“After you pay for it, it is free. It’s just a one-time fee that you pay annually”. – Fred and Carrie try to buy a phone in Portlandia 

Tired of cellphone providers pushing your buttons? The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) just passed a law that requires cellphone providers to stop being Canada’s biggest buzzkills.

Here are the new rules in effect for new mobile contracts signed after December 2nd, 2013: 

1: Canadians can cancel their wireless contracts without fees after a two years

2: Extra data charges will be capped at $50/month

3: International data charges capped at $100/month

4: Canadians can unlock their phone without a charge immediately, or after 90 days if they did not pay the full initial price

5: Canadians can accept or decline changes to the key terms of a fixed-term contract and receive a contract that is easy to read and understand

Is this enough to stick it to Canada’s mobile oligopoly? “It’s 60% good since it eliminates those pesky ‘extra’ fees when cancelling. But it’s pretty much maintaining status quo,” says tech journalist Daniel Bader. What do you think?

[story via OCanada]

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Jeremy Schipper is an intern at Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @jeromeoschipps.

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