Right now on Telus, I’m getting nationwide fav-5 for $25 a month, and call display for free. This is a $40 value according to their official plans, and I get it because I told them I’d switch to Koodo if they didn’t give it to me.

It’s only going to get better with Wind, too. I mean, holy crap the rumours are sweet.

I think it was a Telus executive (Could have been Bell/Rogers) who described the Canadian wireless industry as very competitive, and said new entrants wouldn’t change anything here. This is, of course, bullshit. Their profit margins would tighten up a bit if they killed long distance charges, gave everybody caller ID and incoming texts, and reduced their contract lengths. It certainly wouldn’t kill them.

The argument that Canada has a large area which drives up costs is bunk, too. Yes, Canada is a large country. Most of that doesn’t have cell phone coverage. While we may have 9 million square kilometers of land area, but less than 3 million of them have cell phone coverage (1.2 have Bell HSPA, and I’m guesstimating by looking at their map that’s half of their coverage area.)

There’s new entrants coming into the market, and maybe they’ll shake things up a bit, but I have my doubts. Public Mobile’s announced their plans for $40 flat rate talk and text, with a single crappy phone available on their completely obscure cdma frequency and tiny coverage area (Not even the whole GTA!). DAVE is launching next April in five cities, of which Waterloo is not one. They haven’t announced plans yet, but they’ll probably be a bit less ridiculous if they plan on attracting any customers at all.
Wind had tons of marketing about how they’re going to change up the market, but it looks like they’re dead in the water.

Screw cell phone providers. I don’t even want telephony. Just give me data.