Are zone plans coming to this service?

[will13am]

With the cellular landscape being so non competitive in this country, carries don't necessarily try to offer a superior product to their competitors.  It's more important to the bottom line to not "rock the boat".  Both Rogers and Bell have a zoned 3G service.  Why shouldn't Telus do the same?  I sense this is the master plan.  The $10 increase that was recently introduced and then removed is a first step to charge more for plans that have country wide coverage and LTE data speed.  Looking at the Lucky Mobile offerings, $10 is the price gap on the country wide plans. Of course, Lucky Mobile doesn't offer LTE data speeds.  

What a great country we live in!  In other justifications around the world, providers are looking to expand coverage and improve data speeds.  Here, we see a retrograde back to last century all in the name of monopoly competition, else described as don't rock the boat.

Anyone else have thoughts or suggestions on this topic?   Keep an eye on the migration deadline while thinking.  To be comfortable is to be complacent at the same time.

[Korth]

Increasing ARPUs and signups for 4G service is a good way to generate the capital and subscriber data demands they'll need for 5G overhaul, lol.  Telus is already leading the race with some 5G pilot runs, but I don't seriously expect widespread 5G coverage to start appearing before late 2019 ... and I do seriously expect it will be heralded with a big shakeup on existing plans and promos to lock as many customers as possible into a last wave of 4G-based service (and 4G-based devices) paid over 2-year Tabs/contracts.

[kav2001c]

@srlawren exactly 

Look over at Chatr; many people still on old plans (I have one) but new offerings quite frankly suck 

They simply stopped selling good plans and only offer in market junk plans now

[srlawren]

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@NDesaiwrote:

I don't think that is going to happen. They tried to move all pioneer customers to koodo or upgrade their plans to new PM plans simply to eliminate the cost for a physical call center. Guess what, there are still some customers on legacy plans. Now they are trying to move some LTE plans (not all yet) to koodo. But again, not everyone is going to move. It means just getting rid on LTE is not going to happen so sudden. 

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@NDesai Just because not every current non-zoned and/or LTE plan holders will take the migration to Koodo does not imply they could not deprecate LTE and/or add in zones.  They don't have to get rid of LTE, they just have to stop offering it as an option for people activating or making a plan change. They could quite simply replace all the current in-market plan offerings with ones that were either throttled "3G" speeds, or zoned, or both, and grandfather current planholders that have not already migrated.  We've seen them overhaul the plan offerings at least two previously and grandfather all planholders at that time, so I don't see why this is any different.  There is nothing to stop them from doing this should they decide it's the direction they want to take with the brand.  Given how Chatr and Lucky are run and Telus's recent push to move many of us up the value chain, I would be more surprised if this change doesn't happen in the next 12-18 months than if it does, IMHO.  Just my two cents, take it for what it's worth.  🙂

[torontokris]

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@will13amwrote:

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It is very confusing.  From what I can tell, the plans with included data are yellow zone plans.  Those without are green zone plans.  Green zone plans allow for data add-on purchase.  When you look at all the restrictions, it is almost laughable that this brand just started business.  People have to be crazy to use that service, especially when the prices are terrible just like the rest of the competition.

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I agree they made it very confusing. When im inot cel phone plans and I have to look at it a couple times to figure out whats going on... then I know the normal person wont get it.

I agree its expensive too... but it is Bell.. so

[kav2001c]

Yellow plans are zoned

Green plans are either province wide or Canada wide

https://www.luckymobile.ca/shop/plans/prepaid

[will13am]

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@torontokriswrote:

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@will13amwrote:

From my interpretation of the Lucky Mobile coverage map, the data is zoned.  You gott pay up to get usage outside of the zoned area. 

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I believe they are two tiers... zones (yellow) ... or canada wide (green) - at least where there is coverage of Bell of course

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It is very confusing.  From what I can tell, the plans with included data are yellow zone plans.  Those without are green zone plans.  Green zone plans allow for data add-on purchase.  When you look at all the restrictions, it is almost laughable that this brand just started business.  People have to be crazy to use that service, especially when the prices are terrible just like the rest of the competition.

[torontokris]

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@will13amwrote:

From my interpretation of the Lucky Mobile coverage map, the data is zoned.  You gott pay up to get usage outside of the zoned area. 

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I believe they are two tiers... zones (yellow) ... or canada wide (green) - at least where there is coverage of Bell of course

[will13am]

From my interpretation of the Lucky Mobile coverage map, the data is zoned.  You gott pay up to get usage outside of the zoned area. 

[koimr1]

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@canucks4lifewrote:

Would make sense for Telus to end up making PM fall in line with the likes of chatr (Rogers) and Lucky mobile (Bell) which offer zone based 3G prepaid service.

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With the exception of zones* this would be my guess too. Three tiers of service from the Big Three so they can claim how competitive they are with the "many" choices they offer.

