| Last Updated: Tuesday, September 8, 2009 | 5:29 PM ET
By Peter Nowak, CBC News A sneak peek at the government's scrapped cellphone rate calculator, which would have let consumers compare wireless rate plans online, has been made public. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre, an Ottawa-based consumer group, released a slide show of the calculator last week to the Montreal Gazette. The website was in development by the government and was scheduled for release in June, but was quietly killed by Industry Minister Tony Clement just weeks before launch. Consumer groups and opposition politicians accused Clement of ditching the tool, which was funded by taxpayers, in response to lobbying from the cellphone industry, which was allegedly concerned that it would lead to consumers adopting lower-cost plans. Clement's office denied lobbying was the cause and said the website was aborted because of technical issues that would have made it difficult to track cellphone plans accurately.
Online Cellphone Calculator
View more presentations from guest085e6b0. The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, the industry's lobby group, said the tool was flawed because it did not take into account data plans or discounts received from bundling mobiles with other telecommunications services. But PIAC said such functionality could easily have been added after basic functionality was up and running. The basic calculator would have been an invaluable tool for lower-income Canadians wanting a mobile phone, PIAC said. A report from Decima Research, which was hired to perform surveys on the website, found respondents were overwhelmingly positive about the tool. Consumers were to insert information such as how many minutes they expected to use their phone, at what times, how many text messages they intended to send, and what sorts of features — such as voice mail or call waiting — they were interested in. The calculator then provided them with listed plans from cellphone providers. Internet activists such as University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist, who revealed on his blog last week that the calculator had been scrapped, have called on the government to release the source code behind the tool so other developers can take it forward. Clement's office told the Gazette that a second version of the calculator may be possible, but it's not a priority. PIAC estimates the tool may have cost up to $1 million to develop.
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