Online activists OpenMedia wants your ‘cell phone horror story’ to help with national wireless code

As the CRTC begins asking consumers what they think a national wireless services code should look like, one online activist group says that it's taking 'telecom price-gouging' into its own hands.

OpenMedia.ca is launching a campaign today to help focus disgruntled wireless customers who are currently unhappy with the way mobile device billing works, The Globe and Mail reports.

[ Related on Y! Finance: Can the CRTC rescue Canadian wireless customers? ]

The group has launched cellphonehorrorstory.ca, which asks users to submit their own negative experiences with what OpenMedia.ca refers to as "the Big Three cell phone giants" as part of a crowd-sourced submission to the CRTC's wireless code review process.

"Canadians are more and more aware that they pay some of the highest cell phone fees and are forced into some of the worst contracts in the industrialized world," said Steve Anderson, OpenMedia.ca's executive director, in a press release. "We know that the Big Three would like nothing better than to use this process to weaken the existing rules and lock Canadians into arrangements that are even more costly and restrictive… The CRTC should focus this process exclusively on what Canadians are asking for."

[ Related: French woman receives $15 quadrillion cell phone bill ]

The Globe reports that CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais is already handling a large volume of submissions, but nevertheless, OpenMedia.ca says it expects each of the stories it sends with its massive submission to be read.

In the past, OpenMedia.ca has been vocal on issues like usage-based billing, how the wireless spectrum in Canada is auctioned, online surveillance and the bid earlier this year by Bell to take over Astral.

If you'd like to share your story, visit OpenMedia's cellphonehorrorstory.ca to be part of their submission, or contact the CRTC directly on its website. Submissions to the CRTC will be open until November 20, and OpenMedia's submissions will close prior to that deadline.

Of course, if you'd just like to vent about your experience with Canadian mobile service providers, feel free to do so in the comments.