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Early days of Public.

BearFBI
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

So i was playing around with the internet Wayback Machine and i found some interesting things that public used to offer before being bought by Telus. 

 

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Back then there was the option to pay in cash and through money transfer. It was called Public Cash services. There also was a 3$ in store fee. This all ended in 2014.

 

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There were Unlimited Everything plans. Even unlimited Data. You had access to unlimited Email, Web browsing, Downloading apps, GPS, and the info portal. Its sad that this got dropped.

 

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After being bought by Telus and the whole unlimited thing they then made by the GB plans. They also jacked up the prices and offerd less. its interesting how they had special plans for new and existing users.

 

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Public Mobile never had a self serve before TELUS came along. They also only offered service in Ontario and Quebec unitll TELUS bought them. Its also funny how they are promoting the "3G" plans now and back then they were promoting 4G.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20140331144643/http://www.publicmobile.ca/pmconsumer/images/en/howtofaq/...

 

I found this fair use policy from their old site in 2014.

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They had Walmart SIM card ads in 2018. Lol

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The bravos leader-board and community looked a heck of a lot different too. 

 

And thats it ! I learent a bit about PM through old website archives. I didn't find much. Im sure there are loads of more interesting things but i have had enough of waiting hours for these half broken archives to load. does anybody know of anything else that is interesting ?

 

11 REPLIES 11

@BearFBI 

I totally understand....we both had negative pm experiences last summer but reacted in different ways. You retreated barely posting more than a few times a month if at all ( lol...you know I keep track of these things) and I dug my heels demanding satisfaction.....meh!

 

But things have changed since then with less tension and more laughs while helping out with the occasional drama queen moment to keep things interesting. Even @CannonFodder  is back!

BearFBI
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@darlicious 

 

"at that point then all the crazy monthly bravo records began to fall like dominoes to culminate in the complete removal of the bravo leaderboard in May of last year."

 

After the removal of the bravo leader board is when I slowly started to stop participating in the community as often. It just felt not fun anymore and more of a waste of time. For some reason seeing my progression on bravo leader board was just fun, it made me want to help out in the community.

 

I used to be high up there in the bravos. I'm nothing now lol. 

 

Now the removal of the bravo leaderboard wasn't the only thing that slowly made me stop participating in the community. There were many other reasons. The community just became boring and nothing fun has really came out of PM since the last time I regularly participated here. 

 

I'm gonna start participating every now and then. My goal is to get at least a couple bucks off. Last couple months I've got nothing out of community rewards. 

@BearFBI 

7000 bravos ago.....for me at least this one is year ago (February 12th 2020) my how pm and the world has changed since those very early days....pre-pandemic or so we thought. ....

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@Jb456 

Gee you managed to garner 10,000 bravos since then....I don't think anyone has hit that number in a year other than @gblackma  who hit that number at about the 6 month mark sometime in late june 2020.                                                                                                                             May 21st 2020

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But @Jb456 you were in a virtual tie with @Anonymous  for bravos in the previous 6 months at that point then all the crazy monthly bravo records began to fall like dominoes to culminate in the complete removal of the bravo leaderboard in May of last year.

TheGx
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@BearFBI :Haha yeah old days of Public!

BearFBI
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@TheGx I thought it was only me. I miss the old days of Public. Community leader board was definitely my favorite.

 

I spent a few months scoping them out before they rebranded and their rebrand is nice but idk. I kinda like the older site and logo.

TheGx
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

I like the old Public logo and colours better than this weird one they got now.

 

I like those leader boards they were fun to look at and the monthly board of community reward recipients, Public should do more to make this forum more interesting for people to spend their time here.


@BearFBI wrote:

Let me ressurect this thread. Does anyone know who owned PM before Telus bought them in 2013 ? 

 

I dont think it was one of the big 3 right ? If it wasnt then was PM considered a MVNO?


Public Mobile was the genesis of the experiment back in 2008 to bring much needed competition to the cellular landscape.  The little 3, Public Mobile, Mobilicity, and Wind Mobile were born.  Public Mobile was a CDMA carrier when Telus bought them in 2013.  They were eventually transitioned to the Telus network.  I have a feeling there must have been an extended transition period for Public Mobile built into the purchase contract.  Dave MacClean joined Telus right at the time that Telus takeover was approved.  For many years, Public Mobile operated very independent of the parent company.  It was in 2017 that we started to see Public Mobile blend into the family by way of the Koodo migration offers.  I sense that when Dave left, the transition project was completed.  This is the wiki on Public Mobile.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Mobile

BearFBI
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

Let me ressurect this thread. Does anyone know who owned PM before Telus bought them in 2013 ? 

 

I dont think it was one of the big 3 right ? If it wasnt then was PM considered a MVNO?

The Idea Lab required active feedback from PM to the participants - neglecting to respond (yay or nay or definite maybe or even "not at this time, but we'll look into it in the future") suggested that ideas weren't even being reviewed or considered, I've seen a fair number of (redacted) posts from participants who became unhappy and snippy after apparently being "ignored" for too long.

 

No Idea Lab means no hard obligation for PM to communicate, they killed it so they could focus on other things and "keep the conversation going" on their own terms, enough time has passed that they're unlikely to embrace the chore again.

BearFBI
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@NDesai Yeah Telus definitely improved publuc. There were definitely things that had to go but there were some things that I wish could have stayed. Like unlimited email, Web browsing, etc. I couldn't belive my eyes when I saw that their old plans had unlimited data. But look at what Public Mobile became today. They basically changed the whole service and just kept the old name. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't be here right now.

 

Oh and also a long time ago they used to offer android smartphones and these smart feature phones. They used to have special plans for each. I dont know anything about these plans because that area in the archives are broken.

NDesai
Oracle
Oracle

PM stayed in Beta for years after Telus took over.

They had Idea Lab 💡 section they used to get some creative ideas and implemented tons. They took it down and if i were to guess why, they couldn't keep up with some crazy ideas people will were throwing in 😀

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