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Paying for 3G data but phones show it as LTE -

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

The following is part of a Spam message I and am certain others have received  from Freedom Mobie.

"Get 1.5GB Fast LTE Data with unlimited Canada-wide calling and global text $19.99"

This sparked my interest because their data is advertised as " 1.5GB Fast LTE Data ". In addition a few months ago, they or perhaps one of their retailers did send me 2 free Freedom SIM cards that I never bothered to activate because I'm happy with PM. However even though their Simms seem to be free they would charge me a $10 activation fee -- so the sims are not really free.

My confusion is - My paid PM data is shown as 3G however on all three of our iPhones it shows up as LTE.  Soooooo is PM now giving us LTE speeds for the price of 3G?

37 REPLIES 37

@BEER 

       To explain my late partner had a free smartphone from freedom on their $40 unlimited plan from 2012. I had a flip phone free from telus(No contract ever just a good negotiation with the loyalty department.)  With free roaming, 300 minutes, free evenings and weekends, free texting and a free data block for $35. When he lost freedom service either at home or leaving the GVRD he would use my phone. If i needed to talk to my mom ( long distance and minimum 1 hour) or call anyone else long distance or during the day or use data away from WiFi at home (like hardly ever I hated the internet) I would use his phone.

Fast forward to late 2016 and now i have both phones and services. And needing both due to each services limitations and i now had to learn all about the internet to be able to function in this century's  society. I couldnt rely on someone else dealing with all things internet/computer related anymore. It took about 2 1/2 years to find public mobile but once i did it fufilled all the pro's that i had with telus and freedom, immediately dropped my bill in half ( and reduced one bill to $0 after one month and both bills to $0 after one year.) Offered me unlimited canada wide calling and international texts, more data than i need and the reliability and coverage of the telus/bell network. The only con was I had to learn  all about public mobile, phones, computer skills etc.....which turns out really isnt a con....but another pro for me in personal development.

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@Anonymous wrote:

Oh. Good to know. So you CAN search. Duly noted.


🤣


>>> ALERT: I am not a moderator. For account or activation assistance, please click here.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Oh. Good to know. So you CAN search. Duly noted.

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

@darlicious wrote:

 

        The main reason I switched from freedom was a very inconsistent and poor signal at home (they have finally improved this by adding a cell tower 3 blocks away....) but i would have no service at all every weekend at the lake...with the phone switching to AWAY as soon as we hit the Caulfield exit on hwy 99 And I was not going to pay for roaming.......


Wow... now that is bad considering you would still be in the GTA. According to Google - cut and pasting below .

Freedom Mobile Has the Least Reliable Network in Canada

Every year since 2015 J.D. Power has tested and ranked the major mobile networks throughout Canada. Every year (including 2018), Telus ranks as the most reliable network with the fewest dropped calls of any national carrier. Freedom ranks dead last.

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

@popping wrote:

Freedom plan may be cheap.  But people need to spend money to get a newer phone which supports the following bands in order to get better user experience.  

B4 1,700 MHz,

B7 2,600 MHz,

B13 700 MHz and

B66 1,700 MHz Advanced Wireless Services-3

 

If you are using an older phone with Freedom, data speed will be lower


How much older than a 7 year old iPhone 5s ?

iPhone 5s device, regardless of other network compatibility, supports 802.11n Wi-Fi on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies in addition to Bluetooth 4.0 and the 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz frequencies of GSM/EDGE

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

Thanks for all the links. Yes of course I am aware that there have been many discussions regarding this topic. However things do change and I was curious that just perhaps PM stopped throttling their data down. 

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

Yikes ... Rogers ...  had Rogers back a few years ago and in my area the reception was super bad.  Honestly I couldn’t call my wife in our house from our driveway. However when in the GTA the reception was good. With Bell and Telus/PM no reception problems at all.

@BEER 

Using the Canadian tire site as your example was....well.....hmmmm....poor.  That has got to be the slowest site in Canada. It's slower than pm's site! I can bike to canadian tire quicker  than get it to load.

 

          I switched from freedom to pm last August and I noticed no difference in data speed between the two. I don't notice much of a difference if any between my 4GLTE account and my throttled 4GLTE(3G speed). I havent watched any HD movies on my smartphone nor do I play video games so i suppose that's where you would see the biggest difference.

        The main reason I switched from freedom was a very inconsistent and poor signal at home (they have finally improved this by adding a cell tower 3 blocks away....) but i would have no service at all every weekend at the lake...with the phone switching to AWAY as soon as we hit the Caulfield exit on hwy 99 And I was not going to pay for roaming.......

