Rogers Wireless is raising the emergency 911 fee cellphone customers pay monthly to 75 cents from the current 50-cent charge.

The company, Canada's largest wireless provider with nearly eight million customers, says the increase matches fees charged by other cellphone companies.

"We are bringing the rate in line with those charged by other Canadian wireless service providers," said Rogers spokeswoman Odette Coleman in an email. "Some of our competitors have been charging $0.75 for similar types of rate plans for some time."

The increase will begin on April 12 but will not affect Rogers customers who signed on to plans from November 2009 onward, which is when the company folded its previous system access and 911 charges into a new "government regulatory recovery fee."

That charge, which Rogers says covers the cost of its government and regulatory obligations, ranges between $2.46 and $3.46 a month.

Customers who signed on to Fido plans since November 2008 also won't be affected, Coleman said. Rogers dropped the system access and 911 fees outright on its Fido brand at that time.

Rogers also bills customers with additional 911 charges in five provinces — Quebec, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island — that it says are municipal or provincial fees. Those fees range between 38 and 53 cents.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission recently praised the country's wireless providers, including Rogers, Bell and Telus, for improving their 911 services after ordering them to do so a year ago.

A host of new wireless companies — Wind Mobile, Mobilicity and Public Mobile — have taken aim at Canadians' distaste for extra charges such as system access and 911. Wind, which launched service in December, does not levy either fee. Mobilicity and Public Mobile, both of whom are planning to launch in the spring, do not plan to charge such fees, either.

Existing carriers, including Rogers, moved to head off the new competition last fall by sacking system access and 911 fees from new service plans. All three companies, however, raised base rates. Rogers was the only one of the big three to introduce a new charge in the form of its regulatory recovery fee.