“After you pay for it, it is free. It’s just a one-time fee that you pay annually”. – Fred and Carrie try to buy a phone in Portlandia
Tired of cellphone providers pushing your buttons? The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) just passed a law that requires cellphone providers to stop being Canada’s biggest buzzkills.
Here are the new rules in effect for new mobile contracts signed after December 2nd, 2013:
1: Canadians can cancel their wireless contracts without fees after a two years
2: Extra data charges will be capped at $50/month
3: International data charges capped at $100/month
4: Canadians can unlock their phone without a charge immediately, or after 90 days if they did not pay the full initial price
5: Canadians can accept or decline changes to the key terms of a fixed-term contract and receive a contract that is easy to read and understand
Is this enough to stick it to Canada’s mobile oligopoly? “It’s 60% good since it eliminates those pesky ‘extra’ fees when cancelling. But it’s pretty much maintaining status quo,” says tech journalist Daniel Bader. What do you think?
[story via OCanada]
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Jeremy Schipper is an intern at Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @jeromeoschipps.
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