Hey there guys,

If you haven't already heard, Wind Mobile is set to compete with Rogers/Bell/Telus. They are against contract terms and "hidden fees" and believe in customer service rather then price gouging (see $0.15 for incoming text messages which actually cost them hundredths of a penny).

They offer unlimited provincial/nationwide calling & unlimited data for pricing comparable to those of the competition's regular data/voice plans.

Phones are all pre/post paid and may be a tad higher then expected due to lack of term-based subsidy but would end up saving you tonnes in the long run.

Check out their plans @ www.windmobile.ca

Good, my plan is up in April. and I plan on smashing my phone to pieces in a Bell store when I'm done. I was thinking Koodo but I will check these guys out aswell.

I hope their wireless network does not reflect their poor website infrastructure...

//edit
At a glance I see that their "HOME" zone hardly covers the Golden Horseshoe.
The voice plans page is hammered right now so I can't tell if their "AWAY" zone pricing is affordable.

Umm, yeah... love the "The service is unavailable" when you click Shop But seriously, I hope they succeed. Consumers are getting ass raped by the lack of competition in the country.

Agreed, but its hard for a web server to handle tens of thousands of requests within minutes of their page update.

Now I can see the pricing. The unlimited plan looks good! The 25 cents per minute if I travel just 10 minutes west of my house is scary though.

Who wants to try it first?

Do they have the iPhone or any Android phones?

The iPhone does not support the 1900mhz AWS band that would be used by WIND. It seems that at this point they are restricting use to a small set of phones and will work towards unlocked phone availability & support.

No data plans.

^^^
Sure they do.. $35
http://shop.windmobile.ca/ProductCatalog/Addon/AddonCategory.aspx?id=AddonCategory2

It's only in the "HOME" zone, however.
They don't have anything for you up in The Big Nickel, Ryan.

There is another one I heard about today:

http://www.publicmobile.ca/

Maybe this new emergence of companies will pressure the other companies to bring rates down?! Probably be a while though, because service areas are very limited.

You know whats going to happen, they are going to get bought up by the bigger companies just to silence them.

More then likely.

Also you can get cheap plans with any company if you know how to bitch and moan correctly. $50 a month with Telus gets me an awesome data/voice package.

Plus System bullshit fee, plus contract time, plus limited usage.
I'm with Telus too with a crazy huge plan that is a good deal, however, it's not unlimited so the fees still add up.

I really don't think they will get bought out.
The big three wanted to suppress them, that's why there was such a huge delay for WIND to come to market.

They've invested hundreds of millions of dollars into this, they didn't invest all that money to just be bought out.

Just my opinion.

I am also with Telus, and have a crazy deal on a plan with unlimited pretty much everything.

Stupid System Access Fee....

Unless, the couple hundred million offer is much larger than the couple hundred million invested

Mike has a very good point.

If Telus would drop or lower the system access fee my plan would be even cheaper. For now I can live with it though. The only reason it's pricey is because my cell is my only phone, I don't believe in home phones.

There's a mentality with older folks that they can't live without a home phone. My father always complains that 95% of the calls on his home phone are telemarketers. I tell him to get rid of it as anyone who needs to get a hold of him calls his cell anyways. He refuses.

Strange.

Not very good rates as far as I can see.

With Rogers, I have:

- 700 daytime mins
- free eve/wkend after 6pm
- voicemail, text, call waiting/display
- unlimited internet
- unlimited gps usage

for $78/mth including tax.

SAF is just a marketing tool. If there wasn't the SAF they would just have a higher advertised price on your plan!

That is NOT a normally accessible service plan.
The problem is that for the average user, plans of that caliber would never be accessible and thats why WIND came along.

As far as a buyout? Won't happen. Why? Because WIND is insanely popular due to its aspirations to be a consumer friendly company. Rogers, Bell, Telus aren't...

I've been with all three providers. Telus isn't HORRIBLE but they could definitely do more for the consumer. Rogers is impossible to deal with in a diplomatic way. Bell is the true devil here. If Bell somehow died, I'd be happy.

Im with Telus, and im sure everyone with ANY cell phone company has gotten a "surprise" bill over $400 and you're like WTF, how did that happen!?

After calling customer and loyalty on two seperate occassions i now have:

300 day time mintues
unlimited txt
unlimited nationwide calling
free eve/wkend after 5pm
voicemail, call waiting/display

I pay $58 a month (taxes in).

