Source: @The Globe and Mail
The rate of Canadian smartphone ownership – the penetration rate – is also rising. According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, 78 per cent of adult Canadians owned a smartphone in 2017, up from 73 per cent in 2015. The rate should continue to rise given that most smartphone ownership studies show Canada lagging the U.S. penetration rate and much of the developed world.
The latest quarterly results from Rogers, though, showed that there is one wrinkle in this bullish backdrop: Telecom companies have relied on charging consumers hefty overage fees when they breached their data limits, but new unlimited-data plans mean that these fees – which totalled $1.7-billion industry-wide in 2017 – are set to drop.
First, the new plans should translate into fewer irate consumers speed-dialling customer-care centres to complain about overage fees, which means service costs to telecom companies should decline over time. Already, Rogers is saying that billing and data overage-related calls have fallen 50 per cent.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/inside-the-market/article-user-friendly-smartphone-plans-threaten-telecom-profits/