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$35/mo to use a phone I already own? Are you shitting me.

Seriously, this is ridiculous.

Fucking ridiculous.

And they all basically collude, there's no difference.

Motherfucking fuck shit balls

You're lucky. $50+ for anything with a data plan (and it'll be crap) up in Canada, for something you already own.

Eriol said:

You're lucky. $50+ for anything with a data plan (and it'll be crap) up in Canada, for something you already own.

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I am in Canada; Edmonton. Rogers is saying $35 for a phone I own, $50 if I get a phone from them.

Chad Sexington said:

I am in Canada; Edmonton. Rogers is saying $35 for a phone I own, $50 if I get a phone from them.

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Ah, nm then. Still, those are some pretty bare-bones plans. They charge for EVERYTHING, even basic services like voicemail and call display are severely over-charged.

Yep. My dad wants to buy a Share plan so the whole family can spread the cost, which does look like the most effective, but nonetheless, damn the usurous colluding bastards

My sister's a big fan of Wind (she's in Calgary), but you have to make sure you never roam, or the big guys really hose you for going off of Wind's network.

Eriol said:

My sister's a big fan of Wind (she's in Calgary), but you have to make sure you never roam, or the big guys really hose you for going off of Wind's network.

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Yeah, this won't work for us. We all travel too much; especially my father.

Dude, I pay 80 a month for a phone I already own.

$200 for the three phones in our home with data and limited minutes.

Gilgamesh said:

$200 for the three phones in our home with data and limited minutes.

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Same!

I've never understood how they could get away with setting the price to "Whatever the market will bear" all the time.
My personal favorite is AT&T's smartphone plan. I want a smartphone solely for its Internet capability, but AT&T mandates that you have to have a voice plan with it. I can get a voice-only phone for $50 (in fact, I already have one) where I buy $3-5 worth of minutes as I use them, but AT&T says that the voice plan (for an add'l $50 or so per month) is mandatory. Oh, wait, they're willing to waive that requirement but only if you sign an affidavit stating that you are deaf. So basically they can do it, they just don't want to miss out on that juicy, delicious $1.33/day "just because" charge.



--Patrick

$160 for two phones and that is with a discount for my husband being in the military.

WasabiPoptart said:

$160 for two phones and that is with a discount for my husband being in the military.

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Yep, that's pretty much exactly what I pay for two phones and data including my Microsoft discount (which I still get even though I don't work there anymore).

If you have an old phone from sprint, or don't mind getting a sprint phone from somewhere, you should take a good look at ting.

Http://ting.com

They have no contract plans, it's all based on how much voice, messages, data you use. You don't select a plan, at the end of the month they put you in each rate slot for the three services that will cost you he least and charge you that.

As an mvno, they don't have the latest phones, and they are on sprint, so if you need verizon, or the latest android or apple phone, you won't benefit.

But otherwise you can get a great deal on voice, data, and messages through them. Adding another device only adds $6 more per month, and all the minutes and data go into the same bin so you can take advantage of the discounts at higher usage levels, similar to a family plan.

I value my iPhone 5 (they only support up to the 4s) and verizon, so it's not for me, but if I could switch I'd go from $90/month for my iPhone and iPad down to about $47/month, with the same usage. The fact that I'd get charged for actual usage rather than choosing a plan and paying for overages is huge for me, as I'll go for months with minimal usage, then have a vacation where my usage skyrockets, and right now I have to manage that ahead of time.

I'm not a shill for them, but I might as well be. I think a lot of People here could benefit by taking a look at them.

stienman said:

I value my iPhone 5 (they only support up to the 4s) and verizon, so it's not for me, but if I could switch I'd go from $90/month for my iPhone and iPad down to about $47/month, with the same usage.

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I believe MetroPCS allows you to bring your (GSM unlocked) iPhone 5 onto their network for $40/month, unlimited, taxes and fees included.

--Patrick

In another 2-3 years everything will be LTE and we won't have this GSM vs CDMA schism to deal with. At that point you should be able to take any phone to any provider.

Until then my voice still goes over CDMA and data over LTE. Not even eligible for HD voice. While the 5s is capable of HD voice, afaik no provider in the US supports it yet.

Technology favors the patient, really.

I'm confused, we're upset because we're expected to pay money to use a service?

Covar said:

I'm confused, we're upset because we're expected to pay money to use a service?

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Most of us are nonplussed that a Canadian is irate at $35/mo cell phone charges.

stienman said:

Technology favors the patent(-holder), really.

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FTFY

Also, I really can't wait for POTS (and even cellular voice service) to finally die the death of a thousand busy signals so there will finally be enough people on wireless for their weight to be felt by the carriers. There's no reason that everything can't just be straight-up data at this point aside from the artificial division of the two that allows them to charge for two "distinct" services.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

FTFY

Also, I really can't wait for POTS (and even cellular voice service) to finally die the death of a thousand busy signals so there will finally be enough people on wireless for their weight to be felt by the carriers. There's no reason that everything can't just be straight-up data at this point aside from the artificial division of the two that allows them to charge for two "distinct" services.

