Rogers must continue gouging its cell customers or we’ll sue: Mobilicity
Paying ridiculous rates for cell phone services is as familiar to Torontonians as mediocre government scandals. But now a cellular provider is attempting to push this to new horizons by actually suing Rogers for trying to charge lower rates, insisting that bohemeth only charge outlandish fees. Mobilicity, the most difficult to pronounce of this year’s new wireless providers, has announced that they plan to take legal action against Rogers due to its launch of its new “value” brand, Chatr.
Launched earlier this month, Chatr offers relatively low pricing for basic voice and text services. According to Mobilicity, this is only okay for providers that aren’t Rogers. Chatr, claims Stewart Lyons, chief operating officer of Mobilicity, was clearly designed with the sole purpose of competing with stomping out recently launched wireless brands (such as the one Lyons works for) that have been luring customers with their not-so-excruciatingly-expensive plans.
Lyons says that Mobilicity will be taking direct legal action as well as filing complaints to both the CRTC and the Competition Tribunal. Other competitors, however, don’t appear to feel as threatened: “I do think this Chatr is a nice experiment for Rogers, and we’ll see how long it lasts,” chirped Anthony Lacavera, chairman of Egyptian-backed Globalive which owns Wind Mobile.
• Rogers launches Chatr; rival vows legal action [Winnipeg Free Press] • Mobilicity to take Rogers to court over new discount service [Toronto Star]
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