*I would think they'd stick with Province-wide and move Canada-wide exclusively to an add-on so you can make the decision whether it's more cost-effective to do that or move on up to the next tier/sister brand.

[MVP]

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@will13amwrote:

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@MVPwrote:

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@will13amwrote:

No doubt that no matter what plan Telus has in mind, they don't want to lose a single customer to the competition.  When Lucky Mobile was started, they had the option to copy Chatr or Public Mobile.  They chose to go with zones.  This puts Public Mobile at odds with the growing competition in the prepaid arena.  I have always known Public Mobile to be a disruptive brand.  In a non competitive market, this can be good for subscribers but not necessarily so for business.  

It we examine the current price structure for Public Mobile, it's aligned to the third tier competition.  The 3G plan costs compete with Lucky Mobile and Chatr.  The Canada wide calling, text, 2 gig LTE data plan is way cheaper at Koodo.  How does this make any sense?  As time marches on, we are going to see these discrepant prices drive out the "unwanted" segment of the customer base from this service.  Due to our resiliency, we manage to repel the first attempt.  It will take a few more runs at the was wall in order to break us, but we have been weakened by the migration.  Make no mistake about it, there's more of the same to come.  It's not a question of if, but when and with what level of force.  

I am not saying all this because I want this outcome.  If driven by self interest only, I would want this service to remain exactly as is so that I can enjoy receiving the $5 loyalty reward in roughly 4 years time.  With self interests aside, I don't see my wishes at all being consistent with this brand's future.

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Your reflections above all make sense, but  in the net result,

in the spirit of "being faithful to my wallet",  I'm definitely  staying with PM  for now.

The odds of  near-future price increase of PM vs Koodo being about the same,

I prefer to maintain the status quo. Again, as I  mentioned above, Telus would not want to lose customers, so they  will always offer us a lucrative scheme  to go to Koodo.

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Seeing that I am deftly myopic when staring into the future, I took the middle ground.  I am half out the door and half in. The solution will never be optimum.  But it is the best option for me given the imprecise data that I have to work with.  I still have another 10 days to decide whether I should be all out or come back in from the cold with tail between my legs.  

BTW, it isn't as simple as saying I am staying because my monthly fees are cheaper by the few dollars of rewards reducing the base rate down to less than $40.  Koodo does offer rewards as well although they are not the recurring format that Public Mobile uses.  A self referral was worth $100 during the double rewards period.  I am hedging my bets on the pricing being higher within less than 2 years from now.  Let's have this same discussion on each anniversary day. 

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Yea, sure, eggs in many baskets is an obvious winning strategy on average, if you have enough statistics (many lines).

In my case,  since I've got free Fido data  up to 8GB monthly, for a year,

it is very tempting to cut  " the wireless cord", and to go  internet only for symbolical price

of 0$/month 🙂 . 

If PM makes a wrong move next billing  cycle, I'll definitely go  that way, at least for one of my PM lines,  the others might go to Koodo, but right now I think it is fun to play a wait and ambush game  😉  

[MoreYummy]

No customers wants to change their plan this way.  

However lets see how they pull this out to migrate those with 4GB fall plan in future.  

Their true intention came out eventually. 

[canucks4life]

Would make sense for Telus to end up making PM fall in line with the likes of chatr (Rogers) and Lucky mobile (Bell) which offer zone based 3G prepaid service.

[Korth]

Telus uses lean wireless infrastructure, not the latest-and-greatest new tech everywhere, they've still got legacy stuff on the fringes, but generally high-tech high-efficiency stuff which provides maximal service at minimum operating cost.  They tend to replace and upgrade obsolete hardware entirely, liquidate disused assets instead of mothballing them.

Bell and Rogers had to build most of their wireless after Telus already established a wireless presence.  They started off in dense urban areas, and they've got more layers of legacy hardware in place, it's redundancy, it even augments primary service.  Not as cost-efficient to operate, but it's already in situ so gaining any profit from it at all is better than scrapping it.  These layers of network infrastructure define the "zones" where they can afford to lower prices and still generate profits.

Things are complicated by the Big Three all buying and selling hardware from each other, sharing hardware access or bandwidths, etc.  But Bell/Rogers already have network "zones" where they can make money off a zone-based service model.  The Telus network topography doesn't have such clearly-defined boundaries - boundaries already filled with easily-measured demand from self-selected customers! - so it would actually cost them more money to implement zones from scratch (and abandon their current network architecture) than it's worth unless they plan to start hoarding legacy hardware and investing in a very long-term paradigm.

I actually predict PM's future marketing slogans will capitalize on Telus's "truly unlimited, no zones" service delivery.