--Patrick

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It was very irritating at first, and later very funny, to see the hoops Verizon went through to prevent skype from working on their mobile handsets. They made skype come out with a custom just-for-verizon version of Skype that made the calls over their "voice" network instead of the data connection. Of course, this made it not work half the time and sound like shit the rest of the time. More fool them, I tethered my tablet to the phone, and ran normal vanilla Skype for Android on the tablet, and both the reliability and sound quality became umpteenfoldaplex times better.

35 is the cheapest barebones plan you can get in Canada. Most plans run 60-120 depending on the phase of the moon.

PatrThom said:

FTFY

Also, I really can't wait for POTS (and even cellular voice service) to finally die the death of a thousand busy signals so there will finally be enough people on wireless for their weight to be felt by the carriers. There's no reason that everything can't just be straight-up data at this point aside from the artificial division of the two that allows them to charge for two "distinct" services.

--Patrick

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In all fairness, there are guarantees on your voice service and each individual connection that don't exist in the VOIP world.

Still, VOIP is mature enough that they could just combine the two, and given the very low data rate of voice over data anyway, I expect that transition will be made eventually.

Oh, sorry, in my rage I wasn't clear

The plan is $50/mo + $35/mo if you already own the phone you're bringing to the plan (so, $85/mo + $15 activation fee for first month). If you don't already own the phone, you're looking at $55/mo for a $105/mo.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

Every phone you bring to the plan has that monthly charge. So we'll be getting 2 new phones, 1 phone I'm bringing, for a lovely $195/mo. Plus some stuff so we can text the Americans we know without paying insane amounts.

stienman said:

that transition will be made eventually.

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...when they can't legitimately put it off any longer.
Or perhaps when an all VOIP carrier springs up and steals all their subscribers?
Either way, it can't happen soon enough.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

I've never understood how they could get away with setting the price to "Whatever the market will bear" all the time.
My personal favorite is AT&T's smartphone plan. I want a smartphone solely for its Internet capability, but AT&T mandates that you have to have a voice plan with it. I can get a voice-only phone for $50 (in fact, I already have one) where I buy $3-5 worth of minutes as I use them, but AT&T says that the voice plan (for an add'l $50 or so per month) is mandatory. Oh, wait, they're willing to waive that requirement but only if you sign an affidavit stating that you are deaf. So basically they can do it, they just don't want to miss out on that juicy, delicious $1.33/day "just because" charge.



--Patrick

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This video must be made by Canadians; it's uncannily like Shaw Cable's commercials.

Feels like Mav started this thread. We should complain about having to pay for internet next, I mean we all have computers! So why the internet cost money?!

Covar said:

Feels like Mav started this thread. We should complain about having to pay for internet next, I mean we all have computers! So why the internet cost money?!

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I wonder why the plan costs $50/mo, which I have no problem with, but an additional $35/mo because I have my own phone. That's my grievance. $50/mo + $55/mo for a new phone ($105/mo) is also crazy, since will pay off the price of even a $500 phone in less than a year at that rate, but you continue to have to pay $55? And the phone I've owned, bought outright from the get-go, costs me $35/mo?

Why is this the case? I'm not mad services cost money, but I am pissed off I have to pay for their service and the privilege of using my own goddamn phone.

Chad Sexington said:

Oh, sorry, in my rage I wasn't clear

The plan is $50/mo + $35/mo if you already own the phone you're bringing to the plan (so, $85/mo + $15 activation fee for first month). If you don't already own the phone, you're looking at $55/mo for a $105/mo.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

Every phone you bring to the plan has that monthly charge. So we'll be getting 2 new phones, 1 phone I'm bringing, for a lovely $195/mo. Plus some stuff so we can text the Americans we know without paying insane amounts.

Click to expand...

Ah, I see. That's different. An additional fee for using your own handset is pretty bullshit. I thought it was odd that Canadian service was cheaper than ours, that had not been the case in other conversations I've had with Canadians about cell phones.

PatrThom said:

FTFY

Also, I really can't wait for POTS (and even cellular voice service) to finally die the death of a thousand busy signals so there will finally be enough people on wireless for their weight to be felt by the carriers. There's no reason that everything can't just be straight-up data at this point aside from the artificial division of the two that allows them to charge for two "distinct" services.

--Patrick

Click to expand...

If you think more people having wireless plans will give us more bargaining power, I have a feeling you're in for a nasty surprise. They'll just gouge you more because they know there is no other option. Either way, you will never be able to beat the reliability of POTS. In an extended blackout when your phone battery runs out or the towers quit working, POTS works. If the regulations regarding internet service or wireless service don't change, we'll be in a world of hurt as consumers when we lose POTS.

