TELUS Drops the System Access Fee for Clear Choice Plans

What changed

Following a similar move by Rogers, TELUS stopped charging the SAF and carrier 911 fee on new plans from November 5. Every plan rose by $5, and Voicemail 3 came free as an incentive. Some provinces kept a regulated provincial 911 fee, including Prince Edward Island (50 cents), Nova Scotia (43 cents), New Brunswick (53 cents) and Saskatchewan (38 cents), plus a Quebec municipal tax of 40 cents.

The math

	Before	After
Plan price	$25	$30
SAF	$6.95	None
911 fee	$0.75	None
Total	$32.70	$30.00

That is a saving of $2.70 a month for a new customer without discounts. Rogers had added a new Government Regulatory Recovery Fee after removing its SAF, and the writer warned that if TELUS did the same, the savings would vanish.

Existing customers

• They could stay on their current plan and keep paying the SAF and 911 fee.
• They could renew an existing plan as it was.
• Switching to Clear Choice meant losing current discounts and features, such as grandfathered unlimited data.

TELUS explanation

TELUS said the costs behind those fees still existed and were now included in the plan price, with the aim of simpler pricing: what you see is what you pay.