cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Do Phone Plans Ever Change?

Asher2
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

NOTE: This is a question for people who have been with Public Mobile for a while!


I have only been with Public Mobile since November of 2020. So I do not have much experiences with them yet, BUT most of them have been good so far. Other then the Winnipeg and Brandon calling quality problem.

 

The Plan I have is somewhat sufficient so far, however I do usually have to buy a data addon often. I would like to change plans but there is not a plan that is sufficient for me, where plans are either have too much data, or too little data, I would go with the higher amount of data but I like to save as much money as possible. Its just weird not using a whole gigabyte or 2 of data.

 

So here’s my question, how often do phone plans here change? I know that it really won’t predict when they’ll change its just good to know. I know that it’ll be hard for Public to please everyone so there probably won’t have a plan thats exactly good for my needs like many others.

They haven’t changed plans the whole 3 months I’ve been here but I do know that Public has so many offers like almost all the time I’ve been here.  And I find it like always for me that I signed up without an offer because there were none when i did sign up considering my luck is terrible.

 

PS: I think I might be putting to much un-needed information, what do you guys think?

17 REPLIES 17

dabr
Mayor / Maire

@Asher2 wrote:

So my plan has now been grandfathered is that correct? Cause I was on the $15 Canada wide plan and now its gone.


@Asher2   Yes you're grandfathered in as long as you don't change it.

Asher2
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

So my plan has now been grandfathered is that correct? Cause I was on the $15 Canada wide plan and now its gone.


@Asher2 wrote:

Omg the plans literally just changed 

 

Edit: But the plans seem to be worse then the older plans. Hmm. 


Yep, last night at midnight eastern time. But the old plans are still there at the same price "for a limited time", IN ADDITION to the "new" province-wide plans. Then, the canada-wide plans will go up by $5.

 

the old $15 canada wide plan is gone - only a $15 province wide plan now.

Asher2
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

Omg the plans literally just changed 

 

Edit: But the plans seem to be worse then the older plans. Hmm. 

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@Asher2 

Happy Valentine's Day! But I see you snuck your post in on lucky February 13th! Let me hazard a guess....did you activate on a Wednesday? Or worse yet a Thursday? Followed by a flash sale on the Friday? It happens....happened to me. Just the other day @Anonymous bemoaned he had done the same and I commiserated with him sharing that I also had no referral code when I activated. Believe you me it just about killed me to pay full price for my plan (after the fact.)  In reality I was still payińg less than my old provider with much better coverage and after some due diligence I did get london drugs to price match a free sim.

 

You managed to miss the black friday promotion.....probably the worst offer pm gave out in 2020 other than no offer at all. $5 off your plan for 6 months. You are not missing out on much you just need to change your luck a little.  I know I did. I have a second line I was switching as well and took advantage of the RBC promo ($10 off/6 months + 5gb add on) After that I changed my first line to the $15 plan since my second line was on the $40 plan but I soon realized that it was superfulous and as I was contemplating that pm announced they were permanently deleting the $10 50/50 plan. I immediately scheduled a plan change to the $10 plan. That also not only gave me a $0 bill but began to build credit within the account.

 

The $10 50/50 plan was introduced long before I came along and it seemed pretty entrenched as one to stick around but in the summer of 2019 pm announced they were getting rid of it and there was an outcry so they kept it around a while longer with a "limited time" label on it. Then in late September 2019 they gave about a weeks notice of its demise then extended it for another 3 days but before thanksgiving it was gone.

 

About a month after that with less than 24 hours notice pm eliminated another "limited time only" plan introduced in the late spring. This was on the other end of price spectrum but another awesome deal  but I'm sure is causing consternation for those grandfathered in given the current travel restrictions. The $60 Canada/US roaming plan with 8gb/2gb roaming data and unlimited calling/texting to and from the US/Canada. For anyone who travelled to the US on a semi-regular basis this price could not be beat because you essentially got the current $50 plan +$10 for 2gb of roaming data and unlimited calling and texting. More than what you even get with the $20/10 day roaming plan.

 

In early fall public mobile rejigged the data in the stable of plans and reintroduced a $45/6.5gb plan. They dropped 500mb from the $40 (to 4.5gb) that was added back about 2 weeks later and added another 500mb to the $35 plan to finally make it half competitve with 2.5gb after bumping it up 500mb in mid summer from 1.5gb. They had also offered a very limited time $30/2gb plan in late spring that some people jumped on when they were given the chance.

 

There were a few promotional high data plans offered briefly or with targeted text offers that are $60 with 10.5/12/12.5gb data buckets and the promotional Quebec plans (w/autopay)  of $48/9.5gb or $28/ 2.5gb that were only pulled from offers a week or so ago.

 

So public mobile has its stable of plans that occasionally get tweaked or a slightly better version becomes a targeted offer via text or region or announcement......you just have to stick around and see what they come up with next!

 

Edit: When I started this post it was just after midnite. Then I fell asleep added more in the morning, another paragraph in the afternoon and finally got around to finishing now.....geez! Happy Family Day everybody!

 

fujiyama
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

Because of the pandemic, I don't think plans will be changing for a while. When this is "over" or when competing brands change their plans, PM will likely have some changes as well.

@Asher2 if you divide the $15 add-on into 90 days, you have

  • $18/580mb 30 days ($13+$5)
  • $28/1.33gb 30 days ($23+$5)

divide into 60 days

  • $20.5/750mb ($13+$7.5)
  • $30.5/1.5gb ($23+$7.5)

so sign away... 👍

I think pm has covered the bottom half(below $35) pretty well. 

No one has any idea of when a plan will change...