Also, old cell service is pretty much gone now, they've been phasing it out for years. I know OnStar had to make a bunch of changes because of it. A friend of mine also works for a company that used dialup cell modems and they had to rework their equipment to use digital modems.

I miss POTS. The sound quality, tinny and quiet as it was, was far superior to the squeaky, garbled, overcompressed and frequently packet-dropped mess that is mobile voice comms today. Seems like I have to ask people to repeat every third sentence now.

Shakey said:

If you think more people having wireless plans will give us more bargaining power, I have a feeling you're in for a nasty surprise. They'll just gouge you more because they know there is no other option. Either way, you will never be able to beat the reliability of POTS. In an extended blackout when your phone battery runs out or the towers quit working, POTS works. If the regulations regarding internet service or wireless service don't change, we'll be in a world of hurt as consumers when we lose POTS.

Also, old cell service is pretty much gone now, they've been phasing it out for years. I know OnStar had to make a bunch of changes because of it. A friend of mine also works for a company that used dialup cell modems and they had to rework their equipment to use digital modems.

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Analog cell service was switched off in early 2008, which is why those older OnStar, etc, services no longer work. POTS is already winding down and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it (The FCC is on board with it). AT&T and Verizon are already moving to eliminate copper networks in some of their areas. And as far as bargaining power goes, there will be leverage once the number of customers go from millions to hundreds of millions. It will just be a matter of whether the carriers will start trying to entice subscribers away from each other once this happens.

--Patrick

Sadly I don't think we have enough of a diversity of providers in the market to counter the almost-certain collusion that is going to mount between wireless providers as they look hungrily toward the oncoming tidal wave of new subscribers. Ironically, instead of ISPs becoming handled more like old telephone companies, which needs to happen, the telephone companies are picking up more and more of the anticompetitive, customer-hostile tendencies of cable companies and other geomonopolistic ISPs/services.

PatrThom said:

It will just be a matter of whether the carriers will start trying to entice subscribers away from each other once this happens.

--Patrick

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That's the thing, they won't. They don't need to. Which is why we've lost unlimited mobile internet plans.

All North American communication companies are scum.

My grandfather is pretty happy with Tracfone prepaid, but data's pretty much a no-go there.

GasBandit said:

I miss POTS. The sound quality, tinny and quiet as it was, was far superior to the squeaky, garbled, overcompressed and frequently packet-dropped mess that is mobile voice comms today. Seems like I have to ask people to repeat every third sentence now.

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HD voice over LTE should fix some of that. You'll have to live with a bigger latency though.

stienman said:

HD voice over LTE should fix some of that. You'll have to live with a bigger latency though.

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With current data restrictions of 2 gb a month, any idea of how many minutes you'd get doing that?

I pay 25€ a month,which included a new Sony Xperia Z, an Internet Flat and a all-net flatrate.

Shakey said:

With current data restrictions of 2 gb a month, any idea of how many minutes you'd get doing that?

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That's way more than enough. Skype uses about 5kbytes/sec for highest quality audio, in my experience, and that works out to be roughly 20,000 minutes.

See why verizon blocked it? Even on 3G, skype was better. Latency wasn't usually an issue except when signal strength was, or the dumb thing started updating apps during a call.

Im paying 40 bucks a month for unlimited talk, text, and data 4G LTE, this also includes full coverage on my phone. Thank you company discount.

I pay €30 to top up my phone occasionally. That gives me 30 days of free calls to anyone in the country, unlimited texts to my network, and some data (which I don't use anyway). Once that's up I pay per second/text...€30 usually lasts me somewhere between 3 and 4 months, so I'm paying about $10 a month for everything I need and a whole lot more.

I pay 130 a month through T-Mobile with insurance and unlimited everything for 2 phones I could take it down to 110 if I took off insurance

It's a racket

TELUS and MTS don't have a tower sharing arrangement south of Winnipeg so when I've been travelling there for work, my TELUS phone gets no service whatsoever. I had service in the middle of the Caribbean, but no service in Southern Manitoba...WTF? I could pop across to Minnesota or North Dakota to get service.

Fucking TELUS.

Adam said:

TELUS and MTS don't have a tower sharing arrangement south of Winnipeg so when I've been travelling there for work, my TELUS phone gets no service whatsoever. I had service in the middle of the Caribbean, but no service in Southern Manitoba...WTF? I could pop across to Minnesota or North Dakota to get service.

Fucking TELUS.

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As much as I hate to DEFEND Telus, it sounds like it's MTS who are probably being assholes, saying "nah, we'd rather force everybody in the area to take ONLY us, so no, no sharing agreement for that area."

Eriol said:

As much as I hate to DEFEND Telus, it sounds like it's MTS who are probably being assholes, saying "nah, we'd rather force everybody in the area to take ONLY us, so no, no sharing agreement for that area."

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It took forever for Rogers to get tower sharing with MTS for LTE service. Rogers was advertising LTE Phones for months before they could support it in Manitoba.

Yeah I'm sure MTS is a pain. No one seems to use them here.