The day Canadians have long been waiting for has finally arrived—the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has announced a ban on locked cellphones and unlocking fees for individual and business wireless service customers.
Starting December 1, 2017, wireless customers will be able to have their smartphones unlocked free of charge upon request from their provider, while new devices must be provided unlocked.
The CRTC has also updated the trial period customers have with smartphone purchases, allowing them to cancel contracts within 15 days and get a full refund on their “near-new condition” device at no extra costs—as long as they have used less than half their monthly usage limits.
New rules also apply to family and shared plans, which state the account holder by default can be the only one to approve for data overage and data roaming charges, beyond the existing $50 and $100 per month caps. Account holders may be able to authorize other family members to authorize other users. These changes will take effect immediately.
Lastly, the CRTC says a wireless plan’s terms, which are defined by voice, text and data services “cannot be unilaterally changed by the service provider during the contract period without the account holder’s express consent,” effective immediately.
Jean-Pierre Blais, Chairman of the CRTC, said in a statement, “The Wireless Code has helped make the wireless market more dynamic to the benefit of Canadians. While they appreciate the Code, they told us loudly and clearly that it could be more effective. We have listened to them. The changes and clarifications we are announcing today will give Canadians additional tools to make informed choices about their wireless services and take advantage of competitive offers in the marketplace.”
Blais ends his five-year term as CRTC chairman on Saturday. He said in a previous speech this week “fast action” is required to increase wireless competition in Canada.
Locked phones and unlocking fees ($50) have been big business for Rogers, Telus and Bell, as it prevented customers from switching providers and also limited how customers were able to use their devices overseas.
Just how much do the Big 3 providers pull in from unlocking fees? The Financial Post sums up CRTC data:
Last year, carriers pulled in more than $37.7 million in revenue from unlocking fees, up 32.5 per cent from $28.5 million in 2015 – Telus raised its fee to $50 from $35 that year – and up 75 per cent from $21.6 million in 2014. That’s a fraction of retail wireless market revenues, which hit $22.5-billion in 2015.
So there you have it folks. Say good-bye to locked smartphones and unlocking fees in Canada.
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wonder if this means we can get subsidized phones from apple like in the states.
You mean a payment plan… There’s no subsidies in phones any more, just payment plans.
yeah, sorry payment plan, but now its the three month plan, in the states its over the two year period. it didn’t happen here because the big three didn’t want it. I think because they would of lost out on the interest or whatever charges they make. But it was all based on locked phones.
Perhaps but I would like to think Apple has power over the Pig 3 and not vice versa… there most be another reason.
Wow, it’s about time. I don’t even understand how an “agreement” could be “unilaterally changed by the service provider during the contract period without the account holder’s express consent” could be legal until now. But why is this all happening in the last week of the Chairman’s 5 years? Makes me worried the next guy will just give al the power back to the service providers.
I agree, it is aggravating (even infuriating for some people) that the service providers can change the contract if they feel they are not making enough money from you. Basically they are saying “You agree to pay us so many dollars per month for our service but we can tweak it whenever we want so you end up getting less value for money”!
The service providers will react to these changes in the unlocking fee rules, history has shown they can be very creative as to how they recuperate the losses. I think they will counteract their $20M loss in revenue efficiently; probably a blanket initiative that affects customers that couldn’t care less if their phone was unlocked or not.
Rogers is a fraud I can’t fathom the fact the my data on my phone can turn on mysteriously on it’s own when I’m in a wifi area (my own home) . It’s a good thing every conversation I have with them is recorded since they are recording me. I bet u anything if u ask them about recordinds to hear they have none. Anyone agree they are a fraud and crtc is doing absolutely nothing about it. Make the rich bet richer. I think it’s a business between them both?
if you have an iphone, its a feature called wifi assist that turns on your data when your wifi signal is poor
you can turn it off in your cellular tab in settings
rogers has nothing to do with it, it is turned on by default with every iphone
Though during the hearings in February, the cell phone companies said that if they didn’t charge the fee for unlocking phones, that fee would have to be passed on to all customers. So – are even higher cell phone bills coming?
