Extended: We’ve Expanded Our Offerings: Introducing 3G Speed + BONUS Data

[Jeremy_M]

Hey Community!

We’re happy to announce that we’ve added 3G data options to our offerings in order to give you more choice. Our vision has always been to do wireless differently and that translates into our commitment to always offer you the most choice and flexibility in your plans.

You’ll now be able to build plans with either 3G or 4G LTE data speeds on Canada’s largest mobile network.

Along with launching new 3G data options, we're offering you bonus 3G data for a limited time when you activate on a 90-day plan. During this promotional period, we're featuring three amazing plans:

Length	Talk	Text	Data at 3G Speed**	Price
90-Day Plan	Unlimited Province-Wide Talk	Unlimited Global Text	12GB + 6GB Bonus Data = 6GB / 30 days	$150 = $50 / 30 days*
90-Day Plan	Unlimited Province-Wide Talk	Unlimited Global Text	6GB + 6GB Bonus Data = 4GB / 30 days	$129 = $43 / 30 days*
90-Day Plan	Unlimited Province-Wide Talk	Unlimited Global Text	3GB + 3GB Bonus Data = 2GB / 30 days	$120 = $40 / 30 days*

 *Prices include $2 Reward per 30 days when you register with AutoPay on a 90-day plan.

There are plenty more plan options to explore, so feel free to play around with the new calculator to find a combination that’s right for you!

Interested? Here’s how to score one of these deals.

First, you’ll need a SIM card. You can order one here or visit a participating Walmart or WOW! mobile boutique to purchase. Once you have your SIM card in hand, follow these easy steps:

1.    Activate your SIM card here.
2.    After you’ve entered your information and selected a phone number or ported over your number from another provider, you’ll be prompted to choose a plan. Select the following combination to score one of our limited time offers:

•     90-day pass
•     Unlimited Province-Wide Talk
•     Unlimited Global Text
•     Your desired data allotment:

○     3 + 3GB BONUS at 3G Speed /90 days = 2GB / 30 days

○     6 + 6GB BONUS at 3G Speed /90 days = 4GB / 30 days

○     12 + 6GB BONUS at 3G Speed /90 days = 6GB / 30 days

3.    Select your payment method (don’t forget to sign up for AutoPay to receive the $2 Reward / 30 days) and finalize the rest of the activation process.

Things to know

•     This promotional bonus data offer is only for a limited time.
•     Once an end date is communicated, it is the last day you can activate on our promotional plans. The promotion will not be honoured after the communicated end date for any SIM cards that have not been activated by the deadline. This includes SIM cards that have been purchased online and have not yet arrived or been activated.

What’s the difference between 3G and 4G LTE?** Good question.

3G is a great option if you mostly use data to check Facebook, respond to emails or browse the web, but you may experience a slight reduction in picture quality and some buffering when viewing videos. 4G LTE is our fastest data option. If you’re looking to do all the above, plus stream HD videos and consume dynamic content, like Snapchat or Instagram stories, without compromising on image quality or a seamless video experience, 4G LTE is our recommended data speed for you!

Check out this video below to better visualize the difference:

**Plans with 4G LTE data can access maximum LTE download speeds (manufacturer rated at up to 750 Mbps; expected average speeds 12-200 Mbps). Plans with 3G data may reach download speeds of up to 3 Mbps, with the coverage and reliability of the LTE network. Speed and signal strength may vary with your device, configuration, Internet traffic, environmental conditions, applicable network management and other factors. For a description of Public Mobile’s network management practices, please see https://www.publicmobile.ca/pdfs/Wireless_Video_Experience_Optimization.pdf. Compatible device required.

Are you a current Public Mobile customer?

If you’re already a customer (joined prior to the 3G launch), this change will not affect your current plan. Looking to change your current plan? No problem - use the Self Serve portal to make plan changes for your next renewal date, but keep in mind: once changes have been made, you will not be able to switch back to your current plan at a later date if it’s no longer available. View our Service Terms for more details.

You’ll also notice that we have removed and grandfathered the 10-day plan. We did this in order to refocus our resources and stay focused on what our customers want.

Public Mobile Community Team

[Michael77]

Hi Public Mobile,

Please fix the glitches in your system. I personally would be affraid to switch plans or even change my credit card just because of the errors. There may be others who want to switch but don't want the headaches that go with it.

[will13am]

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@tincase wrote:
So I set one of my kids accounts to change to a new plan but the account page shows account suspended even though the available funds are enough   ThIs is for 647 *** **** is the changeover for this plan going to work. 

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@tincase, off topic, what was your previous plan and for what reason did you change to the new plans.  I hope it was not due to the grandfathered plan showing expired possibly suggesting to you that it won't be available on renewal.  I hate to see you do a needless switch and end up paying more for less service.