[will13am]

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@MVPwrote:

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@will13amwrote:

No doubt that no matter what plan Telus has in mind, they don't want to lose a single customer to the competition.  When Lucky Mobile was started, they had the option to copy Chatr or Public Mobile.  They chose to go with zones.  This puts Public Mobile at odds with the growing competition in the prepaid arena.  I have always known Public Mobile to be a disruptive brand.  In a non competitive market, this can be good for subscribers but not necessarily so for business.  

It we examine the current price structure for Public Mobile, it's aligned to the third tier competition.  The 3G plan costs compete with Lucky Mobile and Chatr.  The Canada wide calling, text, 2 gig LTE data plan is way cheaper at Koodo.  How does this make any sense?  As time marches on, we are going to see these discrepant prices drive out the "unwanted" segment of the customer base from this service.  Due to our resiliency, we manage to repel the first attempt.  It will take a few more runs at the was wall in order to break us, but we have been weakened by the migration.  Make no mistake about it, there's more of the same to come.  It's not a question of if, but when and with what level of force.  

I am not saying all this because I want this outcome.  If driven by self interest only, I would want this service to remain exactly as is so that I can enjoy receiving the $5 loyalty reward in roughly 4 years time.  With self interests aside, I don't see my wishes at all being consistent with this brand's future.

---

Your reflections above all make sense, but  in the net result,

in the spirit of "being faithful to my wallet",  I'm definitely  staying with PM  for now.

The odds of  near-future price increase of PM vs Koodo being about the same,

I prefer to maintain the status quo. Again, as I  mentioned above, Telus would not want to lose customers, so they  will always offer us a lucrative scheme  to go to Koodo.

---

Seeing that I am deftly myopic when staring into the future, I took the middle ground.  I am half out the door and half in. The solution will never be optimum.  But it is the best option for me given the imprecise data that I have to work with.  I still have another 10 days to decide whether I should be all out or come back in from the cold with tail between my legs.  

BTW, it isn't as simple as saying I am staying because my monthly fees are cheaper by the few dollars of rewards reducing the base rate down to less than $40.  Koodo does offer rewards as well although they are not the recurring format that Public Mobile uses.  A self referral was worth $100 during the double rewards period.  I am hedging my bets on the pricing being higher within less than 2 years from now.  Let's have this same discussion on each anniversary day. 

[MVP]

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@will13amwrote:

No doubt that no matter what plan Telus has in mind, they don't want to lose a single customer to the competition.  When Lucky Mobile was started, they had the option to copy Chatr or Public Mobile.  They chose to go with zones.  This puts Public Mobile at odds with the growing competition in the prepaid arena.  I have always known Public Mobile to be a disruptive brand.  In a non competitive market, this can be good for subscribers but not necessarily so for business.  

It we examine the current price structure for Public Mobile, it's aligned to the third tier competition.  The 3G plan costs compete with Lucky Mobile and Chatr.  The Canada wide calling, text, 2 gig LTE data plan is way cheaper at Koodo.  How does this make any sense?  As time marches on, we are going to see these discrepant prices drive out the "unwanted" segment of the customer base from this service.  Due to our resiliency, we manage to repel the first attempt.  It will take a few more runs at the was wall in order to break us, but we have been weakened by the migration.  Make no mistake about it, there's more of the same to come.  It's not a question of if, but when and with what level of force.  

I am not saying all this because I want this outcome.  If driven by self interest only, I would want this service to remain exactly as is so that I can enjoy receiving the $5 loyalty reward in roughly 4 years time.  With self interests aside, I don't see my wishes at all being consistent with this brand's future.

---

Your reflections above all make sense, but  in the net result,

in the spirit of "being faithful to my wallet",  I'm definitely  staying with PM  for now.

The odds of  near-future price increase of PM vs Koodo being about the same,

I prefer to maintain the status quo. Again, as I  mentioned above, Telus would not want to lose customers, so they  will always offer us a lucrative scheme  to go to Koodo.

[will13am]

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@wetcoasterwrote:

The advantage PM has over the other third tier providers is that their "zones" are province wide. Offering the third tier to people who do not live in a major city gives them access to a big pool of (potential) customers that otherwise would "need" to go directly with a second tier brand. Those customers might choose to be with Koodo but they might as well be on Virgin or Fido.

IMHO, from a business perspective, it wourld be foolish to give up that advantage (which is already in place, so minimal effort to maintain it) - but then we've seen some foolish decisions re: Public Mobile from Telus recently.

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This is exactly the paradigm.  As customers we see the superior product in this service.  In a non competitive environment, it is more lucrative to provide a uniform product.  Let's consider for a moment the introduction of 3G data speed.  Why is this necessary when monthly usage even for the most data heavy plan is tiny?  Why sell am inferior product?  Perhaps it's because this service wants to conform to the norm within the third tier prepaid market.

[will13am]

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@Michael77wrote:

I hope not!

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Hope is an act of desperation, not necessarily a solution.  

