The regulator has threatened large mobile operators with a formal public investigation if sufficient progress is not made within a month
The regulator’s review of consumers’ roaming options identifies major shortcomings relating to price and choice
On 7 October 2024, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that it will take action to improve the affordability of roaming services for consumers in Canada. Based on an independent review by the regulator (in response to several complaints), which analysed confidential information provided by mobile operators, the CRTC found that end users pay high and often inflexible fees when roaming. The review also took into account public information and assessed the state of roaming both domestically and internationally, making two key findings:
Consumers lack choice when roaming: In many countries, consumers can select plans tailored to their usage and duration of travel. Those in Canada, however, are typically charged the same daily fee when roaming, regardless of how much they use their phones; and
Roaming rates are high: End users in Canada often pay roaming rates that far exceed the fees domestic providers pay foreign operators to provide their customers with connectivity while abroad.
Having assessed the evidence, the CRTC is calling on the largest operators to take urgent action
To address these concerns, Marc Morin (Secretary General, CRTC) has written a letter to the regulatory heads of the country’s three largest telecoms operators – Bell, Rogers and Telus – demanding immediate action. The companies are required to inform the CRTC by 4 November 2024 of the “concrete steps” they have taken to provide affordable roaming options. If, by this date, the CRTC decides that insufficient action has been taken, the regulator will launch a formal public proceeding. Morin’s letter also reminds operators that the Wireless Code establishes a C$100 (£55) cap on data roaming charges in a single monthly billing cycle. This cap includes all amounts paid by customers for fixed daily rate roaming options that include data, and plans that allow the consumer to use their phone abroad as they would at home. The regulatory attention being paid to roaming in Canada reflects a recent intervention from Ofcom following Brexit and the reintroduction of roaming charges by some mobile operators in the UK. From 1 October 2024, providers must alert customers as soon as they start to roam and supply information about charges that apply. Ofcom considered the measures necessary after protections offered by the EU’s ‘roam like at home’ rules fell away and they will likely be a welcome safeguard for consumers – many of whom will have only known an era in which roaming premiums didn’t exist. First approved in 2007, the EU Roaming Regulation is one of the bloc’s success stories, which in 2022 was extended for a further 10 years.
Renegotiating domestic wholesale roaming rates should drive competition and improve affordability for consumers roaming nationally
In addition to calling for more affordable mobile use for consumers in Canada travelling internationally, the CRTC says it is also taking steps to lower costs for end users travelling within the country. In Canada, operators pay each other fees (based on commercially-agreed domestic wholesale roaming rates) when customers travel outside of their own network coverage area. These fees are a key factor that providers use when setting prices for mobile plans. The regulator has instructed mobile operators to renegotiate wholesale roaming rates (which were last determined in 2018 and may no longer be “just and reasonable”) to better reflect today’s market – with the expectation that this will enable regional players to offer more competitive plans and promotions, resulting in lower prices for end users. Once again, the CRTC warns that if this renegotiation does not take place, or if providers cannot come to an agreement in a timely way, then it will intervene to set the rates through a final offer arbitration process.