[Rockdaddy22]

Please don't worry, everything will be fine later in the morning. It's the normal process of plan renewal.

I edited your post post to remove personal information.

[tincase]

So I set one of my kids accounts to change to a new plan but the account page shows account suspended even though the available funds are enough   ThIs is for 647 *** **** is the changeover for this plan going to work. 

[srlawren]

@sheytoon thanks for the clarification. I was just going off of what Jeremy had said.  I can definitely confirm 400Kbps appears to be the cap on the "3G" data plans.  Maybe this ratio only applies to these "3G" plans, then.

[danielj]

We “now be able to build plans with either 3G or 4G LTE data speeds on Canada’s largest mobile network” but at the same time the 3G price is what the 4G LTE use to be and the reduced the 1GB option for three months and the option to get plans for ten days. Overall making new customers pay the same or more for potential less and reducing more affordable options and only give new more expensive options. Public Mobile should bring back the more affordable options. Don't make us pay more for less.

[sheytoon]

@srlawren, that's not right.

There's is no standard ratio for unthrottled LTE. It all depends on CA and modulation capability of a person's phone.

Max right now is 750 Mbps DL and 75 Mbps UL. In this case, the ratio is 10.

For an older phone with no CA, it would be 150 Mbps DL and 51 Mbps UL.

For some indoor sites, it's equal: 55 Mbps for both DL and UL.

[srlawren]

@NDesai @Rockdaddy22 it was hard to catch what he said, but after a moment I realized Jeremy said it's the same RATIO of download to upload on the "3G" plans as it is on the full speed LTE plans, and he also mentioned a figure of 400Kbps upload cap.  So it's limited to 2.5Mbps download and 0.4Mbps upload.  From this, we can deduce that the ratio is 6.25.  In other words, 6.25 x 0.4Mbps = 2.5Mbps, and 2.5Mbps / 6.25 = 0.4Mbps.  I suspect if we looked at full LTE plan speed tests, we could expect to see, on average, that same 6.26 factor between the two directions.

[NDesai]

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@Rockdaddy22 wrote:
@NDesai I don't believe the upload speeds are supposed to be at 2.5. I think Jeremy mentioned that they use the same ratio for upload/download on LTE

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Yes, same ratio and i figured that is 2.5 for download and also the same on upload. May be i am mistaken. @srlawren might know. 

[Rockdaddy22]

@NDesai I don't believe the upload speeds are supposed to be at 2.5. I think Jeremy mentioned that they use the same ratio for upload/download on LTE

[NDesai]

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@sheytoon wrote:
@NDesai
Thanks for this, the user experience seems to be decent. I'm a bit concerned with the upload speeds. Why are they so low on the speed tests? Have you tried uploading any videos and/or pictures?

How about Skype / FaceTime / Hangouts video calls? Facebook Live? Sending videos with WhatsApp or sending multiple pictures with MMS? Sending large attachments by email?

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Yes, i have tried uploading videos on Whatsapp, and due to that limited upload speed, its really slow. File with 10MB size took about 5 mins to upload as the speed is about 35KB/s (horrible ). I did not try, but video and audio chat seems to be working ok as per @Rockdaddy22.

PM is aware of this slow upload speed and according to them, upload speed is also suppose to be 2.5mbps. They are currently working on the fix. 

[Luddite]

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@sheytoon wrote:
@NDesai
Thanks for this, the user experience seems to be decent. I'm a bit concerned with the upload speeds. Why are they so low on the speed tests? Have you tried uploading any videos and/or pictures?

How about Skype / FaceTime / Hangouts video calls? Facebook Live? Sending videos with WhatsApp or sending multiple pictures with MMS? Sending large attachments by email?

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@sheytoon Yes, upload speeds were that slow and MMS, etc. is slow to go. The streaming sites I tested were a bit slower at start up but ran without problem after that.

[zhadj030]

@NDesai thank you for the great video, while I still do have reservations about limiting it to just 2.5 Mbps , I truely do hope they don't touch the 3G (real 3G). Despite the annoying throttle I see that the ping is great which is great for snappier response time for loading sites, still it would be terrible if trying to download or upload anything.

[NDesai]

@torontokris If I turn off LTE, I would get the real 3G speed (5-10mbps), but that is just for now. Soon PM will be throttling the speed to 2.5mbps on 3g (LTE off) as well.

[Rockdaddy22]

I figured he couldn't possibly be talking about an oracle. I guess his assumption was wrong then. Lol

Of course we've been testing the new 3G 🙂

[WearySky]

@Rockdaddy22 presumably @NDesai, based on the tethering comment.

[Rockdaddy22]

Not sure who you're talking about. @torontokiss

[torontokris]

I am assuming you were using an LTE plan with LTE turned off to get 3G (not actually on one of the new plans)?

