed to get rid of our landline home phone over a year ago, but we kept putting it off out of laziness, I guess. We hardly ever used the darn thing, which made paying the monthly bills pretty stupid, and we had long since got bloody-well sick and tired of all the *&^%$# telemarketing calls

Finally, four months ago we took the bull by the horns and started to notify everyone (family, friends, business contacts, bank, insurance, etc. ...) that we were abandoning our landline, and that they were to use our cellphone numbers only. As soon as that was done, we called Telus and pulled the plug.

. . . and we have been living well and very happily, ever since!


Try it ... you'll like it


Mac
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Old 01-20-2016, 08:26 AM
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Stinky Buffalo Stinky Buffalo is online now
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We are currently testing out an Ooma VOIP system. Basically similar in concept to the MagicJack etc. $5/month for telephone, includes long-distance anywhere in Canada.

For a fee, they can have your land line transferred to the Ooma service. I beleive it's a one-time charge of $35 or so. If we decide to keep it, we'll pay the fee and dump the land line entirely.

While we're "trialling" it, we have forwarded our regular phone to the number that was provided by Oooma; so we don't have to tell everyone that we have a new number. So far, so good.

The only caveats are, 911 service requires the caller to identify their geographic location/address (so if you have young children, they should probably know this in case of emergency) and, like mentioned before, when your power goes out, so does the telephone service (unless you have your router (and phone's base station, if applicable) connected to a UPS/battery backup.
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