Ottawa cracks down on wireless providers over roaming fees

Following up on a promise during its throne speech last October to make Canadian wireless services more consumer-friendly, the Harper government announced plans today to tighten the rules surrounding domestic roaming rates.

“The roaming rates that Canada's largest wireless companies are charging other domestic providers can be more than 10 times what they charge their own customers. For too long, Canadian consumers in the wireless sector have been the victims of these high roaming costs,” Industry Minister James Moore said in a statement. “Canadians have been clear that they want their government to take action in the wireless sector to provide more choice, lower prices and better service. With domestic roaming rates on networks capped, Canadian consumers will benefit from more competition in the wireless market.”

Moore confirmed plans to amend the Telecommunications Act to limit how much the incumbent wireless carriers can charge smaller, regional players when their customers are forced to roam beyond their own providers’ networks. Under the proposed provisions, national carriers will no longer be allowed to charge other companies more than they charge their own customers for voice, data and text services on their mobile devices. The announcement follows the government’s announcement last week that it was launching an investigation into how national carriers charge smaller players for wholesale roaming access, and a 2012 ruling that forced the national network-owning incumbents to make wholesale roaming access available to all.