New report says North American free roaming zone unlikely

A new report from the McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy has looked into the Canadian and American wireless industries but found them incompatible for a shared roaming network like there is in the EU. That said, the students did uncover a few other ways to help lower the cost of roaming for Canadians.

While a free roaming zone for Canada, the U.S., and Mexico would be fantastic for travellers, one of the foundational parts of the EU roaming legislation was that cross-border travel between nations was generally balanced. However, with Canada, the U.S., and Mexico, there is an imbalance, with more people travelling to the U.S. than out of it. According to the paper, roughly 39 million Canadians went to the U.S. in 2024, and only 23 million Americans travelled to Canada. (Notably, Canadians are travelling to the U.S. less this year due to President Donald Trump’s ongoing trade war.)

Combining those problems with the fact that implementing a roaming zone would require all three countries to agree politically suggests that this won’t happen any time soon. The paper notes that the upcoming re-negotiation of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) could have been an opportunity to float the idea by the U.S. and Mexico, but the researchers assume most of the talks this time will address the recent trade war and tariffs between the U.S. and its allies.

The research also found that the expensive roaming rates are less about the wholesale rates charged by U.S. carriers, and  more about the Canadian telecom companies applying substantial markups. While this isn’t great news, it does mean that the CRTC can make an impact on roaming prices.

The paper shows that Canadians pay some of the highest roaming prices in the world, and “65% of Canadians were most likely to choose their roaming option based on convenience and familiarity rather than cost-effectiveness.” That indicates that even though there are other options available, like affordable roaming plans from Public Mobile and Freedom, or cheap eSIM cards, most people are just going to end up using their carrier’s default roaming options.

To help solve the problem, the paper suggests that the CRTC launch a proceeding on international roaming rates to kickstart the process formally. This is something that could already be on the horizon, as the CRTC is already looking into the cost of roaming.

The next step, and the one I think might be the most impactful, is to make the cost of roaming in Canada more transparent. If the Canadian carriers are marking up the cost of roaming by an exorbitant amount, let the public see that on their bill. This could kickstart some competition and potentially bring the prices closer to the actual wholesale rate. To take this a little further, the paper suggests that the telecoms must also add a line stating their roaming profits in their financial reports.

Other potential fixes would be to examine how most carriers sell their roaming options to Canadians. For instance, roaming is bundled into most plans and prompts customers to activate roaming whenever they cross the border. If this were reworded to present all roaming options, Canadians might have more choices when it comes to roaming.

If none of these work, more direct legislation on roaming rates could be the right action. However, that would be more drastic and would likely face stiff competition from the telecoms. For example, Bell is currently running a media campaign to lobby against a recent CRTC decision over wholesale fibre internet access.

Another interesting plan proposed in the paper is a centralized website for Canadians to shop for eSIM cards. Ideally, this would be a federal site, so it would be the same across the country and would also receive ample marketing to help raise awareness of this new form of roaming.

The paper also goes deeper into interesting topics like the Australian National Broadband Network, and has more charts comparing Canadian roaming prices, so it’s worth checking out if you’re interested.

Source: Considering the Creation of a North American Roaming-Free Zone