Anonymous
Not applicable

@ShawnC13 wrote:

@wetcoaster wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

@BEER wrote:

 

My confusion is - My paid PM data is shown as 3G however on all three of our iPhones it shows up as LTE.  Soooooo is PM now giving us LTE speeds for the price of 3G?


Aaagain...how long have you been here?

Apparently we haven't made things clear before:

February 2019

May 2019

May 2019

September 2019

January 2020

(There might be more, I just skimmed the started topics...)

 

\sarcasm


This is winning!!  @wetcoaster greatest post on here in a longtime!!!


I vote wetcoaster won the internet today.

As this same question has been asked before, and this thread is really about a competitor's offer, it has been moved to The Lounge.


@wetcoaster wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

@BEER wrote:

 

My confusion is - My paid PM data is shown as 3G however on all three of our iPhones it shows up as LTE.  Soooooo is PM now giving us LTE speeds for the price of 3G?


Aaagain...how long have you been here?

Apparently we haven't made things clear before:

February 2019

May 2019

May 2019

September 2019

January 2020

(There might be more, I just skimmed the started topics...)

 

\sarcasm


This is winning!!  @wetcoaster greatest post on here in a longtime!!!

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *


@Anonymous wrote:

@BEER wrote:

 

My confusion is - My paid PM data is shown as 3G however on all three of our iPhones it shows up as LTE.  Soooooo is PM now giving us LTE speeds for the price of 3G?


Aaagain...how long have you been here?

Apparently we haven't made things clear before:

February 2019

May 2019

May 2019

September 2019

January 2020

(There might be more, I just skimmed the started topics...)

 

\sarcasm

@BEER browsing at 3mb is more than enough bandwidth. it's more than enough to stream upto 720p. at home I'm not able to stream 1080p without the video buffering,. but when I'm outside it's fine. 

 

I've experienced the same scenario you are describing, but that was when I was inside Canadian Tire.(lots of signal interference)

 

at first she claimed that their (Freedom Mobile) LTE was the fastest . I then asked her what the speed was and she just responded with very fast.

*this reminds me of my mother telling me all these speeds are so confusing... "why can't they just call it rabbit speed or for us turtle speed...? we just want turtle speed 🤣

 

"Verizon 4G LTE wireless broadband is 10 times faster than 3G — able to handle download speeds between 5 and 12 Mbps (Megabits per second) and upload speeds between 2 and 5 Mbps,"

*their LTE is actually what we call HSPA+ and we can achieve these speeds on public, just switch your preferred network type to HSPA+

 

check out the textnow app, they sell a sim card for $10 and free calls/texts. they also have data plans $20/2gb and $40/unlimited (throttled after 23gb)

they are running off the rogers and sprint network.

www.textnow.com

 

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

Yup did receive email regarding this offer - I think they have my email because  a while back I read a post on this forum about Freedom Mobile's deals so  I emailed them for details and since then they spam me with offers.

Again I think we are out of topic - thanks to all for your help that convinced me to stay with PM.

Anonymous
Not applicable

@Jb456 wrote:

@BEER your first post said you received a message and "certain" others.


Ah language interpretation. 🙂 I interpreted him as saying he would be certain that others got it too. I did not interpret it as certain others to mean only a few.

Carry on. 🙂

popping
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

Freedom plan may be cheap.  But people need to spend money to get a newer phone which supports the following bands in order to get better user experience.  

B4 1,700 MHz,

B7 2,600 MHz,

B13 700 MHz and

B66 1,700 MHz Advanced Wireless Services-3

 

If you are using an older phone with Freedom, data speed will be lower

Jb456
Mayor / Maire

@BEER your first post said you received a message and "certain" others.

 

I just looked at freedom site. It's available to anyone 

Screenshot_20200920_221111.jpg

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

Thanks for kind reply - and yes I have read and learned from several posts regarding data speeds, throttling etc.  My thread today started because I was curious about Freedom Mobile advertised fast 1.5 GB LTE speeds on their promotional $19/month plan as I cut and pasted below - But as it sometimes happens the post went off topic -- 

$19/mo. for Talk, Text and Data!

For a limited time, get 1.5GB Fast LTE Data with unlimited Canada-wide calling and global text for only $19/mo. for 12 months16, with our Digital Discount.3 Conditions apply.


@BEER wrote:

@hairbag1 wrote:


As @Jb456 suggested...it is LTE but throttled to near 3G. Unless you're a heavy data user you likely wouldn't notice a lot of difference.


I find it to be a huge difference. For example while sitting in my car away from WIFI sources and trying to connect for example to Canadian tire so as to check price and inventory on an item, at times it's impossible waiting to connect. However my PM data is OK for basic emails etc.


