a long-term customer will not get a new higher price if PB raise the price for its all plan?

[chch518]

In the beginning, PB starts $10 /months plan, later on, it became $15/month 

will a long-term customer get an exception if PB raises the price for its all plan?

I heard there was a policy in the telecom industry, the price hike will not apply to the existing customer?

is it true?

[darlicious]

I think we all saw this spring how well a price hike and a reduction in service went over with customers even with a promise of grandfathered plans. Canadian consumers already know how screwed over they are when it comes to the price they pay for mobile service compared to the rest of the world.

Any major change by the big three to put more money in their pockets at the expense of their customers will not only be met with derision and anger by consumers but with the federal government legislation. So far the government has directed the telecom industry to voluntarily follow the guidelines to give affordable access to all Canadian customers. The last thing the industry wants is legislation to adhere to or worse yet  opening the industry up to foreign competition.

Third tier prepaid providers are not going anywhere. There will always be a certain percentage of consumers that cannot qualify for a postpaid plan, those who refuse to have postpaid services and/or pay for premium services. Market share is everything to mobile providers and they will take it any way they can whether it's a plan that's only a few dollars a month or over a hundred dollars they want the head count. $1 is better than giving that $1 away to the competition. Do you think telus cares that there might be a couple of hundred of pm customers with a $0 bill? Not at all....those customers are the best marketing bang for their buck.

[allagelman]

@hTideGnow  @Korth  We are all at their mercy. However there are some carriers out there that have a long history of raising monthly fees for everyone on a yearly basis while some other carriers never raise or raise after many years.

Just from what I've heard Rogers is the worst for raising fees. I have experience with Rogers and Fido in particular. Bell and Virgin sorta the same as well. Telus and their other brands not as bad as the other two. I'm sure Telus still raises but its not as persistent like Rogers and Bell brands. From personal experience with Freedom Mobile. They never once raised my bill between years 2015-2021. Rogers would do it every year. Fido did it to me and the price was so significant I had to leave.

I have good vibes about Public Mobile.🙂

[hTideGnow]

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@Korth wrote:

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@hTideGnow wrote:

But I think there must be a way PM can raise the price for existing plan.  There is no way the plan could stay $10 forever.  

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PM could raise their prices any time they like. You've already "agreed" to their Terms of Service - you've already "agreed" that these Terms can be changed at any time - you've even already "agreed" that you already "agree" to any new Terms you haven't seen yet.

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Yes, I was thinking about that too.   OP was saying "I heard there was a policy in the telecom industry, the price hike will not apply to the existing customer?"  , I was thinking no way. this is true.

[Korth]

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@hTideGnow wrote:

But I think there must be a way PM can raise the price for existing plan.  There is no way the plan could stay $10 forever.  

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PM could raise their prices any time they like. You've already "agreed" to their Terms of Service - you've already "agreed" that these Terms can be changed at any time - you've even already "agreed" that you already "agree" to any new Terms you haven't seen yet. Strictly speaking, they only have a 30-day obligation to continue providing the pre-paid Term which has already been "agreed", after which they have no obligation to renew the same plan or same services at the same price.

And a measly $10 ARPU is nothing to brag about to shareholders. Probably even less with Reward discounts. It drags down all the averages.

But I think it's basically a denial strategy. There's roughly 35 million Canadians and there's roughly 35 million Canadian phone subscribers. Pretty much every Canadian who could subscribe to a phone service already subscribes to a phone service. So, in practice, the only way to get new subscribers is to bribe/steal them away from competitors. Maybe it's worthwhile for Telus to keep some subscribers hooked on ultra-cheap plans, just so they don't drift away to one of the competing networks.

[Korth]

The legacy $10 plan has the merit of costing only $10. You just can't beat that price. Though admittedly you don't get much for it - great for a placeholder/stand-by/emergency sort of number, but you'd need to buy add-ons to make the plan useable for anything above the bare minimum, and at some point upgrading to a $15 or $25 plan works out cheaper overall.

The legacy 90-day plans had the merit of allocating their provisions across 90 days. This is a nice convenience and more flexibility for how/when you use your data during each cycle, you could not use data when you don't need it (because there's plenty of data at home, work, and school) then use all "three months" worth of unused data over a single weekend vacation or somesuch. Some of these plans had killer deals, but most of them work out to less data than current plans.

The legacy LTE plans had the merit of faster data. But, from what I can recall of the prices, their data provisions aren't very competitive compared to what's on the market now. Impressive speed isn't so impressive if you burn through your paltry few GB in minutes or if you pay a significant premium to get a slightly bigger paltry handful of GB. Although, of course, if you insist on having your LTE and your Public Mobile together then these legacy plans are your only option - some people are still hanging onto these plans.

There's been a few "high-end" plans ($50-$60+) which include US calling and US data. For some reason these seem to come and go and change very quickly. But there's probably still a few of these legacies floating around which (for now) are still worth keeping.

[Sturlo]

And don't forget, companies and corporations are not in business for fun or happy-making; they're in business strictly for profit. That said, most corporate entities these days - at least the more savvy ones - have figured out that it costs far more to secure a new customer than it does to keep an existing one...

[AE_Collector]

But the $10 plan didn’t go up in price to $15. A new $15 plan was launched that came with more services than the $10 plan had. Then after some amount of time the $10 plan was discontinued but anyone on the $10 plan kept it as is (grandfathered)

AE_Collector 

[darlicious]

@hTideGnow 

I would say everyone with the $10 plan including myself would beg to differ.

[hTideGnow]

But I think there must be a way PM can raise the price for existing plan.  There is no way the plan could stay $10 forever.  

[will13am · Accepted solution]

Since inception, legacy plans have been grandfathered.  The only exception was the elimination of plans that had telephone support.  There's no regulation that require legacy plans to be grandfathered.  Policies are subject to change at the discretion of the carrier brand.  I would go by the famous Mark Twain saying that history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.  I would consider legacy plans as very stable.

[Dunkman]

@chch518 

Public mobile has been good at grandfathering plans.  In general, PM has not raised plan prices for existing customers on their present plans.  However, Public mobile has the right to raise plans in the future.  

From my understanding, there is no policy in the telecom business that carriers are unable to raise plans for existing customers.  That is the major reason why I moved to Public mobile when Fido raised my monthly plan fee.  

[t_p]

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@chch518 wrote:

In the beginning, PB starts $10 /months plan, later on, it became $15/month 

will a long-term customer get an exception if PB raises the price for its all plan?

I heard there was a policy in the telecom industry, the price hike will not apply to the existing customer?

is it true?

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@chch518 

Yes, existing customers should see their plans "grand-fathered" when PM update their plans.

The price won't change but they won't get new features (if any) unless they upgrade.