Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

[geologyking]

I realize we've all been punched in the gut recently by PM's move to either drastically decrease service or to drastically raise prices--what can we do as a community to fight back?

I have made an online complaint to the CCTS(https://www.ccts-cprst.ca/) and although what PM has done here is outside of the CCTS's mandate, my complaint was accepted online and I encourage all of you to make do the same.  Let them know in no uncertain terms that the Canadian consumer needs protection from predatory pricing behaviour.

Apart from CCTS, what else can we do?  I'm happy to play my part.

[ckl]

Oh wow! I've been away for a while and when I come back, this happens! Not impressed.

In the competition front, Freedom Mobile has acquired the 700Mhz spectrum from Videotron. So maybe competition might heat up when they start to deploy it in the near future.

[kav2001c]

@mimmo  oh I agree I think 3G is just silly option and introduces more complexity to end user signing up (its not like portal to activate is working perfectly now, so why add these options)

A far better solution would be doing something like what Chatr has; once your 4G data is used up THEN throttle you down to slower speeds

[SD08]

---

@kav2001c wrote:

@SD08 & @geologyking see this is part of the issue

You guys being newbies do not seem to realize the $120 6GB plan was actually a special discount Public introduced during the summer

Here is announcement thread:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Announcements/Big-News-We-just-launched-even-better-r...

---

Yes, I've seen that post before, but it does not say the $40/month for 2 GB was a sale or limited time promotion, only that it was new pricing. With that announcement, the $40/month for 2 GB became the regular price for that package, regardless of what the price was before that. In fact, that price lasted for nearly a year, so it was clearly not a sale or promo price.  If you want to refer back to older prices as a history lesson, that's fine, but it won't change the fact that the $120 for 6 GB was the regular price that was in place for the last year.

Anyway, my point in my previous two posts was simply to correct the the stated numbers and the resulting percentages, not to debate the merits of the changes. You were correcting @geologyking's math, and I simply corrected the numbers which you based your revised percentage upon. That is, the regular price before the change was $120 per 90 days and the new price is $180, not $126 and $150 respectively, as you had originally stated. That's all I intended.

Cheers  

[mimmo]

I will still help out anyone in the forums.

If pm has another great promo no problems refering people. But as it stands now the lte prices pm is offering are not competitive for what pm offers.

The 3g not sure i can reccomend atm without any real world spees examples. I disabled lte on my phone and was still getting 5mbs. It was usable. But it was not 2.5

[jpar]

The community members here are PM's best ambassadors so I really hope we are not alienated with price increases on existing, grandfathered plans..

[geologyking]

@kav2001c  Having read through the post that you linked, the new(at the time) plans were not being advertised as promotional plans but as "new plan options", i.e., they are integrated plans not limited in time or scope.  An example of a promotional plan would be what PM offered FM clients just a few weeks ago where the promotion has a discount rate available for a limited time.

The new standard plan for Provincial Talk+Text+2Gb/month over 90 days became 120$.  

The new price for that same plan is, as of last week, 180$--that is a 50% increase.

We need to compare apples to apples--not 4G to 3G, and not promotional plans to regular plans.  PM has massively increased the rates for their regular 4G plans over their former baseline rates.

[kav2001c]

@SD08 & @geologyking see this is part of the issue

You guys being newbies do not seem to realize the $120 6GB plan was actually a special discount Public introduced during the summer

Here is announcement thread:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Announcements/Big-News-We-just-launched-even-better-r...

You can even see the second response from Jonavin the original plan showed $165 for 4GB of data & right after that ute crowing about how great the discount is

The issue at hand here is Public had a certain price structure

They launched a 6GB promo during summer that brings in alot of new clients

Then the doubled down and launched a 12GB promo during fall that was even better (and reintroduced it last month for Wind only clients)

Now promos are all over prices are essentially right back where they started 

So no there has not been any kind of huge price increase

You are comparing promotional / bonus / discount plans against the regular pricing

$120 for 90 days with 4GB of data (June 2016)

That is the "regular" price that Public had in place

You also have to kind of smile at the multiple posts about how those new plans were "too expensive" and "hinder their ability to make refer" since the 1GB option was dropped

This is a cycle it happens every year

Promos be back soon like clockwork

[geologyking]

@SD08  Went to bed--thank you for supporting my numbers.  I am looking at exactly the same data you are and eyeballing the different plans, it looks like plans are up over the 40% across the LTE board.

