Is there a higher data plan over 6.5GB/Month?

[BrandonBerner]

Hey there Public Mobile family,

I am currently looking at the $50/month Unlimited Canada-Wide, Unlimited International Text, and 6.5 GB Data (3G). I am choosing this plan, becuase it offers the MOST amount of data.

I would prefer to have 16.5GB of  3G data/month. 

What options do I have?

• I see an Add-On Data feature, but its $30/1GB of data.
  
  
  • If I proceeded with the $30/1GB Data Add-On, it would cost $300/month ($30x10) in just add-ons. Making my total bill $350/month (if all data is consumed).

• With Telus, I could get 15GB LTE Data + Unlimited Nation Wide for only $160/month
  
  
  • I could increase the data by 1GB for $10 extra by choosing the FREE Telus Drive promo (includes 1GB of shared data) making my total $170/month. And I could also add the free tablet offer (included another 1GB of shared data) making my total $180/month.
    • Total Data: 17GB @ $180/month + FREE Telus Drive + FREE Tablet. 

Is there something im missing?

Thanks!

[mimmo]

@BrandonBerner  I was curious and checked the tablet only plan  (from mans best  friend), they offer 3 gb data only for 15$  and $10/gb for going over  so based on your data needs :

3gb =$15, + 14gb =$140 = 17gb @ $155.  so i think you are are stiill better off with teh 3g PM plan eventhough you are "double paying" the talk and text portions.

[BrandonBerner]

@srlawren Well hello there fellow software developer! Great choice in profession!

The 3G speeds actually are better than 4G speeds for my needs 😄

• The HD videos are 1 minute or less (usually 30 seconds) and uploads fast enough for my needs. Takes less than 2 minutes in any circumstance.
  
  
• The social media accounts also must appear natural by auto-scrolling through feeds, auto-liking, and auto-commenting using my advanced spin syntax. This task is done automatically using a macro-like script installed on the phone. As it automatically scrolls, some content auto-plays, and or downloads (wasting data). If I was using 4G, it would download much faster, where as with 3G, the script can scroll through more news feeds (loading half or less of the content...which is perfect since the script does not benefet from watching the content haha) thus consuming less data/minute. 

You can bet that Im doing some testing 😄

You raise a good point regarding the wait times for service through PM. Although I am a telus, and koodo customer also, there really is not much of a difference (in most cases) with support in my opinion. Here is my thought process.

• Telus phone wait times tend to be an average of 30 minutes (IMO)
  • Then another 10-30 minutes for a solution.
    • Resulting in 40-60 minutes of my day gone.
      
      
• Koodo phone wait times tend to be an average of 15 minutes (IMO)
  • Then another 10-30 minutes for a solution
    • Resulting in 25-55 minutes of my day gone.
      
      
• Public Mobile does not have phone wait times, rather contact through the forum which only requires a few minutes of typing (plus I can create pre-written responces for common problems). But has a longer responce time. So far... they tend to get back to me quite fast.

Now If I end up creating acocunts in bulk with Telus or Koodo, then if multiple accounts have problems, I have to call and get support for each line (Call seperately on each line | Call on one line to fix multiple linked accounts). Regardless it makes it hard to be efficient.

• Example: Just like if you are a phone support agent, you can only talk to one customer at a time, where as with live chat, you can assist multiple customers at the same time becoming more efficient. Time is money afterall 🙂

• Now Telus and Koodo to also offer live chat, which in a sense increases the efficiency again since I can have multiple chats going (compared to calling), and also has a faster responce time compared to PM, but then I also have to deal with higher monthly costs which takes away from my profits from clients. So its a give and take (faster support, less profits, or simply setting the expectation with clients that our minimum up-time is 96.65% and higher profits), thus being able to get away with up to 24 hours of downtime due to mobility issues a month...which I hope is enough alocation....Ill find out soon enought with some testing.
  
  

And to answer your question, Telus has 24/7 Technical support VIA phone and or Live Chat 🙂

[srlawren]

@BrandonBerner wow, that is a very specialized need, indeed.  Thanks for the explanation.  I am a pretty tech savvy guy (software developer by profession, with plenty of years of experience) and even I got a little lost in the details, LOL.  Will the "3G" speed data (capped at 3 Mbps) be sufficient for your needs?  If you're posting that much content, including HD content, the speed cap might proove prohibitive.

The good news is that with Public Mobile being pre-paid and contract-free, you could pick up a SIM and do some testing with it before committing one way or the other.  I'd recommend this.

