rices for Canadian phone service rose at the fastest rate in more than 30 years amid a debate over whether the wireless industry needs more competition.
The cost of mobile and landline communications climbed 7.6 percent in August from a year earlier, more than three times general inflation, as the biggest phone companies pulled back on promotions and moved to shorter contract lengths.
According to Statistics Canada, the jump was the biggest since March 1983, the same year Motorola Inc. debuted the first commercially available mobile phone. Last month’s increase helped boost the core inflation rate to 2.1 percent, the highest since April 2012, the statistics agency reported last week.
Canada’s government has been pushing for more than six years to encourage a fourth mobile-phone carrier to compete nationally in the wireless market with Rogers Communications Inc. (RCI/B), Telus Corp. and BCE Inc. The Big Three, which control 90 percent of subscribers, argue more competition would endanger their multibillion-dollar investments in new cellular towers and fiber-optic cables.
Wireless prices have generally declined in the last few years for all but entry-level plans, according to a March 2014 report from Wall Communications Inc. The average price of a plan with 1,200 calling minutes and 1 gigabyte of data fell to C$80 ($73) in the beginning of 2014 from C$110 in 2010, the report said.
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