Really wish Public Mobile would bring back the Siren Music Service. That was one of the reasons besides the price of plans that I joined before the Telus takeover
@kav2001c net neutrality made streaming music services illegal? Huh? Okay so I know you usually know what you're talking about but I've never heard of this. Do you have some articles that back this up? So far as I know, you can still legally use streaming services in Canada. And net neutrality is a good thing IMHO. There shouldn't be preferential treatment for some services so that you're basically forced into using the services your carrier has deals with or the carrier that has a deal with the streaming service you like. And you shouldn't have paid express lanes. I like how it's everything at the same speeds and everything is treated equally.
Whether net neutrality is good it bad will probably be discovered over the next few years in the USA as the new administration and fcc chairman are scrapping neutrality there. Let's see what happens. My guess is greed shall prevail but let's watch. 🙂
Videotron is easiest to link since they just got in trouble (really stupid in my opinion, they had 7 services for free when you signed with them and you could even request to add services)
Remember that Siren was *unlimited* and streaming it did not count against your data caps
Hence Public gave it preferential treatment
There is nothing wring with streaming services (eg Spotify) but when a carrier is zero rating the music service it is illegal (and worse in Public's case since Siren was a Public Mobile only feature)
@kav2001c@ Oic. The way you originally presented it you made it sound like the services themselves were illegal. But it's the zero-rating that's illegal. And though I hate to disagree with you and on the surface zero rating sounds appealing but i am personally against it. What if i prefer Spotify or Apple Music or the one that Jay-Z owns and I forget the name of at the moment? What if one of those carries more artists I like? Then I have to choose between the one my carrier sanctions (i.e. has a financial arrangement with) or the one I really want but it counts against my data. This is not a pleasant situation! I think if carriers want to zero rate one music service they should be required to zero rate all music services. That I would be okay with, as all would be on equal footing.
My preference is still for complete neutrality and bigger or unlimited data buckets rather than just selctively zero-rating some services. At least they were making it an even playing field for music, which is good, but then what about people that want to stream TV and movies? What about people that play a lot of data-heavy apps like that Pokemon thing that was all the rage a while ago? What about people that need to sync a lot of large files for work? What about <insert random data-heavy usage scenario here>? In an ideal world, everything would be zero rated, with true unlimited (or say a very large cap--most "unlimited" American plans throttle at a certain point) data. Of course, that doesn't seem likely in the forseeable future in Canada, but hey, we can dream!
@srlawren that is why Videotron insisted they needed to ID the service
As an example, Company X could have videos and music (same as Youtube offers) and Videotron wanted to make sure ONLY music was being zero rated, not the videos on web site
I'm sure that is why some services did not want to sign up with Videotron and I have no idea what prompted their decision to this
As for larger data buckets, Videotron had the largest buckets by far in Ontario (Ottawa) and Quebec (province wide)
Thier promo was substantially better than the old Public Mobile promo (more data, cross Canada roaming, very cheap US roaming + free long distance)
@kav2001c that's wonderful!....for people living in Ontario and Quebec. Unfortuantely for those of us not in Ontario or Quebec or Sasksatchewan or Manitoba, we're left with the awful nation-wide choices at the big 3. This is why PM is such a gift from on high, given the value and it's offered nation-wide.
There are a couple of free music streaming sites available if you have a library card. It will still use up your data, but at a lot slower rate than YouTube, since there is no video signal transmitted. Both of these sites use MP3 format, which definitely isn't for audiophiles, but which is definitely good enough for earbuds outside or a basic stereo system indoors.
The first one is Freegal, which offers DRM free (yes, iPhone will handle it!) songs. Unlimited streaming, plus you're allowed to download three songs a week. It's basically the Sony catalogue, which ate the old Columbia catalogue. Excellent for classical music and jazz, with some good stuff from the 60's and on (Bob Dylan). Lots of stuff that I've never heard of, lots of cover bands, but it's free.
The other one is Hoopla. This lets you borrow stuff for a week, just like the library. You can download 20 albums in a month. It disappears from your phone a week later - no overdue fines! It has a much wider choice of DRM free media. Download at home when you're on wifi, then listen later. The selection runs more modern than Freegal, but there are limited numbers of "copies" that can be lent out at any one time.
