Current Plans vs Competition

[trafsta]

I have been with Public Mobile for about 16 months, and have 4 other family members that I ported over to PM about 10 months ago as well. We are all on the old "$40 Canada-wide Talk + Text + 1GB Data" plan and have been happy with it. I now see the new rewards and 90 days plans. As best as I can see, with autopay enabled, we can get service for $38/month with Autopay ($114 divided by 3, for the 4GB plan and only province wide calling). After a year with PM that will drop a bit more but not all that much (and not sure if I could get the referral stuff working since it's now after-the-fact)... now the problem is, I see koodo now has a $35 plan for 1GB data and Canada wide talk/text... this is a monthly plan so you actually often get 31 days out of it as well (except February of course). It seems like the better option to me. Any real reason why we should keep our 5 lines with Public Mobile? I know it will cost $20 for Koodo SIM cards as well which stinks (EDIT: seems they also give a $20 activation credit which may end up cancelling that out), but that will pay for itself in 4 months... so other than that it seems quite attractive to switch...

The only other perk of the 90 day plan is that if you need to use 2 or 3GB of data in a 30 day span for whatever reason, you can get away with it (had this come up at the cottage when my wife and mother really wanted to see the Footloose movie via online streaming after seeing a Musical production of it, however, our 1GB data plans did not allow for this since it would have used about 1.2GB lol...).

Anyways, looking forward to your comments on this.

Thanks!

[pm-smayer97]

@on2wheels That was me that posted the request. BTW, I reposted that request and although still not well received by the community (don't know why since it is no bother to anyone in the community who does not want to participate), it was well received by the Mods and I am told the idea was forwarded to management.

See here: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Plans-Add-Ons/Pinned-Topic-Thread-to-Track-ALL-Promos...

[pm-smayer97]

@on2wheels I think posting your comments on this old thread was a good choice as it gives continuity, context, and comparison. Thx.

[Luddite]

@on2wheels  Noone will prevent you posting to an old thread. The issue is one of visibilty. A new topic/thread is seen by more people. Though this is less an issue today than a year ago, my advice is sound. 

[on2wheels]

I would have been ok with leaving this alone after the recent replies but since you asked, I figured this thread was relevant when I used the search function.  And since the CBC covered the topic again today I find it most effective to show how long an issue has been on peoples minds here.  I didn't intend on starting a thread war and I won't respond to flame posts. 

Do the admins here frown on old threads being revived if the issue is still relevant?  I truly want this community and PM to work for us, the customers, what's wrong with keeping everyone aprised of news about cell plans and the competition?  I want to stay with PM, they embody everything I want in a provider.  Please don't take offense to anything, what gets under my skin is being taken advantage of by utility providers: cellular included. So if the CBC needs more ammunition to show how greedy the big 3 providers are, sign me up and I'll help all I can.

[srlawren]

@on2wheels I'm not sure why you felt the need to revive a 3-year dormant thread to lay out your issue with pricing. 

[srlawren]

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@stonechucker wrote:

@jp2, I think you're the first to think $30/1 GB is a good deal!

Good on ya!  Cheers!

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@stonechucker overage just about anywhere else is $7/100 MB or $70/GB.  Although comparing the $30/GB for add-on data to plan data makes it seem very expensive, comparing oranges to oragnes you can see that for overage data, it's actually relatively cheap.

[jp2]

@stonechucker actually I don't think it's a good deal at all but I do like that it rolls over. I'm just saying it's a better deal than $30 for 500mb plan from Rogers 

[stonechucker]

@jp2, I think you're the first to think $30/1 GB is a good deal!

Good on ya!  Cheers!

[jp2]

I'm a little confused why you don't think the PM plan is better for 30 dollars minus rewards I get 500mb, unlimited Canada wide calling, and unlimited international texting. The big 3 only give the data for the same price and don't have rewards. 

Even PM data add on is 30 dollars for 1Gb that's half the price of the data only plan you are posting 

[stonechucker]

@on2wheels, and in that same thread there was a post rererencing another community member's use of an RSS feed for the Anouncement forum, where ALL THE PLANS AND PROMOS are listed, and the RSS feed only needs to be setup on your device for you to get push notifications.

It's clearly time for individuals to access what they need, via all opportunities that are already offered.  Sometimes, it's easier to follow directions that have already been completed to achive the desired affect, rather than asking a company that already struggles with providing it's current level of service, to create a new 'simple sticky post' to appease the user base that doesn't want to fend for themselves.

Yes.. this has been a rant - I refuse to accept that people are not responsible to do things for themselves, when there are instructions available via the built in search engines on this site, which are publicly available to all, even via Google, Yahoo, and other such serach engines.

[on2wheels]

Recently the CBC covered the big 3 providers and claimed how bad an offer the $30/500mb plans are.  Originally I thought I was doing ok coming from Rogers who couldn't even offer me 500mb in February for that price, but now I'm thinking PM isn't that much better.  

