Rogers announced today a simplified billing model that will take effect October 5th, 2009. We’ll see the dreaded System Access Fee (SAF) removed and replaced with a new “Government Regulatory Recovery Fee”. This applies to Rogers brand only and does not effect exhisting customers. Rogers says customers “will have the option of keeping their current plan or migrating to one of the new “no-SAF” plans”.
Rogers has stated that the “The Government Regulatory Recovery Fee is applied per line to help fund fees, costs and other amounts related to federal, provincial and/or municipal mandates, programs and requirements such as provincial 911 fees, spectrum acquisition, licensing charges, and contribution charges to help subsidize telephone service in rural and remote areas.”
We were sent a link from of a post by forum member “MacD” of “TheMobileNinjas“. This has a link to the internal document of why these changes are taking place. The doc titled “Q3 2009 Wireless Amendment Pricing and Structure” says the reason Rogers is making these changes are “As part of our commitment to our customers, Rogers is striving to deliver a simplified billing model in a manner consistent with leading wireless carriers in the US and with other industries in Canada by breaking out for customers what they pay for goods or services versus what they pay to help fund fees, costs and other amounts related to government mandates, programs and requirements. Rogers has also added more value into its plans to respond to our customers’ preferences.”
As we notes earlier, the “The Government Regulatory Recovery Fee ranges from between $2.52 and $3.49/line/month, depending on whether provincial 911 fees are applicable.” Also as goodwill, Rogers is throwing in free of charge Call Forwarding ($3 value), WhoCalled ($3 value) and Call Manager ($5 value).
But what we were not informed about… and according to the internal document is “The Monthly Service Fee has increased by $5/line on all plans” .
So even though the $6.95 SAF is history and for some the 911 fees are gone, they are replaced by a $5 a month higher Monthly Service Fee, plus the “Government Regulatory Recovery Fee”. So depending on where you live it could be costing you a bit more on a monthly basis.
Check out the documents here:
Via: TheMobileNinjas
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