NDP Cellphone Freedom Act

The Apple iPhone was orig­i­nally offered exclu­sively in Canada by Rogers. The rea­son behind it was because the iPhone is a GSM phone while Telus and Bell were on CDMA — a dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­ogy. After Telus and Bell switched over to GSM and offered HPSA wire­less, the iPhone came to Bell and Telus — as well as their chil­dren companies.

If you buy a phone from any cell­phone car­rier in Canada, your phone will be locked to that car­rier unless you unlock it. If you buy a Black­berry from Rogers, you can­not use it on Fido unless you hire a per­son, most likely a 15 to 25 year old Chi­nese per­son, to unlock it for you. This will usu­ally cost you any­where from $5 to $15.

The rea­son why car­ri­ers lock their phone are usu­ally to monop­o­lize you from going to another car­rier. It is a way of bring­ing the cost down, because they know they will most likely col­lect 3 years worth of bills from you.

NDP MP Bruce Hyer is tabling an act called “Cell Phone Free­dom Act.” The pur­pose of this act is to “empower con­sumers to move more eas­ily between com­pa­nies and would force wire­less providers to com­pete more aggres­sively on price and ser­vices to lure con­sumers, ben­e­fit­ing con­sumers and mak­ing the indus­try more competitive.”

If this bill passes, it will force car­ri­ers to sell the phone unlocked — allow­ing you to switch from com­pany to com­pany. It will most likely bring up the price of the phone, because the risk of you switch­ing will increase.

In Que­bec, a new law will be com­ing into effect that reduces the ter­mi­na­tion fees that providers charge for the con­sumer who wants to nul­lify the agree­ment. Rogers have pre­vi­ously announced that they will raise the price of phones in the province, to off­set the risk.

I have been with Rogers for sev­eral years. I get a new phone at least once every year, if not every two years. I do not switch from car­ri­ers to car­ri­ers due to price, as my bill is already the low­est that it can be. The only effect that it would have on me is that the price that I pay for phones will increase.

Adden­dum:

Car­ri­ers offer carrier-specific phones. Bell and Telus offers the Tour while Rogers does not. If this bill passes, you will be able to use the Tour on Rogers just by plug­ging in your Rogers SIM card at the store!

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