Unlocking fees were basically theft, so yes, if they aren’t allowed to collect those illegitimate fees anymore, they will find ways to make them up.
Essentially, it was an artificial cost created by the carriers. The carriers paid the OEM’s to lock the phones in the first place. Then, they charged customers to unlock them. Since the CRTC ruling no longer allows phones to be locked, they (theoretically) should have no costs to pass along.
OMG this is great news!
Most of this should have been done long ago, but now is better than never.
They are just going to increase the price of phones to recoup that cost. I am glad this is the case now but they are definitely going to push the cost back on the customer.
Love the 30 day nonsense is gone. i wish they got rid of activation fees. IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE THAT I AM GIVING SOMEONE MY BUSINESS AND THEY CHARGE ME A FEE TO DO THIS.
To your first point: If they do then people will quickly wise up, as we did long ago, to the fact that you can buy a phone direct from the maker for less than what the carrier charges.
Totally agree on activation fees. They may have made some sense decades ago with physical hookups of phone lines and such, but not when it’s a virtual switch, click click click done. A SIM card doesn’t cost half as much as the fees they’re charging.
There really is no reason, other than the obvious money, for phones to be locked anymore. They DONT give subsidies. They have finance programs wrapped up in a cute packaged called a tab.
Yeah and charge us extra for the plan. I am hoping now that they don’t have the excuse of locked phones, that they will allow Apples payment plan for them. Like in the states. I think that was the reason we didn’t have that here.
Let’s hope!
I am hoping that this does help with prices in a good way. Forcing Rogers and the others to offer incentives to stay with them, when you can walk away. Heck, could be incentives like rebates on phones.
That might happen. Might be a while before we see it but I could finally see that happening.
Great news on paper, but lets be honest here, the big 3 will probably stop subsidizing the phones now. This gives them the ammo to charge full price.
The cost of the phone should be decoupled from the price of the plan anyway. Right now the carriers blur the lines with subsidized phones and you end up paying more for the phone in the long run and by virtue of locking you into the carrier they can charge more for the plan as well since you are acaptive. Now the consumer has a choice. Pay for the phone upfront or pay in instalments. The great thing is that you can take your phone to any carrier at any point for your plan.
Great…. You think plans are expensive, think again! My guess is cellphone plans will skyrocket because of this bullshit, I never bought an unlocked phone because I mever supported that concept but banning it will most probably make the plan prices increase heavily.
I’m more inclined to think that will produce the very opposite. Think of it this way: If you, being a carrier, know that in unlocking their phones, customers now have the freedom to go with whomever provides the best rates, wouldn’t that compel you provide competitive plans to win or keep their business? I think so.
It’s one way of looking at it, but also look at it this way, carriers will lose a lot of money with this ruling and you honestly think they will lose millions of dollars and not get it elsewhere, I mean come on. The 2 year “contract” will remain, whatever rebate you were given for the phone, you will have to pay if you want to switch carriers before your 24 months ends.
I recommend people don’t go on a plan. I myself have been contract free for the past 3 years and am paying $50 a month for 5 gigs on Fido. I have an unlocked phone and can move to any provider I wish at any time. Of course you have to pay off the phone before you change carriers. They are not giving away phones. Removing the rebate on the phone is a good idea. Shows everyone what the real cost is.
50$ a month for 5 gigs sounds like a plan to me.
ok, It is a plan and the term is one month.
You are contractually obligated to keep your service for as long as you agreed up to two years, and to pay for any devices. Unlocking doesn’t change that, it just means that when you get a new phone, you can sell the old one to almost anyone. Actually I buy phones from Apple, unlocked, so now there is a chance the carriers could sell me one..
Why would you not support having the phone you want, with a carrier you want at the payment plan you like …. Even better, not having to buy a new phone to move to a carrier that may offer a better deal …. I am positive that if you wish any of the big 3 will gladly lock your phone to them for a fee …
Great, I can finally unlock my old iPhone 3G, 4 and 5 for free.
I plan to do the same on Dec 1.
