Canada Tops Global Rankings When it Comes to ‘Wireless Value’: Study

The CTIA, which is the lobby group for the U.S. wireless communications industry, has released a new study comparing Canada, the U.S. and its Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) peers when it comes to ‘mobile wireless value proposition.’

The study from the CTIA and commissioned by NERA Consulting is titled, “A Comparison of the Mobile Wireless Value Proposition.”

One part of the study which looked at comparing the U.S. versus other “competitive regulatory regimes”, saw Canada rank first month its OECD peers, with the U.S. second, followed by Germany, Austria, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Australia.

“The country with the highest value proposition in this peer group is Canada with a country ratio of 0.967, implying that prices in this country are some 4.3 percent lower than the average price that the peer group would charge for the same mobile value proposition,” explains the study.

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), which represents telecom companies in Canada, was quick to tout the performance of our country in the study, sharing the news in a press release.

“This report confirms what many Canadians already know to be true: That the value offered by our mobile wireless industry is unmatched among its peers, ahead of even the United States,” said Robert Ghiz, CWTA President and CEO, in a statement.

Following the conclusion of the CRTC public hearings on the wireless industry, the CWTA made it clear Canada’s wireless companies are “world-class” when it comes to infrastructure and competitiveness.

“At a time when Canadian policymakers are considering important regulatory issues, this study shows the importance of relying on sound data when analyzing the state of competitiveness in the mobile wireless industry and the need to encourage ongoing investment in Canada’s world-class wireless infrastructure. This is even more crucial now, when our industry is at the early stages of 5G deployment in Canada,” added Ghiz.

Canada’s ‘Big 3’ telecoms, Rogers, Telus and Bell, are against the CRTC mandating mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), which would essentially rent existing network capacity to resell directly to Canadians. MVNOs would increase wireless competition and lower pricing, the CRTC believes.

The CTIA study looked at 1,554 rate plans of 213 mobile operators in the 36 countries of the OECD, while also took into consideration plan characteristics, network quality, country attributes and more.



When it looked at benchmarking the U.S. versus G7 member countries and Australia, Canada also ranked first, implying “prices in this country are some 4.7 percent lower than the average price that the peer group would charge for the same mobile value proposition.”

“This is not a study that was commissioned here in Canada, which makes the findings all the more impressive,” added Ghiz. “Even American studies are now clearly showing that our country is providing better value to our customers than our international peers.”

When it comes to OECD countries ranked by average mobile wireless download speeds, Canada ranked second (64.4 Mbps) to Norway (65.4 Mbps), while the U.S. was at 36.2 Mbps.

“This final ranking indicates that the United States leads the OECD countries with its mobile wireless value proposition followed by Canada and Ireland,” reads the study’s section on OECD ranking by countries surpassed.

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