US, Canada have priciest cell phone plans in the world

Mobile users in the US and Canada tend to pay more for a complete cell phone package than anyone else in the world, according to a new report from the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative (OTI). The foundation examined the different types of mobile packages in various countries in order to determine the minimum cost for voice minutes, texting, and data, and found that—surprise!—countries with more competition and more regulation tended to have the best pricing.
OTI examined prepaid, unlimited, and postpaid plans in 11 countries in order to determine the best rates in each. Overall, the foundation said that mobile users in the US need to pay at least $59.99 for a complete cell phone package that includes voice, text, and data (which we'll break down in a minute). Comparatively, users in Canada must pay US$67.50—making Canada the only country to top the US.
India and Hong Kong came in with the cheapest complete plans, at $12.90 and $13.50 respectively.

Break it down

When it came to voice minutes, the US, UK, and Canada had the highest postpaid rates, with an average of $0.18, $0.17, and $0.31 per minute, respectively. (The US and Canada's per-minute rate was doubled in the report because customers pay for both incoming and outgoing calls.) India and Hong Kong came in with the lowest per-minute rates, at only $0.01 per minute, postpaid.
Of those on the lower end of the scale, India is the only country that managed to stay low for texts and data, too. Again, the US was among the top three when it came to expensive texts (and again, the US rate was doubled because we pay for both incoming and outgoing texts), along with the UK and Hong Kong. Denmark, Sweden, India, and Japan came in with the cheapest postpaid text rates.





Data plans were somewhat unpredictable—Japan somehow rang up $9.40 per megabyte in postpaid plans, with Hong Kong coming in second with $0.10 per MB and the US coming in third with $0.08. The US rate was largely thanks to AT&T's recent introduction of the 200MB data plan for $15, but OTI still criticized it for being several times the lowest available rate in India, which came out to $0.0004 per MB, and Sweden, at $0.01 per MB (an example that rules out many of the "purchasing power" arguments that might otherwise be made).
OTI didn't cite specific examples in its report, but it did say that cost structures varied as a direct result of competition and innovation in each country. "[I]t is essential that in the countries that have high prices such as the US, we carefully consider additional steps that could be taken with respect to encouraging competition or imposing regulation such that the US becomes an engine of innovation for better and more competitively priced service offerings," said the report.
The European Union has already begun to crack down on "bill shock" when it comes to cell phone bills, and the US is currently working on it. But those measures only address bill inflation due to unexpected charges; the base rates are still higher in the US than almost all other developed countries.