Fed up with Canadian phone companies.

[iGuardian]

I think I speak with my fellow Canadians when I say that we're tired of 'the big 3'. (For those outside of Canada, the big three are ROGERS, Telus, and Bell Canada. Canada's biggest cell phone providers.) They've formed a monopoly and we're all paying way too much for it. Telus and Bell tried to change us for INCOMING texts! This is out of control.

But it looks like we have a mixed blessing on the horizon... AT&T and T-Mobile have both shown interest in entering the Canadian market.

But is it worth it? Are these companies what we're looking for or are we doomed to further price gouging and/or wire tapping from AT&T

Can any of our American friends in the audience shed some light on how good these companies are? Any horror stories?

 

[Abstract]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; U; Series60/5.0 Nokia5800d-1/10.0.010; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

Perhaps they're interested in the Canadian phone market because they know how much they can make in our silly market. Oh, and what's wrong with the budget providers like Fido and Solo? I don't see any reason to go with their parent companies.

 

[Solemony]

I think I speak with my fellow Canadians when I say that we're tired of 'the big 3'. (For those outside of Canada, the big three are ROGERS, Telus, and Bell Canada. Canada's biggest cell phone providers.) They've formed a monopoly and we're all paying way too much for it. Telus and Bell tried to change us for INCOMING texts! This is out of control.

But it looks like we have a mixed blessing on the horizon... AT&T and T-Mobile have both shown interest in entering the Canadian market.

But is it worth it? Are these companies what we're looking for or are we doomed to further price gouging and/or wire tapping from AT&T

Can any of our American friends in the audience shed some light on how good these companies are? Any horror stories?

Well I don't have text on my phone but here I'm absolutely sure that all phone companies offer unlimited text *incoming and out* for a pretty reasonable price.. A fee of somewhere between $15 and $20 every month plus your phone bill of course which depend on what plan your choosing.

 

[SteveMobs]

Most U.S. providers, namely AT&T and Verizon, charge you for incoming texts, that's nothing new. I know it bogus, but they do it anyway.

 

[Sun Baked]

Not much better in the US, but of course it is easier to get an assault weapon to help you with the customer service.

 

[iGuardian]

Most U.S. providers, namely AT&T and Verizon, charge you for incoming texts, that's nothing new. I know it bogus, but they do it anyway.

Wow really? I had no idea... maybe we're better off here. At least the Government stepped in and stopped the charging of incoming texts here...

 

[MowingDevil]

Wow really? I had no idea... maybe we're better off here. At least the Government stepped in and stopped the charging of incoming texts here...

No, incoming texts aside, we're much much worse off. The States get a way better deal than us but the best plans are over in Asia from what I'm told. We get screwed because of collusion between the big 3. If that could ever be proved there could be a major class action suit. Anyone still paying the ILLEGAL system activation fee? Its a fee for nothing.

 

[LeahM]

Yup, I'm on a $40 plan and my bill is $75 each month.. Sucks because I don't even use my phone. The 35 is just fees and taxes. But my contract is finally up so I'm thinking of going prepaid. But what are my choices? Bell or Telus, Rogers has horrible reception here. Even bell is meh, and I don't like what telus has to offer. Yea, I'm pretty sick of it as well.

Koodo seems to be making a name for itself though. Its a start, hopefully they will stir up some competition.

 

[iGuardian]

Koodo seems to be making a name for itself though. Its a start, hopefully they will stir up some competition.

Koodo is a sub-company of Telus

 

[mkrishnan]

Wow really? I had no idea... maybe we're better off here. At least the Government stepped in and stopped the charging of incoming texts here...

These things don't really vary based on any kind of "principal" by the service providers... they just vary with regional customs. Incoming calls and messages have pretty much always been charged items in the US cell market. T-Mobile, AFAIK, doesn't charge for these things in the European markets in which it is not customary to do so, but they do here.

As far as reputations, T-Mobile is a big company and the US is not their crown jewel market, but here, the experience with T-Mobile is essentially...

- Their coverage is not quite as expansive as AT&T or Verizon, but it is very good in most reasonably populous areas and along highways

- They have an excellent reputation in customer service and are frequently considered the top US provider in this area

- Their pricing is generally the lowest among the four national US providers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, and T-Mobile) by a fairly significant amount (exclusive of any corporate discounts or the like) for similar contracts.

- They flubbed their transition to 3G... again, a US-specific thing -- forcing them to adopt UMTS frequencies that are not commonly used elsewhere right now, making most existing 3G / GSM phones unusable on their 3G network.

- Product-wise, they don't offer as many self-developed data-based tools as the others do (TV, etc) but they were the big pioneers on the Sidekick. They've always been very supportive of the basic data services that come on the phones, though (and have a long history of supporting Blackberries, WM devices, Treos, and now Android as well). They have almost never "crippled" devices by purposely disabling features they see as competitive with their services.

- Their phones are generally sold locked and subsidized in the US (again, this is all about regional customs)

I used Sprint from about 1998 to about 2003 and T-Mobile from 2003-present. I am generally very happy with T-Mobile.

 

[LeahM]

Koodo is a sub-company of Telus

Well there goes my theory out the door..

 

[MowingDevil]

Well there goes my theory out the door..

Ya we have SOOO many choices.

Koodo=Telus
Solo=Bell
Fido=Rogers

Wow! I miss the days of Clearnet, they were great!

 

[iJohnHenry]

Our government will "discourage" outsiders coming in.

Competition has a negative affect on GST.

 

[notjustjay]

Oh, and what's wrong with the budget providers like Fido and Solo? I don't see any reason to go with their parent companies.

Fido wasn't considered a "budget" provider until Rogers recently rebranded it as such, with a hideous logo that looks like No Name brand collided with the Yellow Pages.

Fido WAS a great company and a great deal, back when I first bought a Nokia 5190 "PCS phone" in 1999. Billing by the second, long distance was only 10 cents a minute, roaming charges were reasonable. (I remember before the days of EDGE and 3G I would use my phone as a Bluetooth modem and dial my ISP, a long distance roaming call from the USA to Canada, and connect by dial-up at 9600 baud, to check my email -- and it was only a few bucks.) Customer service was great.

Apparently things were TOO good, as Fido found themselves losing money, and then got bought up by Rogers.

Once Rogers had control, they started doing what Rogers does best -- raising prices. Long distance rates started to go up. Roaming rates did too. For a long while there was no appreciable difference between the two, but now Rogers has recently rebranded Fido with "lower" prices (for a lesser package, of course).