bell canada posts

Remember when payphones were the only option to contact someone when you weren't at home?

With the extensive mobile network we all enjoy, the payphone seems like an antique of the past.

But sometimes they're needed, and for one user, who made a one-minute call to a family member from an airport-based payphone, the cost appearing on his credit card bill was a shocking $11.49.

Would it cost that much to have made the call on a mobile phone? And why would almost $12 a minute be acceptable?

What are the real costs are for payphone calls - and does there need to be clarification of the rates to users?

Gamers who use the Internet to satisfy their passion, rejoice. The Canadian Gamers Association complained recently that two major service providers, Rogers Communications Inc and Bell Canada Enterprises, had been throttling the flow of data for their members, slowing their activities down to the point where it was becoming unbearable.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) took the gamers' complaint to heart and went after the two communications giants.

Rogers cooperated and changed its traffic-management practice, the CRTC says, adding that the company then announced that its traffic shaping policy would be phased out for all customers by December 2012.

A recent $10-million fine imposed on Bell Canada shows the importance of carefully reading – and writing – the small print in ads.

The federal Competition Bureau cracked down hard on Bell after ruling the telecommunications giant enticed consumers with "false and misleading advertising." The federal agency found that Bell's prices were higher than advertised – and the company did not explain extra charges properly in the fine print.

The bureau's decision touched on a pet peeve of many consumers and WalletPop readers. WalletPop has been following this issue for several months. In 2010, late senior blogger Liz Metcalfe showed how '10 minutes of cell phone use can cost $187'. Metcalfe wrote another story on the subject entitled 'And You Thought Your Cell Phone Carrier Sucked'. Blogger Terry Fong also wrote about the issue in his article, about avoiding evil roaming charges.

Get ready for the PVR wars.

Major TV service providers Shaw, Telus and Bell– among others – have started duking it out for positions in Canada's expanding personal video recorder market. Consumers appear likely to benefit from the increasing competition, wider service options, and over time lower prices.

Just today I logged on to the Internet and got that dreaded message from my ISP Rogers:

"This message is meant to inform you that you have reached 75% of your 60 GB usage limit."

So from now until my next billing cycle I'm walking a tight rope because for every gigabyte I go over the limit, I'm charged $2.00 on top of the regular $46.99 price.

This is the world of Metered Internet or Usage-Based billing and if you get your online access from Rogers or Bell (as 96% of Internet users in Canada do) you probably know all about it already because you've gotten this ominous message too.

Of course, some people get smart and move to an independent ISP like TekSavvy where they can get an unlimited bandwidth with DSL for $24.95 and a 300GB cap on most of their cable plans or unlimited bandwidth for $54.95. Right now with Rogers, you only get 80GB of bandwidth for $59.99 and it costs $1.50 per gigabyte you go over.

But thanks to a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruling that allows incumbent ISPs like Bell to control how much wholesale providers charge their customers (and remove bandwidth caps, the competitive checks that limit prices), Internet plans at TekSavvy and other independent ISPs will start matching those at Bell and Rogers.