Wireless prices are officially on the rise again

Statistics Canada shows prices rose 7.7 per cent in October, the agency's first recorded increase since shortly after Rogers gobbled up Shaw

Wireless prices are on the rise again, according to Statistics Canada, jumping 7.7 per cent year-over-year in October and 8.2 per cent from the month before. Statscan says the increase is the result of hikes by several wireless service providers and marks the first time prices have risen as per the agency’s measures since April 2023.

That date is notable, with then-Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne approving Rogers’ $26-billion takeover of fellow cable giant Shaw Communications a month earlier, in March 2023. As part of the deal, Rogers sold Shaw’s Freedom Mobile wireless business to Montreal-based Videotron for $2.8 billion.

In approving the acquisition despite the Competition Bureau’s attempt to kill it in court, Champagne announced that he had agreed to “unprecedented and legally binding commitments” with Rogers and Videotron.

Rogers committed to investing several billions of dollars in various network and connectivity initiatives and creating 3,000 jobs in Western Canada over the next five years. The company also promised to maintain pricing at current levels for a small number of leftover Shaw Mobile customers it inherited who were not Freedom subscribers.

Videotron’s main commitment was to maintain its wireless prices at least 20 per cent below equivalent plans from the Big Three of Bell, Rogers and Telus in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario over the next 10 years, with a penalty for failing to do so of up to $200 million.

Champagne, who is now the Minister of Finance, said at the time that he would watch the companies “like a hawk” to ensure they were fulfilling their obligations. His successor, current Industry Minister Melanie Joly, said in a speech last month that the government would be “hawkish” on competition.

A spokesperson for Innovation, Science and Economic Development on Thursday said that wireless prices are down 43 per cent since October 2019, with half of that happening since the Rogers-Shaw deal. “The overall decreases in wireless market prices can be seen in other data such as [that] reported by the CRTC, and in research by financial market analysts that advise on investing in the telecommunications sector.”*

Competition watchers point out that Videotron’s agreement in particular lacks substance, given that it is fixed to the floating target highlighted by the latest pricing figures.

“The condition is an invitation to join the club of the big wireless players, with a rising tide lifting all cellphone bills,” says Keldon Bester, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project.

“Videotron had been doing an admirable job of rejecting the pricing discipline that analysts have been calling for, but the recent Statscan [report] suggests that we may be at the end of a short-lived burst of competition. We need competitors that want to buck the trend, not follow along with the herd.”

Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took heat last year when he claimed on X, formerly Twitter, that his government had cut cellphone costs in half since 2019. Many users objected, pointing out differences between carriers’ advertised prices and their actual bills.

The latest data from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission shows that reductions in average revenue per user (ARPU), a rough proxy for typical customers’ monthly bills, were indeed significantly below the government’s claims.

Average monthly wireless ARPU was $64.84 in the second quarter of 2025, down only 4.8 per cent from $68.17 in 2019, according to the CRTC.

Statscan updated its pricing methodology last year to account for the discrepancy between the advertised costs claimed by the government and industry as evidence of declines, and the carriers’ relatively stable ARPU – not to mention customers’ actual experiences.

The agency now uses a hybrid index that combines transaction-level data from major wireless service providers with its traditional method of scraping available plans from their websites.

The latest Statscan figures follow a report from the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecom-television services (CCTS) earlier this year that showed a massive increase in consumer complaints, with a total of 20,147 for the 2023-24 reporting period – a 38-per-cent increase and the highest number recorded by the organization. Wireless accounted for more than half of all issues.

Rogers led the pack with almost a quarter of all complaints and a 68-per-cent increase from a year earlier.

A CBC story published this week highlights some of those ongoing complaints, pointing out that Rogers recently ended a contract with Foundever, a Miami-based firm that employed hundreds of Canadians in handling service calls. Several former Rogers employees also told the CBC that the company was moving to replace human service agents with artificial intelligence software.

In response, Rogers told the CBC that the company has millions of customer interactions every month and works hard “to deliver a great experience.”

*Updated on Nov. 21 to include ISED’s response.

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ISED’s approval of Rogers-Shaw is here.

Statscan Daily is here.

CBC story is here.

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