Rogers raises U.S. long-distance rate to $1 per minute for anyone without a plan

Rogers is raising the price to call the U.S. without a long-distance plan to $1 per minute as of today, the latest instance of the slow creep of higher telecom costs.

Rogers advised its customers of the increase via its website recently, noting that the price to call the U.S. would rise from 55 cents per minute to $1 as of April 19.

There are many ways to avoid the charge, as Rogers offers a myriad of add-ons and plans that either include unlimited calling to the U.S. for a flat monthly fee, or value packs that bring the per-minute cost down to as little as five cents per minute. A spokesperson for Rogers told CBC News that for $7 a month, customers can slash the per-minute cost to more than 100 countries, and for $15 a month, they can get unlimited calling to the U.S.

But $1 a minute is now the charge for anyone who doesn't opt for one of those plans. While it is a dramatic jump, it isn't out of line with what Canada's other major telecom providers charge for the same service.

Bell charges 75 cents per minute to call the U.S. for those without a plan, and a company spokesperson told CBC News that rate has not changed recently, nor are there plans to change it. Telus charges 80 cents per minute for its U.S. calls, with the company also saying it has no plans to change its domestic, U.S. or international calling rates right now.

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Laura Tribe, executive director of consumer advocacy group OpenMedia, said it was "frustrating" to learn about the fee increase, mostly because those types of fees are likely to disproportionately impact people who can least afford them. 

"People that don't have unlimited long-distance calling is probably a fraction of their subscriber base," she said in an interview. "But when you look at the reason people are on those plans, they probably need the plans they're on."

The move seems designed to push people into signing up for an add-on to increase their monthly bill, Tribe said, to avoid the prospect of being accidentally dinged by a fee when they make an unexpected call. But in the process, people who don't need those plans are getting unfairly targeted.

"It's really putting a disproportionate financial penalty on those who are actually the lowest-use users or subscribers for not being power users."

Tribe said nickel and diming customers on long-distance charges is just another example of the slow creep of telecom fees, where providers find ways of maximizing their revenues even as they trumpet the availability of low-cost plans.

"The plan didn't change — but other fees found ways onto your bill somehow," she said.

The telecom industry, for its part, says that Canada's prices are competitive, citing Statistics Canada data that show wireless prices have declined by almost a quarter, on average, since 2020, thanks mostly to a slew of low-cost, no-frills plans the country's national wireless carriers have rolled out in recent years.

"This overall trend of decreasing prices has occurred while service providers have invested record amounts in expanding and enhancing their networks to provide Canadians with some of the best-performing and farthest-reaching networks in the world," said Nick Kyonka, with the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, which speaks on behalf of the industry.