The Canadian government earlier this summer imposed interim caps on the wholesale domestic charges imposed by Canada’s incumbent carriers to smaller carriers. The move has now allowed WIND Mobile to turn around and cut the roaming rates it charges its customers when they leave various WIND Home Zones.
Today, we are introducing new and improved rates across our partner networks both in Canada and the United States. Commonly referred to as ‘domestic roaming’ or ‘pay-per-use’, we have reduced these rates by up to 95%, providing you with the freedom to roam with your phone in a more affordable way.
The following reductions took effect today:
- Outgoing calls to Canada/US: Down from CA$0.20 per minute to CA$0.15 per minute
- Incoming calls: Down from CA$0.20 per minute to CA$0.15 per minute
- Outgoing text (SMS) to Canada/US: Down from CA$0.15 per text to CA$0.05 per text
- Data: Down from CA$1.00 per MB to CA$0.05 per MB
The government’s interim rules require that wireless carriers charge competitors no more than they charge their own customers. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is currently looking into wholesale roaming prices and could move to impose new regulations when it completes its investigation.
As part of this investigation, the CRTC found that average roaming charges come in at CA$0.081 per minute for calls, CA$0.011 per text message and CA$0.037 per MB of data. It suggests that wholesale roaming charges could go even lower in the future.
It gets even better for WIND Mobile customers. WIND also announced that roaming data speeds have been significantly improved. Speeds have been bumped from 120KBps (2G) to up to 42MBps (4G) where Dual-Carrier HSPA+ from its roaming partner, Rogers.
Source : WIND Mobile