{"id":19215,"date":"2025-07-29T10:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T14:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=19215"},"modified":"2025-07-29T14:17:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T18:17:54","slug":"will-crtc-allow-evolution-away-from-data-buckets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mhgoldberg.com\/blog\/?p=19215","title":{"rendered":"Will CRTC allow evolution away from data buckets?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ScotiaA report today by Maher Yaghi of Scotia Capital suggests that Canadian wireless pricing needs to move away from data buckets. I wonder if the CRTC may be standing in their way.<\/p>\n

“We believe it will be essential for Canadian telcos to transition away from commoditized data buckets to value based wireless offerings, a transition that US telcos have successfully done unlike in Europe where commoditization of wireless data buckets drove rate plans into the ground.”<\/p>\n

Scotia warns that Canada’s wireless operators will need to navigate decelerating population growth and the shifting consumer consumption in order to successfully grow ARPU (average revenue per user). Scotia observes that the rate of mobile data growth has slowed, although it still remains healthy at more than 10% per year (down from 30% just a few years ago). <\/p>\n

As these trends were seen in the US, Scotia says “In the US, the three incumbents essentially moved to an all-you-can-eat data model a couple of years ago and ever since, they have changed the narrative and purchasing habits of consumers to focus more on speeds, handset financing, perks and entertainment and away from pure data pricing.”<\/p>\n

The pricing models of the three US incumbents are tiered based on different levels of service quality – not quantity. The plans generally have all-you-can eat voice and data buckets. Differentiation comes from what comes with it. As Scotia observes, the move from “how many Gigabytes to add features and perks serves to reduce the risk of commoditization. Moving from quantity to quality escapes the cycle of price matching between service providers as companies create their own set of attributes to are differentiate themselves.<\/p>\n

Verizon offers pricing tiers to access their Ultra Wideband network; T-Mobile offers pricing tiers on content (Apple TV, Netflix etc) and coverage with satellite, etc. We are starting to see small moves by Canadian telcos to price based on other aspects than volume, but this is still very embryonic. TELUS has recently introduced pricing tiers geared towards premium vs regular handset financing levels (5G standard tier vs 5G+ Complete) but unfortunately, now the line is blurred between the premium and flanker brand on 5G vs 4G). Rogers is trying to move towards pricing related to quality\/coverage (satellite, etc) while Bell\u2019s pricing is not very differentiated as Crave is offered on all levels, and pricing remains very heavily influenced by data buckets.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nearly 14 years ago, I disagreed with a CRTC decision<\/a> that interferes with some of the differentiation that Canadian carriers attempted in the past, denying Bell’s NFL Mobile offering. The CRTC Chair at the time said “Canadians shouldn\u2019t be forced to subscribe to a wireless service from a specific company to access their favourite content. Healthy and fair competition between service providers will promote greater choice for Canadians.” Videotron also tried differentiating with its “Musique illimit\u00e9e<\/em>” (“Unlimited Music”) service add-on, but the CRTC intervened<\/a> finding “that Quebecor Media Inc., Videotron Ltd., and Videotron G.P. (collectively, Videotron) are acting in violation of subsection 27(2) of the Telecommunications Act by exempting the Unlimited Music program from data charges.”<\/p>\n

A couple years ago, I wrote<\/a> “we have countless examples of overly simplistic analysis of digital issues that fail to consider the logical responses (and counter-responses) of the marketplace to new legislation and regulations.” I mentioned NFL Mobile<\/em> and Musique illimit\u00e9e<\/em>, saying “These innovative services were competitive differentiators, offering new choices to consumers. Rather than letting the market place respond with either lower prices or competitive differentiators, the CRTC just said \u201cno\u201d.”<\/p>\n

The CRTC needs to review these decisions. The nature of the industry has changed. Services have evolved. The mobile industry needs to be allowed to compete with differentiated services. Since this blog post is written during a summer heat wave, let me close by referring back to an earlier post<\/a> that talks about flavours of ice cream. The regulator should allow service providers to offer consumers a wider range of differentiated flavours of service. <\/p>\n

If you want vanilla, great. But I’ll take a scoop of Tiger Tail<\/a>, thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A report today by Maher Yaghi of Scotia Capital suggests that Canadian wireless pricing needs to move away from data buckets. I wonder if the CRTC may be standing in their way. “We believe it will be essential for Canadian telcos to transition away from commoditized data buckets to value based wireless offerings, a transition …<\/p>\n

Will CRTC allow evolution away from data buckets?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","two_page_speed":{"previous_score":{"desktop_score":79,"desktop_tti":"3.6\u00a0","mobile_score":47,"mobile_tti":"16.8\u00a0","date":"29.07.2025 02:17:42 pm","status":"completed"},"current_score":{"desktop_score":99,"desktop_tti":"0.7\u00a0","mobile_score":92,"mobile_tti":"2.6\u00a0","date":"29.07.2025 02:20:45 pm","status":"completed"}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWill CRTC allow evolution away from data buckets? • Telecom Trends<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A report today by Maher Yaghi of Scotia Capital suggests that Canadian wireless pricing needs to move away from data buckets. 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