American, Canadian Users Pay Highest Cellphone Rates

In a new report, by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), American mobile users pay the highest rates in the world.

This latest report between 30 other countries who are part of this organization show that US users pay $53 per month for medium use such as 780 voice calls and 600 short text messages as opposed to Netherlands who pay only $11 per month. There has been dispute over this report by the Cellular Telephone Industries Association (CTIA) because they do not give the entire picture, "And the report says that based on their methodology, a U.S. customer would pay $53 a month in order to get that level of service. But that assumed 'medium' basket works out to about 63 minutes, 50 SMS messages, and less than one MMS message a month. That just doesn’t reflect reality." Furthermore, the report suggests that mobile networks make up more than 41 per cent of global telecommunication revenues, while ten nations in the organization make half of their revenues through handset devices. Also overall revenue has held steady during the tough economic times because businesses and corporations view their mobile phones as a necessity and not a luxury. The report concluded that users are paying less for cell phone usage. Prices fell between 21 per cent and 32 per cent between 2006 and 2008. Nations that are paying the least amount are Finland, Netherlands and Sweden but the United States, Canada and Spain are paying some of the highest costs.