Rogers/Fido boosts connection fees to an eye-watering $70

Like clockwork, Rogers and its flanker brand, Fido, are raising the connection fees from $60 to $70.

All the carriers have been raising fees by $5-10 per year since at least 2015, but for the last few years, Rogers has been the first to boost the fee, with Bell and Telus usually following suit. As of the time of writing, only Rogers and Fido have $70 connection fees.

Rogers restructured its fees in 2013 (apparently not in response to the reworked Canadian wireless code) to eliminate its separate $35 hardware upgrade administration and $35 activation fee (wow, look at the math on that...) and replace them with a $15 Connection fee.

Then, two years later in 2015, the price started increasing, and it hasn't stopped since then.

On Rogers' website, it says, "A Setup Service Fee of $70 applies to setup your device and related services. The Setup Service Fee is waived through self-serve on rogers.com (but not through Live Chat and Customer Service).  If you require device setup in-store thereafter, a $70 Setup Service Fee will apply."

Fido has the same wording, so at this point in time, it's not worth your money to buy your phone in a store. Overall, This is an interesting strategy for Rogers. It's unclear if it expects consumers to just accept the fees and pay them, or if it's trying to push people to shop online. Since the company can be less competitive online and sell phones and plans at higher prices with reduced labour costs.

Keep your eye on MobileSyrup to see when Bell and Telus raise their connection fee and to see if Freedom finally follows suit now that it's under new ownership. Currently Bell/Telus and their flanker brands have $60 connection fees. Freedom's is $45.