One other factor you may want to look at again is the support.  General community advice is that PM is better for a personal device than a mission-critical business communication device.  With Telus, you would have much quicker access to help in the event of issues with the service, since you can pick up a phone and talk to someone relatively quickly.  PM's support model (you may or may not be aware) is entirely online.  You send a private message to a team of "moderators" (PM support staff) through the community here and then you may have a series of back and forths if they need more info to verify your identity, get more details on the issue, have you try after they do things, etc.  The whole process can be drawn out, especially if they are particular busy at the time resulting in slower replies.  Most people hear back within an hour or two but at times it can drag out longer, and they have limited support hours.  I haven't looked at Telus' support hours in a while to confirm if they are available 24x7 or not though.

[joesugarman27]

You could switch to koodo, 

$90 a month for 8GB of LTE?

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@BrandonBerner wrote:

Hey there Public Mobile family,

I am currently looking at the $50/month Unlimited Canada-Wide, Unlimited International Text, and 6.5 GB Data (3G). I am choosing this plan, becuase it offers the MOST amount of data.

I would prefer to have 16.5GB of  3G data/month. 

What options do I have?

• I see an Add-On Data feature, but its $30/1GB of data.
  
  
  • If I proceeded with the $30/1GB Data Add-On, it would cost $300/month ($30x10) in just add-ons. Making my total bill $350/month (if all data is consumed).

• With Telus, I could get 15GB LTE Data + Unlimited Nation Wide for only $160/month
  
  
  • I could increase the data by 1GB for $10 extra by choosing the FREE Telus Drive promo (includes 1GB of shared data) making my total $170/month. And I could also add the free tablet offer (included another 1GB of shared data) making my total $180/month.
    • @Total Data: 17GB @ $180/month + FREE Telus Drive + FREE Tablet. 

Is there something im missing?

Thanks!

---

[BrandonBerner]

@srlawren

As for the Telus Drive, and Acatel Tablet, althugh they are not something I need, I was thinking I could easly re-sell the tablet since the retail cost is arund $180. I could perhaps (if the telus deal allows it) get 2 Alcatel Tablets (instead of 1 Telus Drive and 1 Tablet) for a total of $20/month, and +2GB LTE Data. Then sell both tablets $180x2= $360. That $360 could then be applied to my Telus bill resulting in 2 months FREE on my Telus bill (minus the $30x2 activation fee). 

And yes, your right, I could perhaps renew every 35 days (give or take) and reap some additional savings with Public Mobile. I was thinking that I could just use more data within the 30 days instead haha.

As for your curiosity as per my data activity, here is my reasoning for such high data 😄

Basically I own an elite social media marketing agency. If you know anything about the industry, you would know that its very complicated service to offer. Not nesicarally from the service offered, or the customer interaction, rather the security features of social media platforms. Essentially, social media platforms will disable an account if its logging in from a wide range of IP's, IP's that have previosuly been used; along with plethora of other identifers such as MAC Addresses, browser ID's, cache, verifiying multiple accounts with the same phone number and much more. We have been previously managing accounts using dedicated proxies, and a custom computer software that allows us to apply unique proxy within each embeded browser that also spoofs its own MAC addresses, session ID's etc that allows us to manage our clients accounts through a private API without the risk of our clients accounts getting banned. Social media security is continaully getting better (worse in the scocial media marketing world), and the struggle to continue managing thousands of our high profile social meida accounts without getting them banned is becoming an obsticle. What we do is NOT ilegal by any means, rather the fact of accessing someones account (even with their concent, ID, and proof of ownership which we have in writing/contracts) is a breach of security to the social media platforms. Social media platforms are begining to detect our methods to not trigger any suspition, and thus we need to be proactive and blend in with the crowed by managing social media accounts in a more human like manner by using a dedicated device (non spoofed MAC Addresses, browser sessions), a dedicated genuine IP from the 3G network (not a proxy), and finally a dedicated phone number to add to the account to receive verification codes. In most cases, a 1GB phone plan does the trick, however we have some clients who have multiple accounts that all should share an IP and phone number, which post lots of media each day including HD videos, thus requiring a large amount of Data each month. We have done plenty of benchmark tests to see exactly how much data we need for specific accounts, and 16.5GB is a great solution. Now with all this being said, the use of the Alcatel tablets could actially be extremely useful since it provides us with a device too! 

Anyhoo, I hope that helps with your curiosity 😄

[srlawren]

@BrandonBerner interesting.  Yeah if Telus Drive and the tablet aren't important to you then yes I guess PM is still a better deal.  And you wouldn't necssarily have to renew exactly every 30 days and waste the 3GB you've identified as "to spare" each time--you could wait until much closer to exhausting the full 19.5GB.  Based on your stated 16.5GB/month, averaging approx 563.2 MB/day, you might get as much as 19.5 * 1024 = 19968 MB / 563.2 per day = about 35 days worth of life out of your 90 day plan.