 

Confirm that you are getting all the data you can on your plan by getting the autopay bonus. Let’s say you are on the $25/1Gb plan. The next step up costs an extra $10 but you gain 1.5 more Gb with that plan. If you run out of data every month, how much extra do you seem to be using? If you wouldn’t likely need more than .5 Gb extra on top of your 1Gb the math says you are better with a $15/1Gb add-on since the unused part rolls over to subsequent months. Stretching the 1Gb add-on over 2-3 months adds only $5 to $7.50 (1/3 or 1/2 the add-on cost) to your $25 monthly (30 days) cost. But the $35 plan adds $10 per month every month. It would give you more data to throw around though so you don't have to be as careful using data. 

 

Personally I go with a plan that frequently gets me through the month but some months I tap into my add-on data a little to get to day 30. I generally leave very little data on the table at the end of the month. I try to maximize my use of wifi opportunities as well to reduce any add-on usage. I have never bought an add-on, I only have the freebies they give us from time to time.

 

Also keep an eye on the plans as they can change but this DOESN’T change the plan you are on very often if ever. You remain grandfathered on your plan which is good if something is removed from a plan but bad if you dont realize the newer version of the plan has more included data. It is up to you to decide if you want to change plans.

 

AE_Collector

Camera4617
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

I agree that some plans are too little and some are too much data but I think that's general practice for all carriers. They want to push you up in higher bracket so they can make more money of you and you probably will not use that data anyway, so no cost to them. I think that PM should heavily target less data usage customers and give them different options. And that's something that users here are 'recommending' quite often. Like, why not have have some mid-point plans like, between 250MB and 1GB.. Why not 500MB for 20$. I would sign for it right away as I'm on 250MB but I really don't need 1GB. I need 4-500MB as at this moment I'm really not using much data. Luckily, PM does gives 'free data' here and there and even I who is less than one year here, have already 7GB data for those overages and for that reason I'll keep my current data plan. Too bad for PM as they could make a bit more money. 

Having said that, being able to easily switch between plans up/down is really what keeps me here. Generally, in winter (which is most of the year here in Canada), I use less so I'll be on lower plan. When summer comes and we need to start going more out, then I'll switch to higher plan for couple months and again go back when winter comes. 

So more options for users, I think it would be better for PM as well. 

dude65
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@Asher2 

The plans could change tommorrow, or in a year or when whenever. Only PM knows if and when that will be. PM has a few different plans to choose from and if the plan your does not suit you can choose a different plan.

Remember that after 5 years with Public Mobile with autopay and doing nothing else, every plan will be $7 off. (Autopay+Loyalty reward)

 

$15 plan becomes $8/mo

$25 plan becomes $18

$40 plan becomes $33

Etc

 

At that point the plans compare much more favourably against the other 3rd tier brands. Definitely at the lower end. Add a couple referals for more...

totalUser
Mayor / Maire

@Asher2 

I noticed when others offer good enough plans for people to demand and even switch, we get them in even better form. In two years i have seen many plans come and go 15 plan charged for the better, 25 was 30 and was bouncing back and forth between 30 and 25. 35 was not very appealing since add-on went from 30 to 15, it kept charging between 30 and 35 with various amounts of data.. then there are 40 45, 50 and 60 plans. 40 and 50 kept charging amount of data be 0.5 gigs, while 45 and 60s appeared and disappeared (there were two very different 60 plans one with roaming and another with up to 12.5 gigs) $10 plan is long gone. Data only plans are gone, diy plans are gone. There is actually a lot of movement in these two years. Apparently TextNow will be able to operate in Canada very soon, that will have some impact on offerings as well, we've seen what happened in Alberta with Shaw and i suspect it may be similar

HALIMACS
Mayor / Maire

Hi @Asher2

 

I would suggest the plans only change about once a year at most. These changes are usually quite subtle.

 

A lot of users here make use of the special offers that are released once or twice a year. These usually include a variation of free data and international minutes.

 

These free gifted items, once added to the account, never expire until they're consumed.

 

As @esjliv advised, keep an eye on the Announcements section of the community homepage, as well as any texts or emails you may receive from public mobile which may advise of these specials.


@Asher2 wrote:

So here’s my question, how often do phone plans here change? I know that it really won’t predict when they’ll change its just good to know. I know that it’ll be hard for Public to please everyone so there probably won’t have a plan thats exactly good for my needs like many others.


The plans really could change at any time. It's been my opinion that the plans at Public Mobile are no longer good.  One can only help that things will get better, but who knows as plans could get worse. For about a year now, Public Mobile has been almost a carbon-copy of Chatr Wireless and Lucky Mobile. It's come down to the point that Public Mobile used to have the best plans, but now, even full-priced carriers have some better price plans.

esjliv
Mayor / Maire

Hello @Asher2 ,

 

Visit the Community often to check out any announcements. 

 

Sometimes there are temporary Plan offers/promos.

For example, in August 2020 the $35 plan (2GB with extra 500mb with autopay) went down to $30 for the same amount of data.

This meant NEW customers could sign up for it, as well as existing customers could change to it.

 

It is very easy to change plans here. You can only change your plan to any In-Market plans being offered. Sometimes Public Mobile will target certain groups / customers with offers. So keep an eye out for any texts/emails.

 

Data add-ons can be expensive, so getting an idea of what your current needs are would be handy to know the proper plan fit. But when circumstances change, change the plan. 🙂

stevenanto
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

I myself am fairly new to PM but wife has had it for a whack and she did have a different plan before before we made the switch to her current plan. We did notice that they did not have her old plan anymore. Her new plan was more advantageous 

TheGx
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@Asher2 :When I started with Public over 2 years ago they had build your own custom plans that could be prepaid in 3 months blocks so that the data would be say 3GB for 3 months. Plans changed 2-3 times since, so I guess one or two plan changes per year is to be expected.

Need Help? Let's chat.