Yahoo Finance How Canada's high-speed internet prices compare to the rest of the world
The ongoing tug-of-war between Canada’s independent internet service providers and its big telecoms has once again come to the fore over the continued struggle for access to high-speed infrastructure.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ruled in 2015 that the nation’s telcos would have to open up their high-speed internet cables to smaller competitors for resale to consumers.
Bell was denied appeals of that decision by CRTC late last month and by the federal cabinet in May.
But the big providers did take some solace in the 2015 ruling because it would allow them to charge fees for sharing the infrastructure.
And now, according to the Financial Post, independent service providers are crying foul because they say the incumbents are offering “slightly to vastly higher prices” than they expected.
The CRTC ruling was expected to drive down prices for high-speed internet in Canada by spurring competition, however; a spokesman for alternative Internet provider VMedia told the newspaper that these wholesale prices will make it harder to charge consumers lower rates.
ALSO READ: Cheap internet, television help VMedia challenge Canada’s big three telecom giants
But Rogers told the Financial Post that its rates reflect its investment in building the high-speed networks and increased costs from rising internet traffic.
While it is unclear whether the CRTC will approve the rates, in light of the claims made by independent ISPs here’s a look at how Canada’s high-speed Internet prices currently stack up with other nations in the developed world.
The cost of high speed
According to data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Digital Economy Outlook 2015, Canada is 17th out of 34 countries in terms of price per megabit per second of advertised speed.
Canada also ranks poorly in the OECD’s assessment of broadband connections with speeds of 102.4 Mbps and above.
In the organization’s medium price bracket covering the aforementionned speeds and usage of 100 gigabytes a month, which groups together services based on comparable purchasing power parities (or an approximate price adjusted to create an equal exchange between currencies), it ranks Bell’s Fibe 175 in 25th place out of 30 countries.
While the Fibe 175 plan is no longer listed on the company’s website, its cheapest offering that relies on fibre optic cables directly to the home, Fibe 150, currently retails at about $90 and delivers speeds of 150 Mbps.
The OECD’s highest-priced bracket, with speeds of 102.4 Mbps and above and a monthly usage of 400 GB, looks at Shaw’s Broadband 100, which offers advertised download speeds of 100 Mbps, and places it 26th out of 30 countries. Its price is no longer listed on its website.
Rogers offers a comparable plan, the Ignite 100u, with speeds of 100 Mbps for about $88 a month.
Shaw’s current top-of-the-line offering, Internet 120, retails at $131 a month and offers speeds of 120 Mbps. Meanwhile, its competitors Bell and Rogers offer plans with download speeds of 940 Mbps, at about $150, and 1 Gbps, for the same price, respectively.
Some places in the U.S., such as Sandy, Ore., and Chattanooga, Tenn., have installed fibre-optic networks throughout their cites and offering high-speed access for bargain prices.
Sandy has a plan for US$59.95 a month with speeds of 1 Gbps, while Chattanooga offers the same speeds for $70.
Upgrading to fibre-optic networks has become vital for internet service providers, particularly for telephone companies, as traditional DSL, which relies on ordinary copper lines, can deliver internet speeds in the range of 25 megabits per second to 50 Mbps in areas where fibre-optic cable reaches the neighbourhood.
But newer forms of DOCSIS (data over cable service interface specification) have allowed cable companies to deliver speeds above 200 Mbps over their existing networks.
This additional bandwidth is essential as internet traffic continues to climb.
Bell has poured $2.5 billion into constructing fibre-to-the-home networks since 2010 and plans to invest an additional $1 billion this year.
Time will tell at what cost independent ISPs will get access to these high-speed networks, but they insist it is vital in increasing the competition in the Canadian internet marketplace.