The one thing that hasn't changed, is how clearly PM presents their price plans--it's odd that some users are arguing that massive percentage increases aren't happening...

[pulp74]

Public mobile prices not competitive anymore. Take in consideration that customers don't have customer service call center there is no chance anyone will sign up now. I hope they will reverse their plan pricing.

[SD08]

---

@kav2001c wrote:

Your math seems off though; 40% increases on Public?

Old plan (just last month) was $120 for 90 days, Province Wide calling + 6 GB of data (LTE)

Today same plan is $150

(To have a 40% increase the cost would need to be $120 x 1.4 = $168 per cycle)

*edit corrected plan total

---

---

@kav2001c wrote:

 Even at $120 x 1.4 = $168 either way it is NOT a "40%" increase

Although I think you are correct on plan total 

The promo point is moot because we all know that Public (like every other carrier) will introduce new promos on new plans in the future

---

My point was not the promos, it was that the regular price for 90-day prov. talk + global text + 6 GB LTE data was hiked from $120 to $180, not just $150.  That's actually even higher than the 40% increase @geologyking mentioned.  Where are you seeing the $150 that you mentioned?  I just checked again and it's $180 both on the PM plans page and in the self-serve account plan selector:

[kav2001c]

@SD08 Even at $120 x 1.4 = $168 either way it is NOT a "40%" increase

Although I think you are correct on plan total 

The promo point is moot because we all know that Public (like every other carrier) will introduce new promos on new plans in the future

Most of the current subs came onboard to get the 12GB promo (regular price at the time was $186 before extra discount)

[SD08]

---

@kav2001c wrote:

Your math seems off though; 40% increases on Public?

Old plan (just last month) was $126 for 90 days, Province Wide calling + 6 GB of data (LTE)

Today same plan is $150

(To have a 40% increase the cost would need to be $126 x 1.4 = $177 per month)

---

Actually, the go-to regular price plan we were usually recommending people go on while they wait for promos was the 90-day province-wide talk, global texting, and 6 GB LTE data for $120 before the changes.  I remember this quite clearly because it was exactly half the data of the Fall 2016 promo for the same price, and it was also the base plan that the recent Freedom-targeted promo added the bonus 6GB on top of.  Now, that same plan, according to the PM plans page, is $180 for 90 days, which actually equals a 50% increase.

[kav2001c]

@Luddite the Zoomer plan is a promo and it is over end of month

PC Mobile has been awful for as long as I can remember ($46 per month for talk & text???)

---

@Luddite wrote:

Unfortunately I think we can expect to see Zoomer and PCMobile rising soon. After all, they "purchase" from Rogers and Bell/Telus! The wholesale prices eventually move once contract periods end.

---

[kav2001c]

@geologyking seriously?

Like all of them...

I will throw Chatr & Freedom out as obvious examples since they are the ones that Public competes mainly against. But even look at Koodo & Fido and the huge increases they have had recently.

Your math seems off though; 40% increases on Public?

Old plan (just last month) was $120 for 90 days, Province Wide calling + 6 GB of data (LTE)

Today same plan is $150

(To have a 40% increase the cost would need to be $120 x 1.4 = $168 per cycle)

*edit corrected plan total

[mimmo]

I dont see PM as being on a life line, but simply telus is atempting to "compete" with rogers on a brand to brand basis. Telus vs rogers, koodo vs fido, pm vs chatr. As long as chater exists i think so will PM.

Will they encourage lte users to switch to koodo probably, when who knows.

Lets enjoy our plans while we can and hope voip services get better when we decide to switch.

[shawnie_boy]

PM will change grandfathered plans when They are ready to shut down operations and get rid of PM. At that time they will probably entice people to switch to Koodo at a fairly low rate. The future of PM is now very uncertain and just joined. Geez

[Mana]

Agree with @will13am that if the price of grandfather plans were to increase, it would be the end of things for most people here. 

