Cell phone help

[Bill Bumface]

Originally posted by scottie@Sep 21 2004, 02:26 PM
For a 1 year, £25/month contract (which gives me 200 minutes free / month)

Yikes! I'll stick with our crappier phones and cheaper plans if thats the case.

GSM phones are sweet... does anyone besides Fido offer them yet?

[calculoso]

Rogers Wireless uses GSM too.

[RougeUnderoos]

Just for a little further information... I just took 20 minutes to get a live human being on the phone at Rogers. I got transferred not once, not twice but thrice. I was on hold 3 times as well.

The third person was able to do what needed to be done in about 3 minutes, but it took forever to get there and I said swearwords out loud.

Edit -- BTW -- if you don't use it much you can get 40 minutes for $12.20 which ain't bad.

[monty_]

Thanks, ya'll have been a big help!

[Shawnski]

Originally posted by scottie@Sep 21 2004, 02:26 PM
For a 1 year, £25/month contract (which gives me 200 minutes free / month)

Actually, for cell service, Canada is a fair bit cheaper.

Over here, for the equivalent of £25/month, you get the phone and a choice of hookers, PLUS the free minutes.

Seriously Scottie, for the equivalent $50 (CAN) per month fee, you can get a very cool phone and around 500 minutes included.

Due to the large expanse in Canada, we are one of the highest penetration rates of phone service of any country, including but not limited to cellular. Service rates are therefore correspondingly lower per person here.

[Incinerator]

Here's my breakdown of the major carriers:

Bell has a great deal if you're an AMA member:
-$35/month, after GST=$37.45
-100 Weekday minutes,
-Unlimited Evenings & Weekends (8pm-7am),
-Voicemail, -
-Touch Base (you pick a local number that you can call 20 times for unlimited minutes in a month),
-Call Forwarding, Call Waiting. Conference Calling
-No 911 & System Access Fee (which every other carrier will charge you, for a grand total of $7.20 on top of the monthly rate)
-No Activation fee (most carriers charges about $25-35 for new activations)
-And best of all, you get a $50 credit per year, and your AMA membership is only $65+tax

AVOID FIDO LIKE PLAGUE, as mentioned above, has zero reception in over 60% of the city, as long as you get out of wide open spaces, the reception starts to decline.

Telus=Ripoff, just like their residential phone line, but perfect reception anywhere, even underground parkades

Rogers=I use Rogers because I've had the same # for over 7 years now and I don't feel like switching my number, I also use it as my home phone, but honestly if I could keep my # I'd be on the Bell plan. Reception is somewhat between Telus & Fido if you're on TDMA, as for GSM it only works in the city for the most part, also they will periodically invent charges for calls that you never made or text messages that you never send so you have to check your statement carefully every month, as for value, it's not that great for a cell phone, but I don't have a home phone so it's okay for me. They also have Campus calling if you're a student (Unlimited Rogers to Rogers calling), so that might work for you if all your friends use Rogers

[calf]

General on-topic question (Incinerator reminded me of it):

Last year, the states "legislated" that if you switch carriers, you're allowed to keep your number. Anyone know if Canada will follow suit? And will you still have to pay the "cancellation charges"?

[Shawnski]

The CRTC has not made "number portability" a consumer right, calf. It has come up a few times, but is quite costly to the carriers and thus the bigger ones lobbied against it.

[Incinerator]

Originally posted by calf@Sep 21 2004, 11:46 PM
General on-topic question (Incinerator reminded me of it):

Last year, the states "legislated" that if you switch carriers, you're allowed to keep your number. Anyone know if Canada will follow suit? And will you still have to pay the "cancellation charges"?

man I never knew that, if this happens in Canada I'd be the first one switching

[Shawnski]

...

[Wookie]

I thought evenings used to be 6:00pm... have they been slowly moving them back to cheap out on minutes?

[Shawnski]

...

[Cowboy]

Originally posted by Wookie@Sep 21 2004, 06:00 PM
I thought evenings used to be 6:00pm... have they been slowly moving them back to cheap out on minutes?

Yeah, it is brutal now...

BELL has the best plans, and great promotions....Rogers Services is very mediocre at best....

Bells service is as good as Telus....

I SAY BELL by a mile

[Shawnski]

...

[Incinerator]

Originally posted by Shawnski@Sep 21 2004, 11:59 PM
Incinerator, TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) has not been used for years for TELUS, and I don't think Bell ever really launched it... God what a flop that was. Bell and TELUS use CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) which is the standard in NA.

Bell primarily uses TELUS network in the West, so coverage should be similar in the rural areas, perhaps less so in the major urban areas where they are setting up their own towers. Been out of that part of the industry for a while....

I think I was misunderstood, when I said "reception is somewhat between Telus & Fido if you're on TDMA" I meant if you're on Roger's TDMA (as I was commenting on Rogers), your reception quality will be somewhat between Telus & Fido's (Telus, like you pointed out, uses CDMA, and Fido uses GSM)

And yes, as you pointed out, TDMA is crap, even crappier than North American GSM, which is still crap because it's still years behind Asian & Euro standards...ugh!

[Incinerator]

I'd also like to comment that customer service-wise, I'd rank the carriers as follows, worse-to-best: Telus, Rogers, Fido, Bell. Telus has the worse customer service I have experienced with ANY services in ANY industry, not just cell phones.

[BlackArcher101]

A lot of people are recommending Bell I see, but I have to warn you that the service is NOT what you think it's like. There have been numerous complaints of people getting ripped off by Bell. (ie, saying you didn't pay a bill when in fact you did). My dad was one of them and I remember a thread on CP complaining about this too. The only thing I'll ever think of purchasing from Bell is satellite.

edit: Here's the link to the thread. http://forum.calgarypuck.com/index.p...topic=1411&hl=
Sure you might say the changeover is done now, but I would refuse to give my money to a business that is not organized and doesn't have it's crap together.

[???]

i got a fido, {paid for the 5bill phone, dont know if that makes a reception diference} but now im pretty happy. the 25$ a month plan, is really {system access fee 7 bucks, call display 4 bucks} 36 a month. and yep all incoming calls are free. but each txt msg sent is 15 cents....wait a ######ing minute, 15 bucks for txt msgs,how did i send 101 txts? {lookin at my bill now} ! total bill 51 dollars,36 with out the txts msgs. 14 page bill. so that aint too bad. but my reception has only crapped out like 2 or 3 times, so if you do talk to fido ask them what areas are considered "new areas" cause thats were you wont get ANY reception. on the 25 dollar a month telus plan i was avraging 70 to 80 dollars a month. if your a day person and do alot of out going calls most plans are gonna screw ya. fidos 100 DT minutes go by fast, but at least they text ya when you cross the limit. if your like me and get more calls then you send out then fido is worth looking into.

PS: 2 years ago i couldnt get a call in my basement, now i never miss em.
maybe the phone upgrade though, i dunno.