Bell finally ditches the SAF

Anyone that happened to look at Bell’s monthly rate plans in the past few days might have noticed something a little odd — each plan is now $5 more expensive. The reason for this isn’t greed (well, it is, sort of) but because Bell made like Rogers and TELUS and killed off the much maligned $6.95 per month System Access Fee (SAF) and E911 fee meaning that subscribers of the new plans will have an extra $2.70 in their pocket each month. The first of the Big Three to drop the SAF was Rogers, who on October 5th raised the prices of its voice plans by $5 and replaced the SAF and E911 fee with the Government Regulatory Recovery Fee (GRRF). The GRRF ranges from $2.58 to $3.11 depending upon the province once resides in. One month later on November 5th, TELUS officially dropped the SAF when it introduced its Clear Choice plans. Again, each plan was increased by $5, but there are no gimmicky fees meaning that TELUS customers on the new plans are paying $2 to $3 less per month. Those who are on the old plans are under no pressure to switch to the new, SAF-free plans.

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