I have to admit, you have me very curious what you use that 16.5GB on every month!  You're of couse under no obligation to say, but if you are comfortable sharing I'd love to know.  🙂

[BrandonBerner]

Thank You @mimmo @srlawren @MoreYummy and @computergeek541 for your helpful prompt solutions! 

I was truely shocked to see so many responces so fast. 

So far the best solution Is with Public Mobile still (unless completing early renewals is to teadious, and you dont care about 4G LTE speeds, and the free Telus Drive and Alcatel Tablet) 😄

Public Mobile: ($150/month)

• 90 day plan 
• 18GB + 1.5GB 3G (19.5GB) Data
• Unlimited Canada-Wide
• Unlimited International Texting
• Then doing early renewals of the 90 day plan every 30 days to meet my 16.5GB Data monthly reqirements (with 3GB Data to spare each month).

     TOTAL COST: $150/month

Telus ($160/month)

• Family Plan
• Bring Your Own Device tier
• 15GB LTE Data (17GB LTE Total)
• Unlimited Nation-Wide
• Unlimited Texting
• FREE Telus Drive +$10/month (+1GB extra data)
• FREE Alcatel Tablet +$10/month (+1GB extra data)

     TOTAL COST: $180/month

Thanks again for all your help guys! 🙂

[mimmo]

@BrandonBerner to expand on the above idea, pick a 90 day plan you get provinial talk, texting and 19.5 gb of data for 150$  and then you renew once a month as needed.

as for paying extra for the talk and text portions well ist still cheaper than 180 you would pay for telus but you don't get the drive or the tablet.

since data is your main concern then you need to look at the price as a whole rather then the part vs the other options.  

[srlawren]

@BrandonBerner okay please don't take this the wrong way, I am just being honest:  Public Mobile is not the right brand for your needs today.  Of course I don't like discouraging people from using Public Mobile [PM], but like any other option out there, it's not everything to everyone.  Your amount of data usage, to be honest, is waaaaay more than the market segment that PM is targetting.  You've rightly pointed out that it would either cost you a fortune in data add-ons or a fortune plus hassle in early renewal requests to sustain such high data usage.  I really don't think the current plan offerings here are a good fit for your needs, unfortunately.  I think you would be better suited to use the Telus option.

PM's plans target low-to-moderate data needs and when bundled with talk and text options, can provide excellent value.  But when you try to stretch that far out of the intended usage, the results aren't great.

I don't want to patronize by either criticizing your large data needs or by trying to tell you how to get by with less--I'm going to assume you either need this much data for professional use (tethering for work for example), or you are trying to get by without home internet service, or you just do a LOT of streaming of music and HD content.  To those things I will just say that if it's a ton of streaming there are ways you can reduce that such as downloading for offline use while you're on WiFi, or if it's to replace home internet service, you would likely get a much better $/GB from a home internet service; if it's for work needs there likely isn't much that could be done about that.  So TL;DR for this paragaph: there might be ways to reduce your data needs to a cheaper level of service if you have the appetite for it.  If you want to explore this more, let us know a bit more about your usage and we can try to offer up suggestions.  But I'm guessing you probably just "need" this amount of data--which would bring me back to my original suggestion that your needs would be met better elsewhere, sadly.

[MoreYummy]

public mobile doesnt offer so much data in one plan,  telus plan might be more suitable for you in this case.  

[computergeek541]

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@BrandonBerner wrote:

Thanks @mimmo for your creative solution. Its the best option so far!

However it would require me to contact a Mod every 10 days to renew early which is a slight inconvienence.

In addition, I would be paying an additional $70/month ($35 for talk&text X2) for more unlimited talk and text that I would already have for the entire 30 days, unless they could credit that upon early renewal or something.

---

If you plan on using that much data on a regular basis, you could get a plan that would include 19.5GB over 90 days.  Then, based on your desire and needs to use 6.5GB every 10 days, you would only have to ask to renew early once every 30 days.  But, you already know that the talk and text elements that you've paid for up until the time that you ask to renew early will be lost after the early renewal.

I haven't cruched the numbers, but I'm leaning towards that it might be more beneficial to you to consider a carrier who offers a data option that is more than 6.5GB. 

[BrandonBerner]

Thanks @mimmo for your creative solution. Its the best option so far!

However it would require me to contact a Mod every 10 days to renew early which is a slight inconvienence.

In addition, I would be paying an additional $70/month ($35 for talk&text X2) for more unlimited talk and text that I would already have for the entire 30 days, unless they could credit that upon early renewal or something.

[mimmo]

You could ask mods to renew your plan early when you are close to your limit