Plans & Add-Ons... requests & suggestions

[Korth]

Trying to keep things realistic here... since we all know (or can easily lookup) exactly what Public Mobile offers, and what Lucky and Chatr and Freedom offer... and they each offer unique perks but it turns out they mostly offer almost identical Plans at almost identical prices. Competition is fierce. 

PM Plans are all based on 30-day billing cycles. (Ignoring legacy/grandfathered plans based on 90-day or 10-day billing cycles, as they are no longer offered.) 

Everybody else's Plans are all based on monthly cycles. 

Not a big difference, true.

But eight of the twelve months do not have 30 days. Most usage tracking software assumes proper months and has to be manually reset on these months so Minutes/Texts/MB get measured accurately, it's a nuisance. And monthly bills due (more often than not) on different days of the month is also a nuisance. 

Twelve months are one year while twelve 30-days are one year minus 5 or 6 days. So, given "same" Plans with everything else being (roughly) equal between competitors, PM actually ends up costing about $2 to $10 more each year... so much for Loyalty Rewards. 

(A minor aside: I think PM should bring "10-day Talk/Text Pass" back. It was sometimes handy for travelers and nervous new PM joiners, nothing to lose by letting customers choose it. It was immensely handy for PM Mods to ease the stress and uncertainty of payment woes combined with Number Port fears, even if PM doesn't sell it they should retain it as a tool... easing the pain for new customers earns long loyalty, not easing the pain earns indifference, doing nothing and losing their precious phone number earns ther hatred and blame for life. ) 

Freedom now offers "Fast LTE" Data options on every Plan. PM doesn't anymore, Lucky doesn't, Chatr never did.

But it's something to think about when the LTE capability is already installed and Data performance is such a high-demand commodity. If you sell it, they will come (and if you don't sell it, they will go elsewhere). One competitor is already winning the race, another competitor can't even join the race, but PM seems content to simply run with the pack. 

Lucky has "unlimited" Data (throttled to 128/64kbps download/upload).

Chatr has "unlimited" Data (throttled to 64/64kbps).

Freedom has "unlimited" Data (throttled to 128/64kbps on 3G, 256/128kbps on LTE).

PM has strictly limited Data. Yeah, sad story bro.

PM offers two Data Add-Ons, the one with better value is $30 for 1GB.

Lucky charged $25 for 2GB. But now they charge $15 for 2GB (since they've also introduced low-cost low-value "Service Passes" to nickle & dime their Data addicts).

Chatr charges $5 for 500MB (up to a maximum of $25 for 2.5GB per month). 

Freedom offers a variety of Data Add-Ons, based around $15 for 1GB LTE. (Note that they're being trashed because a recent "$10 for 3G" promo/scam got ugly. )

... I do appreciate the free 1GB Data gift, thank you PM, but it doesn't really seem like "a $30 value" when viewed somewhat objectively.

There is apparently much excitement in some circles because Freedom (and maybe also that laggard, Chatr) have dropped hints about implementing some sort of custom Plan-building structure which will allow customers to select (and pay for) only the Plan components they actually want. PM, on the other hand, quietly killed off their Build Your Own Plan feature not so long ago. (Less flexibility means less customers, I think - I used to use the Plan builder a lot to lure Referrals away from their ripoff phone bills. ) 

Finally... Check out all of their official websites.

PM is the only one of the bunch which leans very heavy on an online support/service model. No stores, no kiosks, no real advertising and media presence offline. So it *needs* to have the most impressive and functional website of them all.

But it looks, to my jaded eye, like the least professional and most buggy one of the lot. (I'm willing to admit this might be wrong because I'm too easily impressed by glossy slick aesthetics and snappy responsiveness or maybe I haven't spent enough time being frustrated by errors while exploring those other websites. But I'm just trying to be honest here, I do want to see PM get better.)

[BEER]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

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@BEER wrote:

 OK ... 

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Yes, internet providers do advertise maximum possible speeds.   However, there are many cases in which the ISP is providing the advertised speeds (such as 500Mbps).  It is not east to achieve that type of speed using Wi-Fi.

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By WIFI my 2018 MacBook Pro at best gets 150 Mbps but when I hard wire it by Ethernet cable I get around 325 download and close to 500 Mbps upload. I’m using the Bell provided modem/router (Bell 3000). A Bell installer told me thatt for his home he hard wired even his tv. 

[BEER]

Because the add ons roll over until used up and —- in my case anyways so far —- I had uninterrupted service .

[Korth]

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@BEER wrote:

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@Luddite wrote:

My own summary is that PM is still best value for anyone who has stuck it out for a couple of years; for new folks the long term is marginally better, but short term risk is higher, than going to the competitors. 