Note the 3G being discussed with the new plans IS speed limited. If you just turn off LTE (from an LTE plan) you still get a reasonable 3G speed 3-8mbps. The new plan's 3G is slower.

Why didnt you shut off LTE and run the test direct from your phone as well (instead of tethering) to be more consistant/comparable?

[smp99]

Thanks for that video.

You know, this could have been a win for PM or at least not such a huge fail (fail in the sense of this community board). If they were going to increase LTE prices and introduce 3G data plans, they could have been made it much more palitable.

If you just look at the previous most popular ProvWide/Text/6GB for $120 (promos aside). If they were to increase that to $140 (still significant) but at the same time introduced 3G plans with same components for $100 or even $110, I think most would have been ok with that.

[kav2001c]

@will13am & @srlawren

Haha funny this came out just after we were discussing it here

Freedom Mobile is *BUSTED*

They violated net neutrality by limiting speeds to popular sites like Youtube where the much vaunted new LTE network maxxed out at about 750K

They claim it was a "video optimization bug" (eg same thing T-Mobile does, forces people to watch lower res videos at slower speeds)

[Rockdaddy22]

I've been test FaceTime and FaceTime audio without issue. @sheytoon

[sheytoon]

@NDesai
Thanks for this, the user experience seems to be decent. I'm a bit concerned with the upload speeds. Why are they so low on the speed tests? Have you tried uploading any videos and/or pictures?

How about Skype / FaceTime / Hangouts video calls? Facebook Live? Sending videos with WhatsApp or sending multiple pictures with MMS? Sending large attachments by email?

[NDesai]

Here is the video i made that demonstrates the new 3G on Public Mobile. Tested on my nexus 5 and on my pc (tethered from 3G sim). First it demonstrates a few websites and then YouTube videos. Hope this will help anyone with wonders about 3G speed. 

[will13am]

These LTE plans at throttled 3G speeds are like Freedom's LTE, except Public Mobile is up front about the bandwidth management whereas Freedom pretended they didn't know any better until they were exposed.

https://mobilesyrup.com/2017/07/25/freedom-says-streaming-video-slowdowns-on-lte-are-due-to-3g-optim...

[Fooforon]

These new plans are very disappointing I purchased two Sim cards about a month ago in preperation to switch over from my big 3 contract. Which is up at up at the end of this month. I now will be looking else where for a new cell phone provider.

If the plans revert back, message me as I will be happy to sign up.

[will13am]

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@kav2001c wrote:

@will13am violates net neutrality? How?

No need for a lawyer

If Public throttles Website A but allows LTE access to Website B they violate net neutrality

If Public offers Plan C at 3G speeds and Plan D at LTE speeds where is the conflict???

(By that argument Rogers or Freedom selling older devices that can not access LTE networks would be wrong as well)

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Slowing the speed down to 2.5 mbits sure can sully the experience for certain net activities. 

[kav2001c]

@srlawren actually I forgot about home internet speeds so your long winded post still had merit 

But yeah net neutrality is to discriminate against one type of data (protocol, website, provider etc) so Public offering 3G plans is not a violation

*disclaimer - this does not mean I support the theory of net neutrality, I think it is silly brands are not allowed to offer exclusive content to differentiate themselves in the market (BellTV, Illico, or any of the other brands)

[srlawren]

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@will13am wrote:

I am wondering out loud here, does this intentional throttling of data speed constitute some sort of violation of net neutrality?  Any lawyers out there able to concoct a rationale for why it may be?

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@will13am interesting question!  My personal thought is that, because it is service-agnostic and applied across the board, it is probably not an issue.  It's not like the plan is you get Netflix at full speed and everything else at the throttled speed.  Or like you get unlimited, unmetered YouTube but everything else counts towards your data bucket.

The other thing to think about is home internet services.  Most providers there offer up a variety of different plans ranging from slow to fairly quick to holy-cow-hang-on-to-your-hat fibre speeds with varying amounts of data for varying prices--and those are considered okay under net neutrality.  I don't *believe* PM offering up a different max speed at a lower price than the faster speeds is any different, to the best of my reasoning anyway.

But it is, none-the-less, an interesting question to consider.  Thanks for brinigng it up for disucssion.

EDIT: I think @kav2001c and I were typing at the same time, and thinking along the same lines.  I may have just been too verbose so he beat me to the "Post" button.  😉

[kav2001c]

@will13am violates net neutrality? How?

No need for a lawyer

If Public throttles Website A but allows LTE access to Website B they violate net neutrality

If Public offers Plan C at 3G speeds and Plan D at LTE speeds where is the conflict???

(By that argument Rogers or Freedom selling older devices that can not access LTE networks would be wrong as well)

[will13am]

I am wondering out loud here, does this intentional throttling of data speed constitute some sort of violation of net neutrality?  Any lawyers out there able to concoct a rationale for why it may be?