Re:Text-message fight obscures real
consumer costs, Column, Aug. 11
Michael Geist states in his recent Toronto Starcolumn that the Canadian cellphone market is "discouragingly uncompetitive and expensive by world standards."
Geist is an eminent law professor, but he needs to do more research on this issue.
As the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission's recently stated in its Communications Monitoring Report:
"The combined local and long distance average revenue per minute (ARPM) in Canada was 12 cents-per-minute.
This is among the lowest of the OECD countries..."
Also, a recent Merrill Lynch report shows that the average revenue per cellphone minute in Switzerland is 33 cents. For Japan, the average revenue per minute is 27 cents and for Germany, it is 21 cents.
Rates in Canada are very low by world standards.
Kenneth G. Engelhart,
Senior Vice President — Regulatory,
Rogers Communications Inc.