With Shaw announcing today that they are going to aggressively go after the big 3’s business, that won’t leave the big 3 a lot of wiggle room to increase plan prices to compensate. If Shaw take Videotron’s blueprint, we should see prices drop.
Great start, though lousy timing for me – with a Rogers contract due to lapse in the next few months, I just unlocked my phone ($50), so as to take advantage of any better offer to come up. This made Rogers CSRs very anxious – which in itself was well worth it.
Now, if we could only enjoy no-charge roaming as the EU has activated this week…
Next, I would like to see CRTC ban the service providers’ “New customer only” deals! These are such a kick in the teeth for long-standing existing customers :-/
you would think this would be good, but now ALL of us are going to pay for this… i buy my phones from apple, unlocked. now, when i pay for my plan, i will have a smoothing amount for unlocking peoples phones applied.
you need to understand that fees like unlocking phones, should be user specific. whoever uses it, pays for it.
for example, why doesn’t rogers/bell just charge one fee, and you get everything? everyone pays the same amount? because you need choices and i chose not to unlock my phone with you. now, i have no choice.
Why would we have to pay for this. The carriers are the ones that intentionally lock the phones in the first place and then charge to unlock them. it’s anticompetitive and anti-free market behaviour. The device manufacturers (i.e. Apple) have no interest in locking phones to carriers. So if plan prices go up suddenly it has nothing to do with locking but simply carriers trying to boost their bottom line.
I hope I am wrong but the Service Providers could recoup their losses by adding another fee like the 911 fee for all their customers for the privilege of having an unlocked phone. By doing that all Service provides will be racking more money than before since they be charging now all customer a small fee per month rather than a $50 one time unlocking fee.
Check your bill, there may already be a 911 fee included.
Sadly they The big three wont even sell you a phone in Canada unless you sign a Contract and that has to be made illegal
Hello,
I have an iphone 4s to unlock for Italian carriers (canadian FIDO carrier ), it would cost 50$ that actually is the value of the phone, if I understand well if I wait for the 1/12, I can unlock it for free, right? thanks
Correct
I cannot understand how this was allowed to happen to begin with. I moved from the US here and my phone was immediately unlocked just by asking my provider to do so. The only reason they would not unlock a phone is if you owed money on it. I recently had to buy a new phone and chose to pay for it at best buy and now my provider has total control of my phone, total bs. Thank goodness this law is changing soon.
well in Canada when you buy a phone at subsidized price you owe money until the contract ends or you buy it out
Not anymore….
I’m staying with the same carrier I have a Moto G and I want to buy a Moto G4 Plus unlocked will my sim card work
They should allow USA companies here and we’ll see plans drop
They allow US companies, US companies don’t want to come,
Bell setup barrier with unlocking. I just called Bell to unlock my phone, which was purchased used from the previous owner.
Bell need to original Bell phone number and My Bell Account to unlock. This means anyone buy a used phone will not be able to unlock thwir phones.
If you check store unlocking services, the only info they need is a phone’s IMIE numerous to unlock. In my opinion, Bell is setting up their special requirements as the barrier to unlock phones.
I bought my used Telus Iphone from kijiji. Instead of arguing with telus to unlock my phone, I just unlock it through ebay unlocking services for i$4.16 tax in to avoid headache.
Did the unlock work? And can you send the link?
Now that the Big 3 will lose money with unlocking, they will recoup their losses by increasing the price of plans. Canadians are awarded with the biggest rip off deals in cellular global history, and they can get away with….thanks CRTC
If this is true why is it that when I ask for the unlocking code from the provider I am routed to someone else who charges a fee for the service? And there are hundreds of people out there asking for money for the unlock code?
Who sent you to someone asking a fee?!
I was on the Telus site inquiring about unlocking my BB and was given a link that took me off their site to an outfit that charge for unlocking cell phones. I found a long list of outfits who charge fees for unlocking phones. I went back to Telus and eventually found a phone number to call for unlocking my BB. It took a while but it was eventually unlocked then I was given the unlock code in case it needs to be done again, so I was told. No charge.