Get rid of the System Access Fee

If you're sick and tired of wireless carriers charging an arm and a leg for so-called "system access fees," you aren't alone. System Access Fee charges add up to about $800 million per year!! Bell Mobility is the worst of all with a system access fee of $8.95 per month! What about paying a tire fee when you buy a new car, or an antenna fee for your new phone?
Who has any ideas of what we can do against this?

Uhhhh, you do pay a tire levy on a new car, plus a freight charge for getting the vehicle to the dealership, plus an environmental fee if the vehicle has A/C as an option, etc. The difference is, it's all packaged together with a "TOTAL: $..." figure. I suggest Bell return to their All-In-One pricing, where everything was included in the advertised rates.

The tire levy, environmental fee, etc is government controlled: a car dealer doesn't have any say in that. Cell phone companies are NOT forced to do charge a System Access Fee. All the money it brings in is for themselves.
Do you know a lawsuit against the SAF has been certified by a Saskatchewan court last month?

Ok, but it's still an extra fee, is it not ?

The lawsuit is claiming that the telcos have been pawning the SAF off as a "government charge that they incur". This is not true, while all wireless carriers are subject to a spectrum license fee from the government, it's not the exact amount of what the SAF is charged. It has nothing to do with the SAF itself, it's how it's been represented.

There is a difference between fees and fees. We all pay GST and we all accept that we have to pay GST. Nobody has ever started a lawsuit against GST.
In this case it is a deceptive additional charge. If the costs of maintaining the network and the costs of a spectrum license fee are too high to be paid with the regular monthly fees, these montly fees should go up. That is plain, honest, fair. When other fees are added instead it gives the impression of cheap plans, but in reality there are high hidden costs. Especially when Bell makes their SAF's $2 higher than the competition. An innocent customer often doesn't realize how much he's actually paying. Hopefully the System Access Fee will be past tense soon.

I agree completely with including the SAF into the monthly advertised plan prices, absolutely. It is deceptive only if the sales reps don't tell anyone about it and don't make it clear that the SAF and e911 charges are ontop of the monthly rate plans, and even more deceptive if the sales rep pawns the charge off as a "pass-through" charge from the government.

when that lawsuit hit the media, i noticed fido rewrote thier fineprint quite quickly on the "system access fee" it now makes it clear that this is not a government fee but is required by fido.

they should call it the "extra money you have to pay because we want it fee"

I disagree. Part of that fee does go to licensing, part of it goes to network costs, etc. Once upon a time it was 100% a flow-through for what licensing cost the carrier, but now they've added in network costs and such.

I just want to comment here that it doesn't really matter what the money is being used for. I'm sure that part of the 'regular fee' also goes to licensing, network costs, etc. When the reason to charge a special fee disappears, the fee should disappear as well.

Exactly... thank you.