Caveat Emptor $20 Data only plan poor choice.

[ohitora]

Just like everything else in life one has to think and choose carefully even when selecting  Public Mobile plans.  For example PM offers a Data only plan for $20/month which ONLY gives you 250 Mb of Data.  HOWEVER to Public Mobile's cheapy $10/month plan you can add 200 Mb of Data for only $10.

Therefore by choosing the PM $10 plan and adding 200Mb of Data for $10 would then for a total of $20/month  give  one 50 ld. voice + 50 texts + 200 Mb of Data.

[ottawa]

I think there may have been a few offerings with unlimited incoming years ago (expensive outgoing) but the advent of return-your-call services probably killed them. The one I remember (but whose name I forget) was essentially you call them, let it ring twice, and hang up. They grab your caller ID and call you back, you answer and enter the number you wanted to call. You could go a whole month with massive incoming and 0 outgoing calls. 🙂

=aw

[computergeek541]

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@cza wrote:

Dear all

Kindly avoid 10$ plan as the incoming calls also charged and fianlly you are left with nothing. please advise any 10$ plan with no charge for incoming calls, useful for Visitors to Canada.

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Sorry, but I do not believe that the plan that you are asking for exists in Canada. To my knowledge, the best you're going to get is about $20-$25 per 30 days or per month for unlimited calls both ways.

Wind Mobile used to have unlimited incomimg calls for the Pay-Your-Way plan, but that is no longer offered to new customers.  That plan came out to about $7 to $10/month (because you had to top up a minimum amount every so often to keep the account active) and included no outgoing minutes.  The incoming minutes were "free" but outgoing was charged per minute. 

[ottawa]

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@stonechucker wrote:

Well if you want to spend $30 for 30 days, there's a 600 MB LTE Data Only package also available.

Couple that with a VoIP service that offers talk and text, it could be really cheap.

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Excellent point, though the $30 data add-on (I still want to call it a Booster 🙂 ) would give you 1GB of 4G LTE, plus the base 50+50, and you could still use the VoIP service. $38 total if you burn the whole 1GB though. But if one is careful, that add-on would cost $18/30d at 600 MB or $26 total.

Interesting opportunities in PM's pricing structure. We're using my old phone strictly for navigation (using a data-only Koodo SIM we can't cancel yet) and it's fantastic (vs tying up your "real" phone with navigation then having a call come in). I was thinking of the $20 plan when the Koodo is done, since we've only used about 180MB of 500MB this month. But I would be better with the $10 plan, add the 1GB data add-on. 🙂

=aw

[ottawa]

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@ohitora wrote:

Just like everything else in life one has to think and choose carefully even when selecting  Public Mobile plans.  For example PM offers a Data only plan for $20/month which ONLY gives you 250 Mb of Data.  HOWEVER to Public Mobile's cheapy $10/month plan you can add 200 Mb of Data for only $10.

Therefore by choosing the PM $10 plan and adding 200Mb of Data for $10 would then for a total of $20/month  give  one 50 ld. voice + 50 texts + 200 Mb of Data.

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To get back to ohitora's original point, which is excellent BTW, an even better deal would be to get the 1GB add-on ($30/1GB vs $10/200MB).

Since the add-on rolls over forever (if the account stays alive, and the add-on does survive any up-to-90-days suspension), this works out to ($10+$7.50) if you use 250MB, or ($10+$6) if you use 200MB), and you just have to put on another $30 every 4 or 5 months.

The $10 50/50 plan + data add-on will also give you 4G speed (vs 3G speed on the $20/250MB plan), though in these quantities you probably don't want to be doing anything where 3G is too slow. 🙂

=aw

[ottawa]

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@popping wrote:

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The $10 50/50 plan is competing with Spreakout. PM 16 cents/minute vs SO 30 cents/minute.

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True, though SO also has $20 for 100/UL. Not sure if the $1.25/mo 911 fee is on top of that, or included in the monthly plans. My old SO SIM is still on 30c/min and it costs $1.25/mo even when not used (which it never is, thinking I should rethink it :).

=aw

[popping]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

I agree that the 250MB data offering isn't going to have many takers, and I would say it's a lousy price.  But there's got to be someone who's interested in it or they just wouldn't offer it.  There are some people who want data only, especially if they're use only VOIP services.  It's still probably a bit of niche market but people who use such services or exclusively use some type of internet-based instant messaging, or even an internet-based SMS service would  have no need for Public Mobile's caling, voicemail, and texting services.

There's always going to be situations in which a few dollars more gets you more features, sometimes to a great extent.  Personally, I think Public should just get rid of  all these $10 50 minute and data only plans for simpilcity's sake.  However, doing that would likley turn away a small user base who wants low use, low price plans.

In the end, the cusomer is free to choose the best plan for his or her needs.

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The $10 50/50 plan is competing with Spreakout. PM 16 cents/minute vs SO 30 cents/minute.  It is even cheaper for the $8 200 minutes add-on at 4 cents/minutes.  I am getting SO subscribers moving to PM 

[cza]

Dear all

Kindly avoid 10$ plan as the incoming calls also charged and fianlly you are left with nothing. please advise any 10$ plan with no charge for incoming calls, useful for Visitors to Canada.

[srlawren]

@bridonca it's more "economics" than "politics", really.

Fido and Koodo (maybe others? Does Virgin offer tablet plan?) offer these essentially as add-ons.  They call them tablet plans and put in place a requirement that you are already on a post-paid phone plan (at the regular extortion-level pricing) to get one in order to drive home that these are add-on plans for use in a secondary device (such as a tablet) that only requires data and no phone services.  These are meant to increase their revenue per subscriber, effectively earning them ([your regular phone plan cost] + $15) at a net gain of $15/month, not to decrease their revenue at a net loss of ([your regular phone plan cost] - $15).  Good for them (and their shareholders); bad for customers (perhaps good for customer that are also shareholders however!).

