Mobile Coverage

[brocoli]

So my wife has her contract with Bell coming up and she is looking at possibly changing providers. I am just wondering if anyone outside of Calgary (I'm in the Pincher Creek area) has used or uses Wind or Koodo. We are just fed up with paying $80/month and Wind is VERY attractive right now. Especially with their US plans as we go to Montana a few times a year where cell phone service would be nice.
Any input from people that live outside Calgary or Edmonton on coverage would be great as those non big 3 seem to have lower rate plans are very enticing right now.

[MrMastodonFarm]

You'd be roaming outside the cities on Wind, their official coverage is basically the city centers. They've been advertising better roaming packages lately so who knows. Pincher Creek isn't in their "home zone" so that should be a totally stop for you there, Wind shouldn't be an option.

[Canehdianman]

Koodo is Telus, so same coverage.

100x better than Wind.

[Yellefan]

Data on wind is crap, but I'm too cheap to pay more than 2x as much for it. I have had no issues with voice and texting though.

Used their us roaming option last time I was in Vegas though and it was pretty awesome to be able to use my phone in the US. I think I paid$15 for the month to have unlimited roaming in the US. Last year I think I paid $30 for using about 5 megs of data in Maui with Rogers so yeah. Depends on what your priorities are.

[wooohooo]

Bell = telus = koodoo = virgin

They all run off the same towers. From my understanding bell runs off telus towers in the west and bm vice versa for the east.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

You'd be roaming outside the cities on Wind, their official coverage is basically the city centers. They've been advertising better roaming packages lately so who knows.

Just to clarify, their advertising is quite misleading. That extra $4 per month gets you 200 MB of data, or 200 text messages, or 100 voice minutes. Which may be enough for somebody who goes out to Banff once per month, but not for extended use outside of a major city.

I think Koodo is the better option; especially if you can swing the $55 plan also mentioned in this subforum.

[brocoli]

Thanks everyone for your input. Maybe we can try to swing her a better plan with Bell now that she has no contract and she always has the ability to join me at Telus (which I have had no problems with on their mobile side).

MOD thanks for the move. Sorry about that.

[Drummer]

I've been on Wind for 3 years now after dumping Bell. I'm on an iPhone 5C as well. Love it, totally worth it. The unlimited US everything for $15 is insane. I always add it on before traveling down there.

[ken0042]

Drummer- just to clarify; are you saying you live in Pincher Creek and are getting Wind home coverage there?

[Azure]

Telus has the best coverage with their tower on Telus Hill.

Rogers tower is on opposite side and out towards Waterton IIRC. Not as good of coverage, but similar. Bell and Telus would have the same coverage I'd say.

Wind doesn't have coverage down there.

[Igster]

This is my biggest fear with switching to Wind. My contract with Rogers is up in November and I was thinking about making the switch. Normally I'm always in the city or cities and don't spend much time out of the city, but it does concern me that their coverage just isn't very good. The prices though...

[Canehdianman]

I just switched from Wind to the $55 Koodo plan mentioned here.

Would never go back. Wind is a fine plan if you are really pinching pennies, but for the extra $10 (you get a 10% discount for bringing your own device to Koodo), I get LTE speeds instead of 3G, and the ability to use my phone outside of city limits (it was always so frustrating to not have any data anymore when I was on road trips).

I never use close to 5GB of data so the data is effectively as unlimited as Wind (only I might actually get to use more of it since LTE is about 10x faster than Wind's 3G network is).

[Hack&Lube]

I have 4 friends on Wind who constantly do not have coverage in areas where I do in and around the city. There are areas in the downtown core where Wind doesn't seem to cover! I was arranging meetups last week in downtown and my friends had no reception!

[brocoli]

Thanks for all of your insight. I was very interested in Wind because of the $$ but also the US add on. I guess that we'll see what Bell can do if not, back to Telus for her.

[WilsonFourTwo]

I've been on Wind for several years now (posted many, many times in the Wind thread).

The reality is that Wind is terrific - truly amazing value. When I first signed on, you'd find a few pockets (ie. half blocks) of the city that wouldn't have coverage. That simply isn't the case now, I can't remember the last time I had no coverage - it just doesn't happen. Interestingly enough though, the coverage seems even better in Vancouver.

As for roaming. It's 5 cents a MB and you roam off of other networks, so you effectively have the exact same coverage as everyone else. I use the phone when I go to Nova Scotia and the trips cost a couple of dollars extra.

The single biggest (and in my opinion only meaningful) trade-off is LTE speed vs 3G. There are rare moments when LTE would be awesome to have, but the 3G performs OK, and it's not worth (to me) the monthly premium to have it on demand. My monthly bills are $42-$43 with Wind (taxes incl), versus a ~$65 for a Koodo/Fido type GB plan with BYOD discount.

I could go on, but suggest you just look at the "How do you like Wind" thread instead, its much more detailed.

That all said.....living in Pincher Creek, I'd probably just pay the premium, get the LTE speeds, not roam at all, and be done with it.