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Rogers Kills System Access Fee, Makes Up For It By Charging You More

By Marc Lostracco

In a move clearly meant to stem the bad PR continually building against the ludicrous $6.95 monthly System Access Fee, as well as the pending debut of increased competition in the marketplace, Rogers Communications has announced that the despised fake tax is about to disappear. But not really, because a new “government regulatory recovery fee” will be added, as well as a $5 monthly plan increase. That means your monthly bill won’t really change, but Rogers hopes you’ll be tricked into thinking it has. To divert the customer’s attention from the fact that they’re still paying through the nose, Rogers is now “throwing in” things like call display and the obnoxious WhoCalled “service.” Plus, there are those things they quietly implement but hope you don’t notice, like reducing your local calling area so that more calls are classified as long-distance. The reason for this, as usual, is to “align with common industry practices.” In other words, they reserve the right to continue being loathsome and unethical.

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  • rek

    “align with common industry practices.”
    Isn’t that de facto collusion?
    I wonder what’s become of the class action suit centred on the so-called system access fee. Last I heard a judge in Manitoba approved the initial submission, or whatever it was.

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    “An oligopoly is a market form in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers [...] Strategic planning by oligopolists needs to take into account the likely responses of the other market participants. This causes oligopolistic markets and industries to be a high risk for collusion.”
    Wireless is also cited as the sole Canadian example, and the “Demand Curve” section ends, “Firms will often enter the industry in the long run” — exactly what we see happening with Globalive et al.
    So yes, it’s bald but probably tacit collusion. But antitrust regulation is sufficiently weak in Canada that even deliberate collision (CEO-to-CEO e-mails reading, “Let’s start charging for long distance under these conditions”) would be hard to prosecute, and would continue anyway while the inevitable legal battle went on.
    Also, no federal government will stick its neck out by trying to restructure the entire industry. So, we can really only hope that the new players cause things to be slightly more competitive, or that someone figures out how to illustrate to all customers how deeply they’re being shafted.
    …
    Doubtless someone is going to jump on me for practicing armchair economics.

  • http://undefined Cereal

    I’ve never actually been so pissed off at a company before.
    It really screws over the people who use Oakville numbers while living in Toronto. It essentially forces everyone to get new numbers.

  • http://undefined Vincent Clement

    These are the same companies that charge 5 cents /KB ($51.20/MB) for data usage in Europe or Japan. It’s only $6/MB in the US – such a deal. Thank god for unlockable phones and SIM cards.

  • http://undefined davedave

    This is a cash grab before the imminent price war when the new carriers come in…
    People are pissed off enough to ditch Rogers, Bell or Telus to try the new guys.
    I am. It can’t be any worse.

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    But it can be better by only a frustratingly small amount.

  • http://undefined lunarworks

    They’re reducing the local calling area?
    I live in Oakville. If calling my girlfriend in Scarborough is going to be long-distance, I am going to cancel my Fido immediately. I’ve been with Fido for 10 years, and they’ve been wonderful, but I will not tolerate that. Rogers has been eroding service ever since they bought them.
    I am so angry right now I am almost shaking.

  • rek

    If you’re looking for an alternative, stay clear of Virgin Mobile. I’ve never had such lousy customer service in my life, and there’s always a problem. Most recently I discovered my voice mail had been full for nearly a month, but I didn’t get a single notification of waiting messages on my phone.

  • http://undefined Jeff Graham

    How much worse can things get? Honestly! It seems Rogers has a room full of people dedicated to plotting new ways to screw their customers. This is the second time the cost of my plan will have been raised by $5 less than a year into my contract. And now i’m going to be faced with long distance charges for calling half of the people I know. For god sakes we need other options for an iPhone provider in Canada!

  • Pan Von Sol

    This.
    If the new ones can prove more reliable then the current “discount” carriers, you’ll see an even greater migration.
    All we need now is a class action lawsuit that does away with or reduces those early cancellation charges…

  • http://undefined clopper

    Just to clarify, Rogers aren’t throwing in Caller Display, that would actually be a bit of good news. They are simply throwing in 3 useless features that nobody would want anyway. (from memory its WhoCalled, Call Manager and Call Forwarding)
    It’s too late for them now, whether or not they drop their prices when the new competitors start trading, I’m switching on principle!!

  • http://undefined ConsumersInCharge

    We all share part of the blame, because we are so submissive to the arrogance and greed of Corporate Canada that we became slaves in our own country! So, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to take action and say enough is enough; or are we going to rely on impotent regulators to make regulations that they do not have the guts to enforce!
    A few months ago, Rogers informed me of its intention to impose a 1.5% increase in order to pay for the Public programming ruling the CRTC required them to pay. I called to protest this increase. Their agent informed that it was a CRTC imposed hike and they could do nothing about it! I called the CRTC and they basically told me that they were lying and that the CRTC asked them to pay out of the exorbitant profit they milked Canadians to make.
    My impluse decision was to protest the charges by discontinuing the service! I am a disabled person with limited resources and three school-aged kids. Notwithstanding that my kids’ education would be adversely affected by the denial of this service customarily available to the public, I had no choice but to discontinue the service, because I could not afford it and feed them at the same time!
    Now, is there a smart honest lawyer out there who can assist me and other debilitated Canadians in launching a Human Rights Complaint against the Crown Right in Canada as represented by the Ministry of Heritage and its agency the CRTC; and all the telecommunication companies that conspired to impose a hidden tax on all Canadians and in the process infringed upon the rights of one of the most vulnerable segments of our society? If such a lawyer exists, I inivite him/her to contact me at info@toleranceplus.com to provide more details. If any of the readers of this post have similar circumstances, they are also invited to contact me if they wish to join in the proposed legal proceedings.