'Corporate monopolistic greed': Canadians slam Rogers after Ontario outage, wireless phone plan price hike

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.

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.

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.

Rogers competitor Freedom Mobile told Yahoo Canada the carrier is making no price changes noting "a price freeze is in place for mobile customers with Freedom Mobile, Videotron or Fizz."

Yahoo Canada also reached out to other key carriers in Canada, including Bell and Telus to confirm if they too were bringing in a price hike for 2024 but did not receive a response before publishing.