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You Wanted It, Tony Clement Killed It
How telco lobbyists stopped a tool to help you save cell phone money.
Tory Industry Minister Clement: pulled plug
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Calling Kash Heed! Hands off My Cell Phone!
Now BC's nanny state wants to ban cell phones in cars, even my hands-free model.
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Tories' Cellphone Misdial
Canadians deserve a wide open wireless market.
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Dancing in the Streets for Cell Phones
VIDEO: Ad agencies turn flash-mobbing on head to harness Net's viral power.
Last week I discussed the well-known challenge faced by millions of Canadians as they sort through a myriad of cell phone pricing plans in a marketplace still lacking in robust competition. Previously unreported, however, is that Industry Canada officials identified the same problem and worked for years to develop an online tool to address it.
After spending tens of thousands of dollars creating and testing an online calculator designed to help consumers select their ideal wireless plan, Industry Minister Tony Clement killed the project weeks before it was scheduled to launch. Government records suggest intense lobbying this spring by Canada’s wireless companies, who feared the service would promote lower cost plans, played a key role in the decision.
The Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA), a branch within Industry Canada with a mandate to promote and protect consumer interests, was the original source for Which Cell Plan? A Calculator. The calculator asked consumers for detailed information about their current or anticipated cell phone use and then provided them with a detailed list of suitable plans from Canadian providers.
In 2008, the OCA paid Decima Research almost $60,000 to conduct extensive usability testing. The company conducted 12 two-hour focus group sessions in Halifax, Vancouver, and Montreal that included cell phone users as well as "cell phone intenders" -- those expecting to purchase a cell phone within a year.
Decima Research's report noted "participants felt being a consumer of cell phones is frustrating and difficult. The service plans of different providers are difficult to compare because they are all different… Secondary frustrations and challenges included the length and limitations of contracts, billing inaccuracies, and quality of service issues such as dropped calls and coverage.”
People want it, let's kill it
The focus groups' response to the cell phone cost calculator was positive, with the vast majority of participants indicating they would use the tool and encourage friends and family to do the same.
Yet just as Industry Canada was set to launch the tool, the major wireless carriers began lobbying against it. According to lobbyist registration records, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and Bell Canada met with officials from Clement's office on April 8th with the association listing telecommunications regulation and consumer issues as the topics of discussion. Two weeks later, Telus also met with the same officials to discuss consumer issues.
The carriers were apparently concerned that the tool only covered voice services and that it was geared toward lower-priced plans. Sensing that Clement was facing pressure to block the calculator, Canadian consumer groups wrote to the Minister, urging him to stick with it.
Clement pulls the plug
Despite months of preparation, thousands of dollars in taxpayer expense, the creation of an effective tool, and the obvious benefits for lower income Canadians, Clement nevertheless killed the project. Given the tool's potential to encourage more Canadians to adopt wireless services, the decision ironically came just as Clement was meeting with technology executives in an effort to kick-start a national digital agenda. According to an Industry Canada spokesperson, "technical limitations" were to blame.
With public dollars having funded the mothballed project, the government should now consider releasing the calculator's source code and enable other groups to pick up where the OCA left off. In the meantime, Industry Canada has posted a cell phone checklist that asks consumers many of the same questions, but does not provide any information on carrier plans or pricing. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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- ...while on the streets, pirates and ninjas put aside mutual animosity to join student protests
12
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ME2
2 years ago
What "A Favourable Economic Climate" is
What? Ask Harpo to interfere with "Free Enterprise"?
Hmmmm, well.....maybe if the Free Enterprisers could see doing so would reduce competition...
Norman Farrell
2 years ago
Takin' Care of Business
Randy Bachman wrote the theme song for our federal politicians more than 35 years ago.
Political-economic oligarchies have effectively captured our governments, federal and provincial. Institutionalized regulation protects businesses at the expense of not only consumers but, ultimately, the nation itself.
This example is minor except for its typicality. Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement, under pressure from cellphone providers, scrapped the launch of a tool that didn't suit their purposes.
http://northerninsights.blogspot.com/2009/08/takin-care-of-business.html
offended
2 years ago
Why don't these Telco's
just get a seat on the Cabinet? May as well - apparently they're helping to run the government.
nightbloom
2 years ago
Good article! Canadians are
Good article! Canadians are being fleeced!
p.s. why is Tony Clement's face green?
crh
2 years ago
July 2010
will be the deadline for reducing all our telephone and cell phone plans in order to recoup some of the money lost to HST. I will be dropping some of my extras on my land line, namely, call display and a few other perks. I may have to forgo my cell phone all together, as I cannot further reduce my pay-as-you-go costs. These plans are ridiculous anyway as the unused minutes expire if not used within 30 days.
The consumer is getting hosed, and we must fight back by cutting back.
UrbanWorkbench
2 years ago
The Biggest Racket
Telecommunications in Canada is simply the biggest legalized racket, and the government is fully in cahoots with Industry. Some might consider cell phones as necessary to business in this era, yet the government supports smoke and mirror pricing plans and no benchmark for determining the total price of a plan over the contract.
We need consumer affairs to delve into this more deeply.
Can anyone tell me why data rates are so freaking expensive? IT seems like they want people to buy into their products, but the ongoing costs are prohibitively expensive for the average user.
seth
2 years ago
Stick it to the Man!
2000% profit on broadband according to TimeWarners annual report, lucrative cell phone profits, no regulation, old boys club gentleman's agreements on competition, crooked politicians and a bought and paid for CRTC- such is the Canadian Telecom industry.
Freethenet.ca is part of the answer. Join the Coop
or just replace or augment your antiquated easily cracked low security junk routers from Big Telecom with cheap Open-Mesh routers and share your internet network securely with your neigbours. Do the right thing for free or you make a buck or two. Big Telecom will hate you.
gaulois
2 years ago
the tip of the iceberg
Or why the powerful group of interest (aka lobbies) are a cancer to our democracy and its governance.
Thanks to the author for sticking his neck out and blowing the whistle. But why isn't the whistle blown more often by the press in general?
bontano
2 years ago
He was right to kill it
He was right to kill it. A calculator that tells you that your phone bill is going to be the same overinflated price no matter what complicated plan or billing scheme you choose is a waste of money. If we want out government to protect us from gouging, we should demand industry regulatory changes, not silly little calculators. Canadians are being screwed by the telcos, yet we line up to throw more money at them.
fjf
2 years ago
Not reported Elsewhere
Given the G&M preoccupation with "lifestyle" coverage it is indeed strange that this story has had no coverage on the G&M web site.
Does the fact that Bell Global media have some involvement with both the G&M and Bell Telecommunications have anything to do with this?
Also strange is the fact that we, the public, pay for the federal government (you cannot have business paying taxes as that would hurt investment) yet despite the fact that it is us that pay it is business that dictates what the federal government shall do.
Do you not find this strange?
Thank you Mr Geist.
mgailthiessen
2 years ago
Cell Phone Plan idea "squashed"
After all, what's new? Just another case of the "big guy" putting the screws to the "little guys".
Camero409
2 years ago
Telco Squashes Calculator
What we need is a government with gonads. All Conservative and Liberal governments are like Pavlov's dog to Multinational business. The Multinationals ring the election money bell and the government obeys! Lets have real government for the people by the people. Is that possible now?