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Please clarify why "but short term risk is higher, than going to the competitors." 

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I'm interested in his answer, too. 

But I'll try to answer it myself... assuming the perspective of a new customer... looking at what is offered and what is not offered by each of the value-brand providers. Right now Lucky SIM cards are cheap at Dollarama, they give you a $20 gift card to Dollarama, and you get a $25 signup credit as random new customer or as referral (some small print conditions apply, basically you just stay with them 2-3 months while pre-paying your bill on time). Maybe this promo will be gone next month. Last month Freedom had a big data promo. A few months back Chatr had a killer talk and text promo. From the customer's perspective you get more for less, not less for less. And you get to walk out of the store with a working phone service today (whether you brought in your own device or you bought one of the shiny new ones they sell) - indeed, you know you can come back whenever you want to upgrade or you need something fixed.

PM doesn't have any killer promo. Even if they did, and it happened to be in your area, and it happened while you were actually out shopping for phone service, you'd have to look hard to find it and you'd have to take your chances with DIY-everything once you got it. Because, as you might learn the hard way, you'll have to msg the mods or chat with a chatbot in the hopes of getting your phone working a couple days later. New customers who go hunting on google will see an endless parade of complaints and workarounds and disgruntled customers on these PM forums (and on other sites).

It's not that hard to get your phone setup for PM. The majority of PM's customers simply follow the onscreen instructions and enjoy working service without a hitch. They don't even bother to come to this forum because they have no problems, no questions, no issues, no complaints, nothing to comment about: they simply got what they paid for. And if they stick around long enough - like many of us have - then the Loyalty Rewards kick in and the Referral Rewards start to add up and even the collection of little freebie gifts begins to accumulate.  I've seen killer promos come and go at PM and at all the others, I've seen some people happy after they scored fantastic deals, and I've seen many people eventually end up coming back to PM (or wishing they'd stayed with PM) because PM's consistent long-term Rewards are worth more than a being an opportunistic nomad on an endless hunt for flashy wherever-you-can-find-it short-term savings.

But ask yourself... If you were a new customer, why would you want to join PM? 

Please give me a good answer to that question. Because aggressive competitors (and passively unenthused PM responses which seem to lack any real initiative or have any real objective) are making it awfully hard for me to recruit PM Referrals. 

[computergeek541]

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@BEER wrote:

 OK ...  just saying that  by today’s standards 2 mbps is snail pace.  Just in case I didn’t make it clear I’m on bell fibe 500 but was never able to get close to receiving that speed. I think that the internet providers are throwing these figures around as a marketing ploy 

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Yes, internet providers do advertise maximum possible speeds.   However, there are many cases in which the ISP is providing the advertised speeds (such as 500Mbps).  It is not east to achieve that type of speed using Wi-Fi.

[BEER]

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@computergeek541 wrote:

Dial up internet service has ever provided 50Mbps speeds. Dial-up has never been able to do close to even those 2Mbps speeds mentioned earlier

 OK ...  just saying that  by today’s standards 2 mbps is snail pace.  Just in case I didn’t make it clear I’m on bell fibe 500 but was never able to get close to receiving that speed. I think that the internet providers are throwing these figures around as a marketing ploy because they must know that it in order to enjoy these speeds it all depends on the equipment one has. 

[Korth]

PM has faults, sure, but slow-performing home WiFi setups (by other providerd) are definitely not something PM can improve to remain competitive. 

[computergeek541]

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@BEER wrote:

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The speeds your getting are WAY TOO LOW you might as well be on dial up. I’m with bell and even though we pay for 500 mbps we are only getting a consistent 350 mbps download.  But the reason for this maybe that our router/modem may not be up to snuff 

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Dial up internet service has ever provided 50Mbps speeds. Dial-up has never been able to do close to even those 2Mbps speeds mentioned earlier.

[BEER]

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@darlicious wrote:

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@BEER wrote:

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@dnewf wrote:

  How do you go and convince a new customer to stay the course for the long term, suffer a bit in the short term and good things like $5/30 days of loyalty reward will come your way?  I do try, it is a tough battle.

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Try to convince them by not only focusing on the great cheap plans  PM offers but also on the fact that their quality is as good as the rest coupled with the fact that if they were to encounter problems or have questions the help through this forum is far superior then calling and waiting  overseas call centres only to be connected to untrained well meaning staff that try to upsale you.

