Canadians are unhappy with the recent announcement by Rogers Communications to increase the prices on some of its plans and bundles starting this month, resulting in customers paying more for their wireless packages in 2024.
Rogers Communications spokesperson Cam Gordon told Yahoo News Canada an average price increase of $5 per month will apply to Rogers and Fido wireless customers who are not on contract, while others will not experience a change to their base monthly service fee for the duration of their contract.
The price change update came around the same time the telecommunications company was facing service disruption complaints from Ontario users Thursday evening, which impacted about 55,000 people, according to Downdetector, and lasted less than an hour before resuming to normal.
Disgruntled by the two contrasting events, Canadians took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to vent their anger at the Toronto-based wireless carrier.
Rogers was down last night in southern Ontario. Now today they are raising their prices. Corporate monopolistic greed has no limit in Canada. ????
Thank god for Twitter. I can’t even get a freaking update from the @Rogers website about a network outage. Was about to start kicking my router thinking it was just me. Here we go again!! #rogersoutage#again love paying for a service I can’t count on.
Also shutting down your phone lines to avoid customers calling in is a horrible way to manage customer service. You charge people hundreds of dollars a month for your services, at least keep them operational – can’t have a smart home without internet pic.twitter.com/CuuY3L6XPt
Responding to the frustration among Canadians over service outage, Gordon told Yahoo Canada while some customers in the Greater Toronto Area may have experienced a “brief degradation to their residential services” Thursday evening due to a technical issue, there was “no impact to cell phones.”
“We are committed to delivering mobile and residential services with the highest standard of quality and reliability to bring our customers the best network experience,” he added.
Canadians question Trudeau government’s promise to lower prices
In late March 2023, the federal government approved the multi-million dollar takeover of Shaw Communications by Rogers, following which Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Rogers Communications chief Tony Staffieri pledged to bring down the prices for customers.
“Should the parties fail to live up to any of their commitments, our government will use every means in our power to enforce the terms on behalf of Canadians,” Champagne had then said, noting Rogers Communications is subject to financial penalties of up to $1 billion for non-compliance.
The recent price hike brought the merger conditions, none of which included securing commitments from Rogers to stabilize or lower the cost of its wireless plans, back into the spotlight, with the opposition accusing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government of dealing Canadians a “slap in the face.”
“Minister @FP_Champagne, you promised prices would stay low. You promised the Rogers-Shaw Deal would create a 4th player to lower cell phone bills. A $9 a month increase by Rogers and Bell is a slap in the face to Canadians and is cell phone hell in a nation that pays the most,” Shadow Minister of Pan Canadian Trade and Competition Ryan Williams wrote on X.
The NDP’s Bhutila Karpoche also criticized the Liberal government, accusing them of “ripping off” Canadians.
“Canadians pay some of the highest phone plan costs in the world. After the federal government promised to reduce costs by 25 per cent, Rogers is now going to increase costs this year for certain plans. It’s yet another way Canadians are being ripped off,” Karpoche posted on X.
Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne slammed Rogers’ new plans to charge Canadians more for the carrier’s services but said progress had been made to lower the prices.
« Let’s be clear, while some progress has been made to lower prices, Canadians still pay too much and see too little competition ». Read the full article below on telecom services in Canada.
— François-Philippe Champagne (FPC) ???????? (@FP_Champagne) January 5, 2024
Canadian Telecommunications Associations, Rogers say prices declining
Responding to the public criticism over rising prices by Rogers Communications, Cam Gordon told Yahoo Canada the telecom giant introduced new plans in May, September and November of last year to bring more affordability to Canadians.
The Canadian Telecommunications Association, an organization that works with government and other stakeholders, told Yahoo Canada “mobile wireless and internet access prices have been on the decline for several years despite overall significant increases in the rate of inflation.”
The price index for internet access services has decreased by almost 7 per cent over the last five years, while prices for cellular services have declined by more than 47 per cent over that same period, according to Statistics Canada’s Consumer Price Index.
Internationally, carriers in countries like the United States and Australia also recently increased prices for many of their services, including a 17 per cent hike in the United Kingdom.
While the cost of data plans has steadily been declining, Canada continues to rank among the top 25 countries with the most expensive wireless plans in the world.
Add to that the frequent outages, which, according to multiple accounts by Rogers Communications users, turned out to be unreliable as recently as in September and October of 2023, a year after the company’s massive system failure in 2022 that affected more than 12 million Canadians.
Yahoo Canada also reached out to other key carriers in Canada, including Bell, Telus and Freedom Mobile to confirm if they too were bringing in a price hike for 2024 but did not receive a response before publishing.
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
