Mobile wireless plans could become more expensive after a long period of price decline, according to Statistics Canada data, representing a possible turn in a multiyear trend that has seen telecom companies compete for a smaller number of new subscribers.
In both October and November of 2025, year-over-year cellular-service prices measured by the Consumer Price Index increased compared to the year prior – the first positive change in about 30 months, according to Statistics Canada.
The index is still far below its position from prior years, as telecom companies have lowered prices and offered steep discounts to attract customers.
But the recent CPI rise, which Statistics Canada attributes to less intense seasonal discounting in the fall compared to the year prior, could be “the beginning of a change in trend,” said Statistics Canada spokesperson Taylor Mitchell.
Canada’s inflation rate unchanged at 2.2% in November
While the CPI measure doesn’t tell the full story of telecom prices, it aligns with the views of some analysts and industry experts who say the period of competitive downwards momentum is coming to an end.
It’s possible that, “now, things are stabilizing,” said Erik Bohlin, professor and chair in telecommunication economics, policy and regulation at Ivey Business School.
The last time prices spiked year-over-year in this category was in April, 2023, after Rogers Communications Inc. RCI-B-T completed its $20-billion takeover of Shaw, which included its divestiture of Freedom Mobile to Quebecor Inc.’s QBR-B-T Videotron.
Freedom Mobile’s cheaper cellphone offerings have been seen as a key driving force pushing down prices across the market, in part because of agreements it made with the federal government to keep wireless prices at least 20 per cent below those of incumbents for equivalent plans over 10 years.
Since then, as immigration – a major source of new subscribers – fell, telecom companies have competed for customers by offering more generous data buckets and improved features.
These include Canada-U.S.-Mexico calling, once rarely offered or expensive, said Keldon Bester, the executive director of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project who researches telecom market practices.
The current figures are also an early indicator that the new competitive moment may have been “more temporary than we would like,” said Mr. Bester.
How does Statistics Canada track telecom prices?
According to the Canadian Telecommunications Association, a trade group which represents the sector, telecom prices have declined by 35 per cent in the last five years, while overall CPI has increased by 20 per cent.
However, CPI figures from the last few years conflict with other government data, which shows that Canadian spending on telecommunications services is increasing and telecom earnings broadly remaining stable.
This is in part because of how the CPI is calculated. Although government employees can scour telecom websites for listed service prices – showing the price a new customer would pay to subscribe – it cannot track how much Canadians are actually paying. This tracking method means statistics are influenced by the effects of promotional discounts, which are typically time-limited.
They also take higher data buckets into account as a “quality adjustment.” This means that if a subscriber’s plan price remained the same but the amount of data they had increased, Statistics Canada would consider this a discount.
Meanwhile, other government measures show that actual spending on telecom services has increased in recent years. Canadians have collectively paid more for telecom services nearly every quarter for at least the past five years, according to Statistics Canada’s quarterly measure of household expenditure, at a rate of growth that outpaces population growth.
The price decreases seem to be uncoupled from another factor, according to the Global Media Internet Concentration Project, led by Carleton University professor Dwayne Winseck: average revenue per user, or ARPU, which tracks the amount that telecom companies earn from each customer.
Average revenue per user is calculated as the total revenue for a particular service, such as wireless, divided by the number of customers using that service.
“Companies themselves report that total average plan ARPU, inclusive of overage fees, international roaming costs, and device financing charges, amongst other sundry items, has continued to climb. CRTC data shows the same, except for a slight decline in 2024,” the latest edition of the study, published in December, 2025, noted.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with the correct name for the Canadian Telecommunications Association, previously the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association.