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@BEER  There is a lot of truth to that. After complaining about our dreadfully slow WiFi to telus and a very short lived improvement (went from avg 2mbps d/l  to 50 mbps d/l)  the tech proceeded to try and upsell us to an unlimited data/150 mbps contract telling me the slow speeds for our (50mbps) house  because we had too many devices. 3 smartphones, a pc and a tablet. Only one of us is a gamer and he works night's  the rest of us hardly use it a combined 65gb/450gb in one month for 4 people isn't slowing our speed down that much. Our speed is back down to between 2-3mbps.. This was followed by 3 sales calls one for a cell plan that I had just switched to pm. 4 emails and a customer service survey that I couldn't complete because the WiFi was so slow I got kicked off the server when I was home alone.

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The speeds your getting are WAY TOO LOW you might as well be on dial up. I’m with bell and even though we pay for 500 mbps we are only getting a consistent 350 mbps download.  But the reason for this maybe that our router/modem may not be up to snuff 

[darlicious]

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@BEER wrote:

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@dnewf wrote:

  How do you go and convince a new customer to stay the course for the long term, suffer a bit in the short term and good things like $5/30 days of loyalty reward will come your way?  I do try, it is a tough battle.

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Try to convince them by not only focusing on the great cheap plans  PM offers but also on the fact that their quality is as good as the rest coupled with the fact that if they were to encounter problems or have questions the help through this forum is far superior then calling and waiting  overseas call centres only to be connected to untrained well meaning staff that try to upsale you.

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@BEER  There is a lot of truth to that. After complaining about our dreadfully slow WiFi to telus and a very short lived improvement (went from avg 2mbps d/l  to 50 mbps d/l)  the tech proceeded to try and upsell us to an unlimited data/150 mbps contract telling me the slow speeds for our (50mbps) house  because we had too many devices. 3 smartphones, a pc and a tablet. Only one of us is a gamer and he works night's  the rest of us hardly use it a combined 65gb/450gb in one month for 4 people isn't slowing our speed down that much. Our speed is back down to between 2-3mbps.. This was followed by 3 sales calls one for a cell plan that I had just switched to pm. 4 emails and a customer service survey that I couldn't complete because the WiFi was so slow I got kicked off the server when I was home alone.

[BEER]

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@Luddite wrote:

@Korth Great post! 👍👍

My own summary is that PM is still best value for anyone who has stuck it out for a couple of years; for new folks the long term is marginally better, but short term risk is higher, than going to the competitors. 

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Please clarify why "but short term risk is higher, than going to the competitors." 

[BEER]

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@dnewf wrote:

  How do you go and convince a new customer to stay the course for the long term, suffer a bit in the short term and good things like $5/30 days of loyalty reward will come your way?  I do try, it is a tough battle.

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Try to convince them by not only focusing on the great cheap plans  PM offers but also on the fact that their quality is as good as the rest coupled with the fact that if they were to encounter problems or have questions the help through this forum is far superior then calling and waiting  overseas call centres only to be connected to untrained well meaning staff that try to upsale you.

[dnewf]

Couldnt have said it any better myself! Well said.

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@will13am wrote:

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@mimmo wrote:

@Korth   well written,  I thnk you however glanced over the rewards  too briefly.

PM offers community , referal, loyalty, and auto pay rewards which can really bring down plan costs.   I thnk lucky was offering a $25 refer a friend offer(not sure its gone) chatter none.  i think the all havd a bonus data with autopay

PM is the only one with a dated (un mobile friendly) selfserve 

Lucky offers wifi calling app free

as for the plan builder I am not sure why people are so upset.  iirc

• 90+%  of actiavtions we done via premade plans
• the only real choice you had was the amount and speed of data as you needed to pick canada talk and texting  to get best  value + a data addon
• it's prices were often higher than the premade plans
• there was no real financual value in picking 90 day plans
• full LTE plans were similar to koodos prices

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I am upset about the loss of the plan builder because I was going to use it and it was eliminated before my very eyes.  It was already there and costs nothing to keep it there regardless of the uptake.  It is not like a physical shelf in a store where seldom bought items need to be removed to make space for new items.  Unless you buy into that explanation given, its removal made zero.zero difference in online account performance.  The 90 day plans used to offer value.  That price advantage was eliminated and not because customers asked for it.  A few people got confused by it and that became the excuse to deep six what was a great idea.  If there was appetite to keep it, then education would be the path forward.  Instead the baby was thrown out with the proverbial bath water.  

The remaining redeeming quality is the rewards.  The longer we stay, the more we are hooked into it.  Not that it is a bad thing, I am in it for the long haul.  How do you go and convince a new customer to stay the course for the long term, suffer a bit in the short term and good things like $5/30 days of loyalty reward will come your way?  I do try, it is a tough battle.