[Luddite]

Unfortunately I think we can expect to see Zoomer and PCMobile rising soon. After all, they "purchase" from Rogers and Bell/Telus! The wholesale prices eventually move once contract periods end.

[mimmo]

All i know is if anyone asks me for a reccomendation zoomer has my current vote. They have a good promo atm, 50$ referal credit, and a good renention plan i believe almost on par as the 40$ 4gb plan

[geologyking]

@905289 Contacting the CCTS may ultimately be futile, but letting them know in numbers that consumers are unhappy is better than them sitting in their offices unaware that a problem exists.

As the complaint in this case falls outside of their mandate, there was a popup that my complaint would be shared with the CRTC--a group that does have the teeth(if they choose to bite).  The more complaints made, hopefully the greater push to overcome inertia at the CRTC. Ultimately, letting something like this slide, is tacit approval for other carriers to make massive overnight increases in their plans.

As for the forum, I agree it is a great place to make discontent known.  Before I moved over to PM, I spent a lot of time here and it was people's happiness, enthusiasm and helpful manner that, along with plan prices, made the switch a no brainer.

[905289]

Filing a telecommunciation complaint is easy. The fact that someone took the 5 minutes to compelete the online form is not really resistance. The complaints are quietly reviewed by the commission and providers. The complaining party usually receives a phone call back offering some minor hush money in the form of account credits. I did this to Bell over what I considered scetchy advertising and they gave me two months free. It will be interesting to hear back as to how PM answered the complaint since ironically using a phone for customer service is part of their business model. 

Resistance to me is people on the forum ranting and refusing to make referals. Since PM doesn't widely advertise, it's the horrible word of mouth which will either create change or make Telus decide to kill the brand.

[geologyking]

@kav2001c These increases aren't small or even medium sized--for the same level of service, prices went up overnight 40% or more.  It's in the best interests of consumers that the CRTC protect us from predatory pricing.  I have no idea whether the CRTC would/will intervene in this case, but this move by PM sets quite the precedent.  Can anyone recall any carrier raising plan prices over 40% overnight at any time in the past?  

[kav2001c]

@geologyking beyond media attention there really is not much you can do here

Public Mobile is free to set prices to what they think the market will bear

Even on existing lines they can give notice and increase your monthly charges

Just curious as to reasoning behind the start a movement

It's not like any carrier anywhere has ever gotten cheaper

[geologyking]

@xCameron94x  It's nice that our plans are grandfathered, but it would be naive to think given what's happened over the past few days that PM(or Telus really) doesn't have more structural changes coming and our time will come next.

[geologyking]

@will13am Exactly!  It's worth keeping in mind too that we are not talking here about an increase of a few dollars a month for the same level of service--new customers will be seeing increases of 40+% for the same level of service and all of those increase happening, effectively, overnight.

[geologyking]

@Luddite The problem is that our consumer choices are very limited.  We can go to the Big 3 and their B brands and end up paying even more, go to FM but deal with spotty reception or deal with one of the smaller 3rd party resellers and give up level of service/options.  All of this while most of the rest of the world accesses much more than we can get considerably cheaper.

[will13am]

---

@Luddite wrote:

The best "resistance" is to:

a) leave and do no business with Telus brands, and 

b) convince others to leave or not join.

Expect tough sledding though since PM's pricing is still generally lower than the competition.  

Good luck.

---

I respectfully disagree, their current pricing is not competitive.  You have compare apples to apples.  This company still have no physical stores, no call centre, no hardware offerings, no retention system.  As long as they don't touch my plan pricing, I will stay but any provocation will result in a show of disloyalty. 

[xCameron94x]

unless they slowly start to increase their prices on the grandfathered plans, or through some magic one of the smaller 3 have a hot promo. Hoping they dont raise the prices because my one year is coming up in November 

[Luddite]

The best "resistance" is to:

a) leave and do no business with Telus brands, and 

b) convince others to leave or not join.

Expect tough sledding though since PM's pricing is still generally lower than the competition.  

Good luck.