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The party is over… carriers increase handset prices

By on January 5, 2010 at 11:37am in Asides, Mobile News, Various News

With the holiday season now officially ended it was only a matter of time before the carriers increased their prices of their handsets.

We saw some wicked devices at incredible prices: Rogers had several Smartphones priced at $0.99… now all priced under the original promo of $100 on a 3-year. TELUS had the HTC Hero and LG Chocolate at $49.99 and now they are available at $79.99 on a 3-year. Koodo has removed their Amex and $25 off promo and increased prices. Fido has even increased their pricing also – the LG Neon was priced to sell at $0.00 and unfortunately is now $65 on a 2-year. Shockingly the recently launched LG XENON was $50 now skyrocketed to $125. The Palm Pre saw a rock bottom price of $0.00 and is now back up to $99.95.

These are some of the increased prices… best to do some shopping around to find the best deals. Anybody care for a slice of new competition? Wind, Dave or Public?

Related posts:

  1. Holidays are over: Bell, TELUS and Rogers increase prices
  2. Bell dramatically increases the prices of MANY devices
  3. Storm for $49.99… Best Buy Mobile celebrates store openings with crazy prices!
  4. Handset makers sold 14% more phones in January-March than a year ago, growing at the fastest pace in five quarters. “Global handset volume continues to increase at a healthy pace. Recent annual growth rates have actually gone up, not down. Emerging markets continue to surge,” said Neil Mawston, analyst at Strategy Analytics.

Discussion

6 comments for “The party is over… carriers increase handset prices”

  1. It amazes me that they ask you to sign a near-unbeakable contract for 3yrs of your life (long after the device can come close to any form of the word ‘modern), effectively agreeing to give them thousands of dollars and they still make you pay 100-250$ for the device. That right there demonstrates a clear problem with Canadian wireless than any outsider can see.

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    Posted by pederson | January 5, 2010, 12:03 pm
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  2. The other amazing part is that you don’t get a rebate for not buying a subisdized phone, and that if you get the plan without contract they want to charge you even more money (phone or not) under the false pretense that they make you get a deal with the contract… (while if they had good service there would be no need to lock customers in).

    Worse, they even try to charge dead people for terminating the contract early.

    Maybe Industry Minister should put forth a new bill to set regulation that would actually protect consumers against that kind of bullying…

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    Posted by Hub | January 5, 2010, 12:31 pm
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  3. @Hub – agree with you 110%. If you do not buy a subsidized phone, your rate plan should be discounted. This is what T-Mobile in the US recently started doing. I believe plans are $10 to $20 cheaper if you don’t buy a subsidized phone.

    Also, agree that there should be government regulations about this. The current situation is ludicrous and exists to create lock-in, not to provide the customer with the best experience possible.

    And, while we’re at it, I would argue that there should be government regulations requiring per-second billing. It make no sense to bill a 10 second call as if it were a 60 second call. Koodo, Solo, and Fido do per-second billing, so there is no reason at all for Rogers, Bell, and Telus to not do it, other than pure greed.

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    Posted by Jim R | January 5, 2010, 1:44 pm
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  4. @Jim R – do you realize how much money it will cost to develop, implement, monitor, and enforce all those gov’t regs?! Probably not!

    I was patient and shopped around. I got an amazing deal from Sans Fil etc. at Costco: Two options (not one) with a Share plan, no activation fee, a car charger, a belt clip, a protection plan & a Xenon for $30. And $150 credit from Costco & Bell!!!

    Remember: you don’t get what you pay for – you pay for what you want. And if you’re willing to pay for it they’re more than happy to charge you for it.

    Personally I’d rather control my own spending and pay less taxes than have a nanny gov’t second guess every decision I make.

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    Posted by schultzter | January 5, 2010, 3:18 pm
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  5. Billing by the second:

    It is the law is some European countries. If this does not become the law here the govt should allow the rule right across the board. In other words, merchants should be allowed to bill you for 2kg of meat even though you buy a package of 1.1kg. If you buy 10.1 litres of gas they should be allowed to charge you for 11 litres, etc. This is essentially what our cellcos have been doing.

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    Posted by toyandme | January 5, 2010, 4:58 pm
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  6. Forgot to mention the practice of selling locked phones. If I buy an unsubsidized phone it should be unlocked. However, all of the cell providers only sell locked phones. It’s like buying a Toyota and only being able to fill it up at a Toyota gas station. The selling of unsubsidized phones which are locked should be illegal. Additionally, the cell providers should have to provide the unlock code for a subsidized phone the second your contract runs out. The only reason for selling locked phones is, wait for it, to achieve lock-in, and should be either totally outlawed or regulated as outlined above.

    The cell providers have been given a free ride for way too long.

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    Posted by Jim R | January 6, 2010, 12:26 pm
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