You have been around almost 2 years I am sure you have read many threads like this.  For the average user, they will not notice any difference for everyday data use.  Your experience in your example could you have been in a poor reception area? Site issues as mentioned could have been another factor

 


I am happy to help, but I am not a Customer Support Agent please do not include any personal info in a message to me. Click HERE to create a trouble ticket through SIMon the Chatbot *

5-12 Mbps sounds like average real life (Not throttled) 3G speeds! LTE... wow.

 

AE_Collector

Anonymous
Not applicable

If that's the conversation you want to have then it might get moved to the lounge.

I gather from reading here that Freedom has spotty coverage at best. Then they roam with Rogers. No thanks.

 

Edit: after your edit: remember we're on 4G LTE that happens to be purposefully slowed down to 3Mbps. We can also use the HSDPA(3G) part of the network which is pretty good as it is.

5 - 12 Mbps doesn't sound all that impressive to me.

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

Getting back to The Freedom Fast LTE topic -- I just finished a chat with one one their agents and it was hilarious -- The agent's name shown was Clara and if in fact it was a woman she was completely winging it - at first she claimed that their (Freedom Mobile) LTE was the fastest . I then asked her what the speed was and she just responded with very fast. I persisted and asked if it is at all throttled down and her response after a while ---- was ---- I cut and pasted as follows.  "It will throttled down to 1mpbs."

 I don't think she knew much at all and was just winging it - the sad part is that many consumers are not aware of data speeds and would be suckered in thinking they are getting fast data speeds. Heck .... even I was considering porting my number to Freedom. 

I just googled and cut and pasted the following that has more confused me--

"Verizon 4G LTE wireless broadband is 10 times faster than 3G — able to handle download speeds between 5 and 12 Mbps (Megabits per second) and upload speeds between 2 and 5 Mbps,"

I have more or less always thought/found that connecting to a web site and waiting for something to start to happen seems to matter not what speed your phone/plan or even home internet is. The PM web site is a perfect example. I frequently hear griping about it and I agree, it takes a long tome for something to happen most times. I am not using my PM phone with “3G Like Speeds” to access it, I’m using my Telus fibre fed internet at 75 Mb speed. Thus I am of the impression that say ... waiting for the Canada Tire web site to download isn’t really indicative of slow internet. Once a site started downloading then THAT speed is indicative of your internet connection speed and to me in most cases even 3G Like speed is perfectly acceptable and would be for most people unless you are doing something like streaming where the info has to just keep coming at you. 

 

AE_Collector

@BEER there you go @computergeek541 knows the speeds. 👍


@BEER wrote:

@Jb456 wrote:

Public Mobile is LTE but throttled to 3g speed. (3Mbs) speed


That explains the snail pace data speed - any idea what the full LTE speed is?


It's in the neighborhood of 750Mbps, although realisticly, that will never come close to happening. Those are more like peak throughput numbers that the carriers sometimes advertize.

 

@Jb456 , I've been above 300Mbps before on the LTE network.  As for 30 to 40Mbps, I've been at 36Mbps on the 3g/HSPA network, although that requires the customer to be in an area of DC-HSPA. 

Anonymous
Not applicable

@BEER wrote:

????????? and the reason you're spamming the forum reporting to me about your spam messages is ????????

 


Just adding to another of your pointless, you-know-this-already-because-you've-been-here-as-long-as-you-have threads.

Oh look, I also have the right to post stuff. At least I added something new. But you did have your spam. And I had mine. So that's that.

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

????????? and the reason you're spamming the forum reporting to me about your spam messages is ????????

 

@BEER  You are correct there is a big difference when accessing sites with a large amount of graphical content that needs to be downloaded.

Anonymous
Not applicable

@BEER wrote:

 

My confusion is - My paid PM data is shown as 3G however on all three of our iPhones it shows up as LTE.  Soooooo is PM now giving us LTE speeds for the price of 3G?


Aaagain...how long have you been here?

It has always been thus. It's LTE. In the background they throttle it down to about 3Mbps. Just like these silly marketing schemes of unlimited data that gets throttled down to ridiculously slow speeds.

 

Oh and I got a spam text today sent via email to text that comes out looking like it was from +19999999999

BEER
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

@Jb456 wrote:

Only time I've really noticed data being slow is when I'm way out in the country where they only have one tower in a small town. Other than that it has been ok. 

 

Maybe it's where you're located verse the tower location.

 


Yes it's possible also could be how busy their server is -- for me it's impossible to connect to PM by data and even on my Bell Fibe 500 mbps it sometimes takes a very long time. I assume the reason being that the PM server at peak hours may be overloaded .

Need Help? Let's chat.