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[BEER]

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@will13am wrote:

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@BEER wrote:

Let’s face it - plans are pretty cheap now ($15 -$2=$13/month)for unlimited texting, 100 min talk, and 250 mb data would have been unbelievable a few years ago. But like the little mouse we won’t rest until perhaps cell providers actually pay us to use their service. 

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Canada has one of the highest cellular rates in the world.  I don't know how you can make this statement.  

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Yes of course that’s what they say and in general it is true. However there are great deals to be had if one is a smart shopper. For example, for the same features as my $13 PM plan (with only auto pay discount) at Bell I would have to pay more then double. 

An example of a not so smart shopper may be my wife that chooses to continue donating to Bell approx $75/month for her plan. She like most basically just texts and mostly by iMessage and connects to WIFI for most of her social media non sense. She won't take my advice to switch to PM because she is conditioned to believe  that one gets what they pay for. For her needs she could get away with PM basic $10 -$2=$8/month plan. 

Yet another problem that sellers capitalize on is that many of us are also conditioned to think and plan short term. Taking my wifes case - she at time says it only a small amount but take her phone bill for example. Bell plan 12X75=$900 / year vs my PM plan 12X13=$156 / year ----that's a whopping $744 that she could save and better spent on other things.

ALSO give me a break $1500.00 for ------------Telus Peace of Mind 50 Plan

The best unlimited data plan in Canada is the Telus Peace of Mind 50 plan for $125/month.

[will13am]

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@BEER wrote:

Let’s face it - plans are pretty cheap now ($15 -$2=$13/month)for unlimited texting, 100 min talk, and 250 mb data would have been unbelievable a few years ago. But like the little mouse we won’t rest until perhaps cell providers actually pay us to use their service. 

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Canada has one of the highest cellular rates in the world.  I don't know how you can make this statement.  

[will13am]

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@mimmo wrote:

@Korth   well written,  I thnk you however glanced over the rewards  too briefly.

PM offers community , referal, loyalty, and auto pay rewards which can really bring down plan costs.   I thnk lucky was offering a $25 refer a friend offer(not sure its gone) chatter none.  i think the all havd a bonus data with autopay

PM is the only one with a dated (un mobile friendly) selfserve 

Lucky offers wifi calling app free

as for the plan builder I am not sure why people are so upset.  iirc

• 90+%  of actiavtions we done via premade plans
• the only real choice you had was the amount and speed of data as you needed to pick canada talk and texting  to get best  value + a data addon
• it's prices were often higher than the premade plans
• there was no real financual value in picking 90 day plans
• full LTE plans were similar to koodos prices

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I am upset about the loss of the plan builder because I was going to use it and it was eliminated before my very eyes.  It was already there and costs nothing to keep it there regardless of the uptake.  It is not like a physical shelf in a store where seldom bought items need to be removed to make space for new items.  Unless you buy into that explanation given, its removal made zero.zero difference in online account performance.  The 90 day plans used to offer value.  That price advantage was eliminated and not because customers asked for it.  A few people got confused by it and that became the excuse to deep six what was a great idea.  If there was appetite to keep it, then education would be the path forward.  Instead the baby was thrown out with the proverbial bath water.  

The remaining redeeming quality is the rewards.  The longer we stay, the more we are hooked into it.  Not that it is a bad thing, I am in it for the long haul.  How do you go and convince a new customer to stay the course for the long term, suffer a bit in the short term and good things like $5/30 days of loyalty reward will come your way?  I do try, it is a tough battle.

[darlicious]

@Korth  Yes I absolutely agree your post is insightful, opinionated and noteworthy for pm and @Alan_K . I switched both my phones for many reasons unique to each of my former providers. The biggest draw was the ability to save compared to the previous providers. Adding in the bf's  phone the main reasons : much cheaper plans (fido & telus), comprehensive coverage (freedom), rewards (not offered period), community (fido-complete waste of time-) ridiculous overages&reoccurring top ups(fido), long customer service call centre wait times (fido&telus), elimination of paper billing despite pwd designation (fido), billing errors (fido&telus), inability to fix errors correctly (fido), deterioration of customer loyalty incentives (telus&freedom). I'm a little hooked to earning rewards but I am really enjoying the community from how much I've learned, been taught on a variety of topics, computer skills and phone operation, helping others....so nice to do this and be appreciated rather than be taken advantage of your time/efforts and the personal mentorship by oracles and very knowledgeable  community members. I came for the savings and the rewards but am staying for the community. 

