David Akin posted about Canada’s phone system, referring to the OECD Communications Outlook.

The study is only available to subscribers, so I can’t read it, but Akin’s post says that compared to G7 countries Canada’s phone system is cheap and reliable.

I think it is interesting to compare that to reports I read about a study of mobile phone systems with information from the same organization.

Canadians avoiding cellphones because of fees

A new study says Canada pays the highest cellphone fees of any developed country, with Canadians paying about 33 per cent more per month than Americans do. As a result, fewer Canadians are using portable devices than other developed countries.

[...]

“Canada is dead last in the 30-country OECD measurement of wireless penetration. Oddly enough, Canada’s wireless prices lead the world — there may well be a correlation,” the report says.

So, Canada has a good cheap wired phone system, but a bad expensive wireless phone system.