Rogers and Bell Killing Legacy Cell Plans

[FlameOn]

Rogers and Bell will now be forcing customers onto their new share cell phone plans. If you are purchasing a phone through the carrier, they will not be allowing grandfathered plans unless said plans are $70/mo or greater. Any new contracts w/ phones will be forced onto their new packages. Grandfathered plans can only be kept if you buy phones outright or bring your own phone for their network. I'm guessing we'll be seeing a lot of off contract or unlocked phone purchases in the near future.

Both Rogers and Bell are now forcing customers to upgrade to one of their Share Plans, or a valid Smart Picks or Voice & Data Lite plan, respectively.

These policies were confirmed by representatives for the two network providers, ending the transition period where some users were able to maintain their legacy plans, often considerably cheaper, when performing a hardware upgrade.

TELUS told us that its customers can hold on to their legacy plans as long as they have a $70 monthly spend before tax.

The changes, implemented over the past few months, mark the beginning of the end for grandfathered plans, like the popular 6GB/$30 data add-on, that remained from the era of 3-year contracts.

Customers can choose to stay on their old plans indefinitely by buying a phone outright, either from their carrier or elsewhere, and activating it on the network.

http://mobilesyrup.com/2014/09/12/ro...ware-upgrades/

[Resolute 14]

Saw that coming a mile away when the whole three-year contract debate came up. Not sure why anyone actually thought they'd save money in the end.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Funny, I thought that was always the case if you wanted a subsidized phone, at least on Bell. Hence why I've gone Nexus so I can cling onto my $30/ 6 gb and $20 unlimited voice business plan from 4 jobs ago...

[keratosis]

Koodo does that and I'm gone. Unlimited calling, text and 2 gigs for $55 a month.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by keratosis

Koodo does that and I'm gone. Unlimited calling, text and 2 gigs for $55 a month.

Koodo is owned by Bell... its only a matter of time.

I love how the old $45 plan is now $80 at Rogers... Same talk and text with 500MB of data. Stupid.

[keratosis]

Actually Telus. Look it up.

[Anduril]

Bell's policy has always been to not grandfather 3 year plans. Rogers is the only one that's changed.

[ken0042]

I thought they were already doing this. When I was helping my uncle get a phone last year, he had to go to a $70 plan. It must have been about a year ago, because I remember telling him he should wait a few weeks for the iPhone 5s. Now that I think about it, it must have been because he also called me when iOS updated to 7 on him.

This is also why I am buying my iPhone 6 from the Apple store instead of going with Bell for the upgrade. (Even though Bell has told me I am eligible to upgrade.) My plan right now is $50 for 6 Gb of data, unlimited text, evenings, and 250 minutes. There's no way I'm going to get that for under $100 any more. Even if it was $70, those $20 per month adds up to $480 of the $500 subsidy over 2 years. Plus I get an unlocked phone out of it as well.

It seems obvious to me that if the phone companies are subsidising phone over a shorter period of time, the cost per month has to go up to cover the cost of the phone.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Buy your own phones people!

[Pontine]

Originally Posted by Anduril

Bell's policy has always been to not grandfather 3 year plans. Rogers is the only one that's changed.

I think I got lucky when I got my subsidized S4 last year. The representative let me carry my $50 plan with 6 gigs of data onto my new 3 year contract.

[Chill Cosby]

These 6GB data plans everyone is always talking about makes me so jealous.

[GGG]

This is where the Canadian gov really screwed the consumer. They should have forced the telecoms to separate device financing from the phone plan.

So glad I am on wind.

[RW99]

Yeah I notice this the other day when I went to reserve a Galaxy Note 4 on Rogers, so I cancelled my order. When I go to purchase my Note 4, it just may be on the AWS frequency

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by GGG

This is where the Canadian gov really screwed the consumer. They should have forced the telecoms to separate device financing from the phone plan.

So glad I am on wind.

This is a case of well intentioned pro-consumer legislation being side stepped by corporate greed and cleaver lawyers. If anything the government is only guilty of being negligent in not putting provisions in to prevent something like this and not doing enough to break up the triopoly of Robellus.

[kootenayguy9]

http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/carrier...s-2-year-term/

[Wormius]

Does it start making more sense for the cell phone manufacturers to offer financing options on the phones, rather than these subsidized plans from the providers? This way consumers all have unlocked phones and can walk at any time, which would hopefully add more incentive to the providers to be competitive and offer better service.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

This is a case of well intentioned pro-consumer legislation being side stepped by corporate greed and cleaver lawyers. If anything the government is only guilty of being negligent in not putting provisions in to prevent something like this and not doing enough to break up the triopoly of Robellus.

I bet the lobby groups for the telcos pitched this to them. They would have been overall against it (hence the adds) but behind the scenes they would have been pushing telco friendly options.

Limiting the maximum length of contracts always only had one outcome, a higher hidden device subsidy built into the contract. (I think I argued this in several threads at that time) so either the authors were incompetent or it was intentional. To me it was anything but we'll intentioned.

Definitely agree with your second point though.