While that is true it is a simplification. There are providers that service only the main populations such as FREEDOM (was WIND). However many people decided against these because they have to pay extra when leaving the city, such as visiting a cottage or going camping. So there is at least some market demand for providing wide coverage included in your base plan.

(I don't really understand it though, because Freedom Mobile has agreements to roam on the other networks and while the cost is much increased, for people who leave the city once every month or two it doesn't add up to the cost of the more expensive providers. These days Freedom even includes some included roaming in their plans, presumable to help customers see this line of thinking.)

Canadian telecom is a racket.

When Wind was around, the Egyptian billionaire owner gave an interview saying that if he could take his entire investment out of Canada at a 10% haircut he would do it in an instant. Wind operates in 170 countries. He compared Canada to China and North Korea.

More here if you're bored. I would also say to Americans looking to move to Canada in light of... recent events, be prepared to be frustrated with the lack of choice in banks, telecom, grocery chains, and doctors. https://financialpost.com/telecom/tight-reins-leaves-our-tel...

It is bullshit. On regions where there’s a strong local competitor (videotron in Quebec, Sasktel in Saskatchewan) the big three do lower their prices and offer more competitive plans - so they do have significant wiggle room without sacrificing a ton of profit.

There was even a way to, say, register a phone number in Saskatchewan and use it in say Ontario, leveraging a cross-carrier agreement to basically use Rogers or Bell infrastructure at Sasktel prices. I think they found and closed this loophole, though.

I have been to towns up north with larger populations (one to two thousand people) and no cellular service. There are also towns where service means one tower to service the town itself, but no coverage outside of town.[1] I suspect the actual costs come from down south, where there is an expectation of coverage in lower density areas and along transportation corridors.

[1] It is also plausible they installed the tower to reduce the cost of phone service. There are cases where a microwave tower is necessary to deliver any communication service to the area, so the tower is already there to provide cellular service.

in russia unlimited mobile traffic with hundreds of minutes on average among 4 major carriers cost about 6-14 usd And the only difference in costs for them compared to canada is labor cost, which is not a big part of their business model.