Rogers slashes prices for most of its fastest cellphone plans
Rogers cut the price of most of its fastest cellphone plans Thursday, one month after closing its deal to acquire Shaw and selling off that company's wireless division Freedom Mobile to a competitor.
Toronto-based Rogers said it was cutting the prices it charges for high-speed data (which is only one part of plan pricing) and would also offer 5G service to customers whose packages previously only included slower 4G service.
For one popular plan that includes 25 gigabytes of monthly data, Rogers reduced the price for customers in Ontario to $65 per month, down from $85 per month.
(Is this) kicking off a new era of competition in wireless?" wrote Desjardins telecom analyst Jerome Dubreuil in a note to clients Thursday morning.
Pierre Karl Peladeau's Quebecor, which acquired Freedom Mobile, told the Star last month he has something surprising" planned on wireless pricing.
The company has yet to reveal what that will be (though it recently gave existing Freedom Mobile customers a 10 per cent data bonus and said it would freeze their prices, both of which it committed to do as part of the requirements for winning government approval of the deal).
Freedom Mobile also recently decreased a discount it used to offer new customers for bringing their own devices, effectively raising prices on some plans by $5 per month (though its prices are still below the prices charged by the Big Three).
Rogers announced the price changes on the same day as rivals Bell and Telus reported their first-quarter financial results.
Together, the three of them control about 90 per cent of the wireless market across Canada, though Quebecor has attracted 23 per cent of subscribers in Quebec over the past decade and is hoping to use Freedom Mobile to win more customers in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta.
On an earnings call Thursday morning, Bell CEO Mirko Bibic said the new Rogers prices are not actually all that new.
He said that since most Canadians sign up for wireless plans during the back-to-school, Black Friday and holiday promotional periods, the posted prices during the rest of the year do not reflect what people actually tend to pay for wireless service.
(The promotional periods are) when the majority of sales happen and that's what most consumers in Canada are paying," Bibic said.
He added that Rogers' move on Thursday to bring what consumers are actually paying" to the forefront could help the industry as a whole as it tries to persuade regulators and the government that Canadian telecom prices are reasonable.