 This being said...all other lo cost carriers offer store fronts, call centres and similar sometimes better incentives and promos than public mobile. All these things cost significant expense on the part of the parent company in conjunction with their lowest provider tier but can still offer competitively priced plans and/ or incentives such as throttled data or cheap data only plans and add ons.  Public Mobil needs to recognize community members for what they bring to pm and what they do: salespeople, promoters, tech support, troubleshooter, customer service agents, "psychologists", a massive support group and we could probably do most of the moderators jobs given the access (obviously not possible privacy...blah, blah, blah...) A few more credit based promos that reward both the new customer and the referrer are needed on a regular basis. I realize rewards help fulfill that role but cost savings compared to the service/ incentives offered by other providers is significant and since the online only platform is sadly lacking in...well let's just say it's sad. It should be industry leading not a limp, wet ( I want to say dog but I wouldn't bestow that insult on any company but the rightfully named one) we'll go with rag doll. Either invest in your online system or your loyal customers/community because you're already losing the online race if you lose your community you might as well just post a DQ on the leaderboard.

[Luddite]

@Korth Great post! 👍👍

PM created a new market segment - "low" cost, no call centre, committed Community. Competitors followed by matching cost but providing call centre. For a while the combination of our Community and moderators was regularly complimented on being better than a long hold call centre. That advantage has been lost for now. I have hope for PM but expect its recovery to be slow.

My own summary is that PM is still best value for anyone who has stuck it out for a couple of years; for new folks the long term is marginally better, but short term risk is higher, than going to the competitors. 

[BEER]

Let’s face it - plans are pretty cheap now ($15 -$2=$13/month)for unlimited texting, 100 min talk, and 250 mb data would have been unbelievable a few years ago. But like the little mouse we won’t rest until perhaps cell providers actually pay us to use their service. 

[Korth]

If you give a mouse a cookie... lol, so true.

But if you rarely feed the mouse then he's certain to run away with anyone else who hands out sweets.

Yeah, I glossed over PM Rewards (along with the various perks/advantages of the competition). But Rewards are indeed a damned good deal, AutoPay and Loyalty are passive freebies, Referral and Community aren't so hard to gather if you persist. I'm still with PM because of the Rewards. 

PM now gives $10 Referral credits alongside the Referral Rewards. Great deal for the referrer, given enough time, and great deal for the referred (if he/she starts collecting Referrals as well). But not so great in the short run... people see PM's $10 credit... and, as usual, they've never heard of PM (or they've only heard Bad Things), the first question they ask is "where's their store?", and it's a hard sell. And people see Lucky's/Chatr's/Freedom's $25 (and cheap SIM cards, gift cards, highly visible promos, etc) and ask me why they shouldn't take those offers instead... all I can do is shrug. Mercenaries in a warzone aren't interested in investing into something years away from now, especially not when those investments loom uncertain, they just want to get all the gold and glory they can walk away with today.

My OP was intended to emphasize that PM has become stagnant and unenticing while PM's competitors are innovating with ever-increasing momemtum. You do indeed get Less For Less at PM - a little less every year. PM's promos are so random and time-limited and restrictive (Save Ten Bucks! And Get More Data! At This Store Only! This Weekend Only! New Customers Only!) that it's genuinely impossible to score them for referrals unless you already have a stockpile of PM SIM cards and eager referrals ready to pounce.  You can't rush people to spend money on a value-brand tier, lol. And you can't succeed at high-pressure sales tactics two or three neighbours are aggressively advertising better offers everywhere you look, lol. 

[mimmo]

@Korth   well written,  I thnk you however glanced over the rewards  too briefly.

PM offers community , referal, loyalty, and auto pay rewards which can really bring down plan costs.   I thnk lucky was offering a $25 refer a friend offer(not sure its gone) chatter none.  i think the all havd a bonus data with autopay

PM is the only one with a dated (un mobile friendly) selfserve 

Lucky offers wifi calling app free

as for the plan builder I am not sure why people are so upset.  iirc

• 90+%  of actiavtions we done via premade plans
• the only real choice you had was the amount and speed of data as you needed to pick canada talk and texting  to get best  value + a data addon
• it's prices were often higher than the premade plans
• there was no real financual value in picking 90 day plans
• full LTE plans were similar to koodos prices

[will13am]

@Korth , this is a well written piece on the state of the union on the tier 3 brands and how they currently match up.  I have seen first hand how this brand has transitioned from being a leader to a laggard. Well the marketing types refer to it as competitive responders.  It used to be easy to bring in a referral.  Now it's quite the chore.  Perhaps all the low hanging fruit has been harvested.  I definitely do get push back about features competitors offer that is not available with Public Mobile.  Everyone knows my motto is buy the service for what it is, not what you wish it to be.  

[BEER]

If you give a mouse a cookie,  then he'll ask you for a glass of milk, and then a straw, and then a napkin