Canada's cell phone plans are among the most expensive

Canadian mobile phone plans most expensive (iPhone Image) -Cellworks

The New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative has published a report which lists Canada as the most expensive place to own a cell phone. The list compared 11 countries including the US, the UK, Japan among others which found that the countries with the cheapest plans were Hong Kong, Sweden and India.

Canada has topped the list, followed by the United States and the UK.

The average price Canadians paid for voice, text and data plans was US $67.50 with the US a little bit cheaper, but not much at $59.99. Compare that to India where Indians pay an average price of only US $12.90. The same level of service in a first world country like Sweden is considerably cheaper at US $34.05.

“Cost structures and business models undoubtedly vary as a result of the level of competition and innovation in each country,” the OTI report said.

Despite an entry of several new players in the Canadian market, we ended up paying the highest amount for services of which many might consider sub-standard.

In contrast to many other countries in the world such as Asian and European countries, Canadians and Americans pay the cost of both incoming and outgoing voice calls and starting around 5 years ago, most Canadians also pay the cost of incoming text messages.

There's still hope on the horizon, though since 10 months ago Canada saw the first new comer in a decade with the premier of Wind Mobile followed by Mobilicity and Videotron.

The newcomers are mainly no-contract services and the dominating incumbents Bell, Rogers and Telus have either rebranded or launched competing services.