This isnt a normal plan as i had to scare them that i would pay the fee to leave their company twice...

Cell phone companies in my opinion are one of the biggest scam artists on the market, yet how did we live without cell phones before? Its just incredibly convienent that they can get away with it...

FIGHT THE SYSTEM!

I'm a lines man for a certain phone company and I don't believe in land lines. DSL, that's another story.

Telus has been great to me both plan and customer service wise. Before them I was with Mike but same company so....and before that I was with Bell, no comment.

Well, here's my problem...

I signed up for Telus on a 3yr term w/ a BB Curve 8330...
This occurred back in August!

3 months later, 3g+
4 months later, WIND Mobile

I called and threatened to cancel, they claim they cannot offer me so much as free Caller ID because I have not "invested into the contract". No phone upgrade/credit, no discounted monthly rate, no free features (vmail, etc.)... NO INCENTIVES.
But they did kindly offer me the big wooden un-lubed dild0 with a $640.00 cancellation fee.

Just for reference purposes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$45.00 rate plan - 3 yr term
150minutes + 50 bonus
Unlimited evenings & weekends
Unlimited txt messaging
500mb Data Usage (plus per MB charge for tethering)
$7.00 for Caller ID
Because its something that you cannot do without when you're charged for incoming calls and is essential now-a-days)
$7.70 combined for 911 + System access Fee

For a complete total of $67.47 including taxes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With WIND:
$15.00
150minutes nationwide
50 text messages
caller id and all features
$5.00 for Unlimited Text Messaging
(not even necessary for my uses thanks to BBM/MSN/etc.)
$35.00 for Unlimited Internet (INCLUDING TETHERING)

For a complete total of $62.15 including taxes

Matthew - what you're probably missing is that Telus subsidized the cost of your BlackBerry, giving it to you for a few hundred bucks off retail and then making it back from you over the term of the contract. It sounds like WIND won't do that. They'll charge full price for the phone up front. If you factored that in, you'd probably see the prices are closer than you think.

But even if the prices are identical, at least with WIND you have the flexibility to leave whenever you want!

...and for those that think there's no way they'll get bought out, Fido started out with their own network and a very similar philosophy. There were bought by Rogers pretty quickly.

The provider should be forced to unlock your phone if they charge a cancellation fee. Then you can sell it and get some of your money back.
If they're getting the subsidy back, it only makes sense that the phone should be 100% yours to do with what you will.
Of course this idea doesn't make the providers any extra $$ so you can forget about it!

I agree. I understand that the phone probably cost them upwards of 5-600 dollars (I think it was on sale for 50 or so)...

Even if you take subsidy into account, WIND is still cheaper in the long run.

I understand this but its a major piss off...

One thing that sucks about Wind phones are you cant use 3G unless you on their network or T-Mobile.

So even though your not on a contract and unlocked the phone, your very limited to wherever you can use their phone.

Its funny how, Rogers has dropped their BB 9700 to $0.99 now. So whoever wants to upgrade to one, better get them fast before Jan 18 '10.

Is that a corporate plan? I remember you showing me your N95... are you using the WAP portal or the actual internet portal?

If its the latter, thats a great plan. Better than mine.

Have you guys thought about saving money and just using your phone as, um, you know, a phone?

You phone plans cost almost as much as my car insurance!!

Shhh they're paying for it now so we get it cheap later

Hey Joe,

No corporate plan, but I've basically had the same plan for about 8 years now. I haven't even had to call retentions and threaten to leave although I'm sure if I did, I could shave another 10% of that.

Full internet usage through GoRogers - I don't even know what a WAP portal is, haha.

I couldn't go without having internet and gps on my phone now.

WAP portal is an internet access to dumbphones. Smartphones usually uses http://internet.com.

Anyhow...

Try calling retentions. Saved myself an additional $25+ month. I told them i wanted to move from Fido to Rogers since my work has a corporate plan. Fido retentions offered me more and saved myself $$$.

Old Plan:

$30 400 Urban Toronto/Unlmtd incoming
$5 Expanded network
$30 6 GB data package
$10 Unlmtd text
$7 CID
$6.95 SAF
$0.50
$x.xx LD charges
----------
$89.45 + LD charges (if any) + tax + 2nd line


Retention plan:

$30 250 mins/Unlmtd E/WE/Unlmtd incoming
100 mins LD Canada
Free unlmtd txt for 2 years
No SAF, 911
$30 6 GB data package
--------
$60 + tax + 2nd line