[will13am]

No doubt that no matter what plan Telus has in mind, they don't want to lose a single customer to the competition.  When Lucky Mobile was started, they had the option to copy Chatr or Public Mobile.  They chose to go with zones.  This puts Public Mobile at odds with the growing competition in the prepaid arena.  I have always known Public Mobile to be a disruptive brand.  In a non competitive market, this can be good for subscribers but not necessarily so for business.  

It we examine the current price structure for Public Mobile, it's aligned to the third tier competition.  The 3G plan costs compete with Lucky Mobile and Chatr.  The Canada wide calling, text, 2 gig LTE data plan is way cheaper at Koodo.  How does this make any sense?  As time marches on, we are going to see these discrepant prices drive out the "unwanted" segment of the customer base from this service.  Due to our resiliency, we manage to repel the first attempt.  It will take a few more runs at the was wall in order to break us, but we have been weakened by the migration.  Make no mistake about it, there's more of the same to come.  It's not a question of if, but when and with what level of force.  

I am not saying all this because I want this outcome.  If driven by self interest only, I would want this service to remain exactly as is so that I can enjoy receiving the $5 loyalty reward in roughly 4 years time.  With self interests aside, I don't see my wishes at all being consistent with this brand's future.

[wetcoaster]

The advantage PM has over the other third tier providers is that their "zones" are province wide. Offering the third tier to people who do not live in a major city gives them access to a big pool of (potential) customers that otherwise would "need" to go directly with a second tier brand. Those customers might choose to be with Koodo but they might as well be on Virgin or Fido.

IMHO, from a business perspective, it wourld be foolish to give up that advantage (which is already in place, so minimal effort to maintain it) - but then we've seen some foolish decisions re: Public Mobile from Telus recently.

[Michael77]

I hope not!

[ShawnC13]

I don't see this happening. Even with the recent moves i see it as Telus trying to move people up the "food" chain.  They get you to Koodo which has a chance of overages, offer you a new phone on a tab and get you used to being with a subsidised phone again.  When you want another new phone you go in and pick it out and will be told oh that phone only qualifies when you are on a plan worth $xxx.xx.  So really i think this is just the "natural evolution" Telus wants us to take.  

 H

[mimmo]

@NDesai agree with your points. Except But they could just raise the speed cap Of the "3g" To something higher when 5g comes along.  Pm, lucky and chatr are like the Ryan airs of the flying world. They Get you where you want to go, but if a fuller service is needed then you have to go to one of the other airlines.

[torontokris]

Technically ontario or province wide is a zone

[NDesai]

I don't think that is going to happen. They tried to move all pioneer customers to koodo or upgrade their plans to new PM plans simply to eliminate the cost for a physical call center. Guess what, there are still some customers on legacy plans. Now they are trying to move some LTE plans (not all yet) to koodo. But again, not everyone is going to move. It means just getting rid on LTE is not going to happen so sudden. 

Additionally, it's a huge challenge to implement zones and configure the system. So it's alot of work and effort while crossing your fingers that everything else will remain bug free. 

Another point to keep in mind that 5G is about a couple years away. Imagine these carriers having 3G service only while 5G is in current use. Honeslty when that time comes, they should ban 3G once 5G is implemented all over the place. 

[MVP]

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@will13amwrote:

With the cellular landscape being so non competitive in this country, carries don't necessarily try to offer a superior product to their competitors.  It's more important to the bottom line to not "rock the boat".  Both Rogers and Bell have a zoned 3G service.  Why shouldn't Telus do the same?  I sense this is the master plan.  The $10 increase that was recently introduced and then removed is a first step to charge more for plans that have country wide coverage and LTE data speed.  Looking at the Lucky Mobile offerings, $10 is the price gap on the country wide plans. Of course, Lucky Mobile doesn't offer LTE data speeds.  

What a great country we live in!  In other justifications around the world, providers are looking to expand coverage and improve data speeds.  Here, we see a retrograde back to last century all in the name of monopoly competition, else described as don't rock the boat.

Anyone else have thoughts or suggestions on this topic?   Keep an eye on the migration deadline while thinking.  To be comfortable is to be complacent at the same time.

---

Whatever Telus's strategy wrt PM will be, they would not want the current Fall-2016-promo folks to jump ship, and  to go to competitors. So, I'm guessing, a lucrative migration plan to Koodo will always be available 😉

P.S. It is a poker game now against Telus 😉

[koimr1]

Going back to "zones" in 2018. Whether or not PM does that we still have carriers in Canada run by Big 3 who do that already. What an embarassing state of affairs.

[Luddite]

I doubt that will happen. BUT I've been sadly surprised the last 12 months with the new direction.

[mimmo]

yeah that probably sounds correct,  but until it is announced we will not know.  there was similar conjecture in another recent post.  to be a feeder brand you need to have offering that encurage users to move upto something better.