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IPad MIni with Sim

Shaidah
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Up until yesterday, my spouse and I shared a telus plan since 2011. He has a cell phone with unlimited talk/txt and I have a sim card enabled ipad mini.  We shared 1 gig of data between the 2 of us and rarely ever went over the 1 gig, unless were out of town. Our plan was $84 (incl) taxes.

I can't believe how long it took us to learn about Public Mobile. After a week of comparing plans to our current plan we decided that we should make the change. First we started with calling telus to see if they would reduce our rates. They were surprised with how good our plan was and there wasn't much they could do. But they did knock $5 off and give us another 0.5gig of data.  Looking at the numbers again, PM would still save us money, plus the potential to reduce our bill through referrals, auto pay, community involvement, we made the switch over.  

We found someone who could refer us and he also gave us 2 sim cards. Great for him as he got $50 from us in referral bonus, and the sims only cost him $20 (if he paid retail price).

I set myself up first with my ipad first. Now I am not a cellphone person but I decided to go through the steps online. Filled out the form, put in sim card number,  referral number, and paid for the data only plan which includes 1.5gig data for $30. I didn't have a phone number to transfer so it was quite easy. I then took apart my case and removed my nano telus sim and set it aside, and put in the new sim.  After turning the ipad on and off a few times, the data was not working.  So i did a bit of reading. After 2 minutes I found that I needed to change the APN Settings (this can be found in Settings/Cellular Data/ APN Settings and changed it to sp.mb.com).  Easy peasy. Nothing else needed changing at all. Turned the ipad off and on, and BAM- I have data!

Next my spouse set up his plan. I tried to have him use my referral number so I would get the bonus and monthly referral pay, but he is a good honest person (which makes me want to be a better person) and he used the referral number that came with the free sim. He set up his phone with no issues at all.  

My plan of data only is $30 and my spouse's plan of talk/text and data is also $30, bringing us to $60, minus $4 for autopay, brings it to $56, plus tax, so we are at $62.75 which is over $20 savings from telus (or ~$15 from our reduced telus bill). Instead of sharing a gig of data, I have 1 gig, and he has 1.5 gig.  

If you have been thinking about making the switch, and ran the numbers, and if it financially makes sense, then what is holding you back? Do the math, numbers don't lie!

13 REPLIES 13

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

I have a similar situation ( had telus data plan) and did what you suggested and more but my iPad now only temporarily connects by PM data then disconnects. It does work fine on WiFi and by hot spot. I did reset the iPad to factory settings but under the data preferences it still shows a link to Telus. Does your iPad also show a link to Telus ?

 

@Shaidah, you can set it up right now, by going into 'My Account' and clicking on the 'Change my Plan' button.

 

Be careful - there is an option for immediate change, and one for 'On my next renewal'.

 

 

Shaidah
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@ShawnC13 

I am assuming I can switch to that next 30day cycle?  Same for my husband, he doens't use talk/text much but uses data.  That would knock down our bill even more.

Thank you for suggesting this option!

 

I like this community PM has created. I was hesitant to post but so glad I did.


@Shaidah wrote:

@ShawnC13 

Hmm, thats an interesting idea. Would that work with my Ipad mini since I can't have a talk/text plan with it?  Maybe I will change that over for next month. Thanks for the suggestion!


The talk and text is only associated to the sim/plan and if your device can't provide that the sim doesn't care it is provisioned in the plan.  You only want the data add-on anyway and this would be a way to lower the overall cost if you are really using that little amount of data each 30 days.

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *

Shaidah
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@ShawnC13 

Hmm, thats an interesting idea. Would that work with my Ipad mini since I can't have a talk/text plan with it?  Maybe I will change that over for next month. Thanks for the suggestion!

@ShawnC13, ah yes, I see that the plan purchased in this case is the LTE plan.  There is a $20 3G speed option available for fewer data.

 

There is also the plan builder, but I bet those choices would be more expensive.


@Shaidah wrote:

As for data speed- not sure. I never noticed it slow before and today is the first full day and thought it was fine. My data usages in a month were around 200-300mb and I only use the data for sending msgs or loading websites. I don't think I am the right person to answer the data speed question. I have never used data to stream videos, or music. I alway pre-download my podcasts on wifi so I have a few ready to go.  With a whole gig of data, I feel like it is more than enough to see everything on the internet twice 🙂 Maybe not, but I can't imagine going over the 1 gig, especially as I am often in wifi areas.


@Shaidah, if your data usage is that low have you considered getting the $10 plan I know you don't need texting or phone but then you could just purchase a data addon for $30 for 1GB that doesn't expire.  You would pay your $8 with autopay monthly and with your estimated data usage only need to purchase a data addon ever 3-4 months.  Your current plan is $74 for 90 days with autopay.  If you get the $10 plan and have to purchase a data addon every 90 days you would pay $54 and if you needed more data sooner you would still be saving money instead of not using anywhere form 70-80% of the data in a 30 day plan.

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *

Shaidah
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

As for data speed- not sure. I never noticed it slow before and today is the first full day and thought it was fine. My data usages in a month were around 200-300mb and I only use the data for sending msgs or loading websites. I don't think I am the right person to answer the data speed question. I have never used data to stream videos, or music. I alway pre-download my podcasts on wifi so I have a few ready to go.  With a whole gig of data, I feel like it is more than enough to see everything on the internet twice 🙂 Maybe not, but I can't imagine going over the 1 gig, especially as I am often in wifi areas.


@stonechucker wrote:

@Shaidah, I've been thinking about doing this with an old cell phone, just to have a data plan on it.  Are you finding your speeds comfortable for your usage?


Data only would be the full unthrottled LTE

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *


@Shaidah wrote:

Thanks for your comment. I was feeling like a terrible person for posting that to the world that my husband should have used me as the referral. But we need good honest people to help us be better people 🙂

 

Also a correction to my post above, I have 1gig data for $30 (not 1.5gig).  


No need to feel bad.  I had some extra sims and I gave them to a friend of mine I referred him and then he the other two lines he added were referred through out his family.

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *

@Shaidah, I've been thinking about doing this with an old cell phone, just to have a data plan on it.  Are you finding your speeds comfortable for your usage?

Shaidah
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thanks for your comment. I was feeling like a terrible person for posting that to the world that my husband should have used me as the referral. But we need good honest people to help us be better people 🙂

 

Also a correction to my post above, I have 1gig data for $30 (not 1.5gig).  

ShawnC13
Oracle
Oracle

@Shaidah, great to hear that you are enjoying PM and it is saving you money.  My wife and I were ona similar thing 2 years ago with Rogers.  We paid $110 and sharded 2.5 gb of data.  We moved to PM during the fall 2016 promo which was 12gb/90 days for $120 each.  So we both had 4gb a data a month instaed of sharing 2.5 and were saving $30 a month.  My wife have since moved on with one of the great Koodo migration offers but I am still here and have lowered my bill even more and pay way less.  The reward options and loyalty credits are a great feature!!  

 

PS I also think your husband should have used you as a referral.  I understand the person gave you 2 sims but they did make their money back plus some lol!!

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *

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