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bell-rogers-telus-crtc-wireless-data-1.4643170?cmp=rss

Why would I stay with a self serve provider when I can get the same plan and have someone there to answer my support questions 24/7?  Yes I was an 18year customer of Rogers prior to coming here, never thought I'd be standing up for them.

All due respect, PM needs to up their game, these limited time offers are too easy to miss for those of us who don't live on their computers and check this forum daily.  There was a thread here from a while back asking for a stickied post for the new special offers but it was shot down.  You can still find it by searching.  I was honestly so happy to leave Rogers and come here, even just knowing my service was coming from different cell towers made me feel better. 

[deltatux]

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@Rick wrote:

I would keep the granfathered plan as well, might not seem like it now but its nice to have *611 customer service available when you need it and you have canada wide and international text included in your plan.

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@Rick, just keep in mind that only Chatr has the next closest plan but they offer the same thing for $50/month instead. So your $40/month + customer service is a pretty good deal. Granted, you don't get much in terms of rewards via Chatr but if customer service is very important, then they are the only straight alternative to your grandfathered plan.

[Rick]

I would keep the granfathered plan as well, might not seem like it now but its nice to have *611 customer service available when you need it and you have canada wide and international text included in your plan.

[deltatux]

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@trafsta wrote:

So I called *611 finally and spoke to Oscar and unfortunately the 3 family members that I referred to Public Mobile less than a year ago, even if they also change from the 'old' PM to the 'new' PM plan I still will not be able to use them as 'referrals' to get the additional discount for all 3 of them 😞 Such a shame. I guess I migrated them over from Telus to PM too early (was before the reward program was in place). Darn!

For now I may just stay on the older grandfathers $40 1GB plan for all 4 of these phone numbers... not really worth the hastle of switching all 4 of them over if I dont get the referral reward as well. Hmmrph... tough call!

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@trafsta, best to keep them on the grandfathered plan.

[trafsta]

So I called *611 finally and spoke to Oscar and unfortunately the 3 family members that I referred to Public Mobile less than a year ago, even if they also change from the 'old' PM to the 'new' PM plan I still will not be able to use them as 'referrals' to get the additional discount for all 3 of them 😞 Such a shame. I guess I migrated them over from Telus to PM too early (was before the reward program was in place). Darn!

For now I may just stay on the older grandfathers $40 1GB plan for all 4 of these phone numbers... not really worth the hastle of switching all 4 of them over if I dont get the referral reward as well. Hmmrph... tough call!

[Luddite]

Well I guess next thing is to make that call; apparently no grandfathered plan can be changed without it. Be sure to ask how to get the timing correct on the changeover to not lose any prepaid amounts; to do so think you need to get each done just before each renewal date.

Good luck. 

[trafsta]

@Luddite Thanks! We currently have 4 separate accounts/logins/account IDs/email addresses, they are not linked in any way. None of us have ever had to call into tech support so that shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully we won't have to have new accounts created, last thing I want to do is give headaches to my parents (in their 60's and don't like change all that much).

I don't want to get prorated referral credit from the past months, just referral credit for months going forward since it would be cool to get an extra $9 off every 90 days on my account and that is a good incentive to spend time switching over 😉

[Luddite]

Just an FYI for changing grandfathered plans. You can only do so by calling PM (*611) and talking to a rep. Not sure how your 4 accounts are set up, BUT changing over will result in the creation of 4 accounts each with their own email address. In addtion, once you leave grandfathered plan you CANNOT call tech support but must use the Community for help, or email to PM.

When you have them on the phone ask about the referral credit. Seems unlikely to me as that credit occurs when a SIM is activated and the new customer is asked to fill in the PM phone number that referred them.

The lack of phone support leads many to think 3, or more, times before switching.

[trafsta]

@azuki_bean Wow you are absolutely right. Crazy Koodo website defaulted me to Quebec... for whatever reason it thought I was in Quebec based on my IP address at work or something (I'm in Ontario, 1hr north of Toronto).

Sorry for the errant thread. Might as well be deleted at this point.

That said... I'll be switching 4 of our accounts from the old grandfathered plan to the newer 90 day plans... I'm hoping I'll be able to do the referral thing though since I was the one that got my sister and both my parents to switch from Telus to PM after I had successfully be on it for a few months 😛 Not sure if that is going to be possible though (any comment on this?)

[azuki_bean · Accepted solution]

I went to check with Koodo and they said that the $35 unlimited Canada-wide talk/text offer with 1GB data plan was only available in Quebec. 

[trafsta]

@makkahn28 lol ok well not sure that helps me much, but thanks 🙂

[makkahn28]

@trafsta, the Competition is Lagging behind. PM is Much more,And more so

The Competition, Not so much