[bridonca]

I am aware of the limits of the competition when it comes to the $15, 3 GB offerings, I am just saying the big 3 can do it through their flankers, Public Mobile should be able to do it also.  

I would suspect politics have a lot to do with that of course.  I would prefer Public Mobile offer that plan, because there would be less obstructions in getting the plan compared to the competition. 

[wetcoaster]

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@srlawren wrote:

@wetcoaster some say they've gotten around that limitation.  Apparently if you go to an independent mobile retail location rather than a corporate Fido store, you might be able to get the 3G/$15 tablet plan even without an existing post-paid line.

FYI Koodo offers a similar tablet plan now too, to existing customers:

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@srlawren

Yes, I'm aware of the YMMV part... Judging by posts in the monster thread at RFD the independent dealers that are still willing to do it as an official store policy are far and in between now, though. So it'll mainly boil down to finding an employee in said independent stores who is willing to activate the data-only plan as stand-alone plan.

At least in my (small to mid-sized) neck of the woods on Vancouver Island the directive in all four independent stores is clear - they are not willing to do the stand-alone / without primary talk & text anymore. Jumping through the hoops is the only way to get one.

[srlawren]

@wetcoaster some say they've gotten around that limitation.  Apparently if you go to an independent mobile retail location rather than a corporate Fido store, you might be able to get the 3G/$15 tablet plan even without an existing post-paid line.

FYI Koodo offers a similar tablet plan now too, to existing customers:

[computergeek541]

I agree that the 250MB data offering isn't going to have many takers, and I would say it's a lousy price.  But there's got to be someone who's interested in it or they just wouldn't offer it.  There are some people who want data only, especially if they're use only VOIP services.  It's still probably a bit of niche market but people who use such services or exclusively use some type of internet-based instant messaging, or even an internet-based SMS service would  have no need for Public Mobile's caling, voicemail, and texting services.

There's always going to be situations in which a few dollars more gets you more features, sometimes to a great extent.  Personally, I think Public should just get rid of  all these $10 50 minute and data only plans for simpilcity's sake.  However, doing that would likley turn away a small user base who wants low use, low price plans.

In the end, the cusomer is free to choose the best plan for his or her needs.

[MacMe]

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@ohitora wrote:

Just like everything else in life one has to think and choose carefully even when selecting  Public Mobile plans.  For example PM offers a Data only plan for $20/month which ONLY gives you 250 Mb of Data.  HOWEVER to Public Mobile's cheapy $10/month plan you can add 200 Mb of Data for only $10.

@Yiatiohi wrote:

Yes ofcourse the $30/month plan does give you much more value but my Caveat was regarding the $20 Data only plan.   

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Wait...who's caveat...ohitora's or Yiatiohi's?  

Bravos from Yiatiohi: 19  .... ah I get it  

[wetcoaster]

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@bridonca wrote:

The competition offers 3 GB plan for $15.   Would be nice if Public Mobile could offer something close to that!

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Just that, technically, in August 2018, that 3GB data-only plan from the yellow provider can't be signed up for as a stand-alone plan. Whereas the data-only options discussed here can be signed up for without jumping through all kinds of hoops.

As for the initial topic of relatively expensive PM plans: If playing with the build-your-own-plan feature (as opposed to choosing a ready made / featured one) - be sure to check out price differences between two or three options (As an example: there are combinations in there where a plan with text added is cheaper than without due to the 3 options discount...) Also, for most 3G plans Canada-wide calling is the same price as province-wide now.

Edit: Double checking my statements meant @stonechucker beat me to it...

[stonechucker]

Of course, there's a cost to VoIP, but it's less than pennies per minute if you get the right service.

Running a data only plan on a device can be cheaper, but it is what it is.

The $15 competition that I know up you need to be a post-paid subscriber to qualify.

[ohitora]

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@Yiatiohi wrote:

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@bridonca wrote:

The competition offers 3 GB plan for $15.   Would be nice if Public Mobile could offer something close to that!

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Who and what do they include for $15 ?

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Are you refering to Bell's $15/month plan? 

[Yiatiohi]

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@bridonca wrote:

The competition offers 3 GB plan for $15.   Would be nice if Public Mobile could offer something close to that!

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Who and what do they include for $15 ?

[Yiatiohi · Accepted solution]

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@Yiatiohi wrote:

Yes ofcourse the $30/month plan does give you much more value but my Caveat was regarding the $20 Data only plan.  

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@stonechucker wrote:

Well if you want to spend $30 for 30 days, there's a 600 MB LTE Data Only package also available.

Couple that with a VoIP service that offers talk and text, it could be really cheap.

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Also I think that there is a cost for VoIP service.

[bridonca]

The competition offers 3 GB plan for $15.   Would be nice if Public Mobile could offer something close to that!

[Yiatiohi]

Yes ofcourse the $30/month plan does give you much more value but my Caveat was regarding the $20 Data only plan.  

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@stonechucker wrote:

Well if you want to spend $30 for 30 days, there's a 600 MB LTE Data Only package also available.

Couple that with a VoIP service that offers talk and text, it could be really cheap.

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[CalgaryBen]

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@ohitora wrote:

you can add 200 Mb of Data for only $10.

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Plus the advantage of going this route is that you can carry-over any unused data to the next period, until it is fully consumed...

[stonechucker]

Well if you want to spend $30 for 30 days, there's a 600 MB LTE Data Only package also available.

Couple that with a VoIP service that offers talk and text, it could be really cheap.