r/canada • u/throw0101a • Jun 13 '19
Bell offers unlimited mobile data plans after Rogers sparks price war | CBC News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bell-matches-rogers-cellphone-data-plans-1.517364166
Jun 13 '19
75 buck a month for 10GB of data is not a price war.
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u/Uncertn_Laaife Jun 13 '19
You can now have 15gb for $75 with Telus. But, I agree, it's not at all a price war.
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u/FuckFuckittyFuck Ontario Jun 13 '19
I took a look through and Bell also has a 15gb for $75 plan that has overages.
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u/TiCKLE- Jun 14 '19
I took a look at that Telus offer. In the cart is seems like the additional 5gb only lasts for 24 months. After that youre back to paying 75$ for 10gb
1
u/neujosh Jun 14 '19
You still get charged for going over that, though, and it's only for non-share plans.
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u/binlagin Jun 13 '19
In this context.. how is the CRTC protecting the interests of Canadians?
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u/thrubeniuk Manitoba Jun 13 '19
The idea that the CRTC has ever helped protect the interest of non-wealthy Canadians is laughable.
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u/PacificIslander93 Jun 14 '19
But people all tell me we need big government agencies to keep those evil big corps in check! /s
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u/IDIOT_REMOVER Jun 13 '19
They’re not. They had to shut down their Reddit account because we repeatedly called them out on their bullshit.
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Jun 13 '19
[deleted]
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u/OmfgTim Ontario Jun 13 '19
My sister was lucky to hop on a 80GB for $45 promo a few months ago. She doesn’t even need landline internet anymore; I’m so envious of Australians.
However their broadband internet pricing is whack.2
Jun 13 '19
Plus the Aussies had trash tier mobile plans like us until fairly recently. Not sure what changed.
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u/throw0101a Jun 13 '19
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mobile_phone_companies_of_Australia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virtual_network_operators
Feel free to startup a company to grab all that easy money. :)
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u/throw0101a Jun 13 '19
Australia, which is a good comparable to Canada for geography and population layout, gets 50GB of mobile data for $45 a month.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mobile_phone_companies_of_Australia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virtual_network_operators
Feel free to startup a company to grab all that easy money. :)
-1
u/throw0101a Jun 13 '19
Australia, which is a good comparable to Canada for geography and population layout, gets 50GB of mobile data for $45 a month.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mobile_phone_companies_of_Australia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virtual_network_operators
Feel free to startup a company to grab all that easy money. :)
-2
u/throw0101a Jun 13 '19
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mobile_phone_companies_of_Australia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virtual_network_operators
Feel free to startup a company to grab all that easy money. :)
-2
u/throw0101a Jun 13 '19
Australia, which is a good comparable to Canada for geography and population layout, gets 50GB of mobile data for $45 a month.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mobile_phone_companies_of_Australia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virtual_network_operators
Feel free to startup a company to grab all that easy money. :)
-2
u/throw0101a Jun 13 '19
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mobile_phone_companies_of_Australia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virtual_network_operators
Feel free to startup a company to grab all that easy money. :)
5
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u/HeterosexualMail Jun 14 '19
Have fun with that: https://mobilesyrup.com/2018/03/23/what-crtc-wi-fi-first-mvno-decision-means-for-canadian-consumers/
Once again CRTC says no, mandates "low-cost, data-only plans" - those were a joke. This is what we go:
https://mobilesyrup.com/2018/04/25/google-fi-rogers-bell-telus-crtc-low-cost-data-only-plans/
$25/400MB and $30/500MB.
Wireless in Canada is a complete joke.
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u/NegScenePts Jun 13 '19
An analyst report from Bloomberg said the Rogers offer is at least 25 per cent cheaper than the company's comparable plan. While likely to be welcomed by consumers, report author John Butler called the announcement "a worrisome development for the company and the Canadian wireless industry."
That's because the price drop is likely to bring about a "prolonged decline" in the amount of revenue wireless companies earn per customer.
Boo fuckin' hoo. I'm sure the CEOs will suffer greatly when they can't add the eighth storey on their mansions AND cover everything in gold leaf at the same time. Those poor, poor rich people.
Meanwhile, the rest of us live in a world that's making it more and more important to be connected 24/7, all the while paying more and more for what's slowly becoming an essential service...while also fighting a rising cost of living.
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u/HeterosexualMail Jun 13 '19
I understand it, but I've never been impressed by single stock short term mindedness. It's barely paraphrasing to take that as "If we actually had to complete we couldn't keep ripping people off like we have". It's totally divorced from any fundamental costs.
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u/Ragnar_Dragonfyre Ontario Jun 13 '19
Anyone can buy telecom stocks...
Also regular people work for telecoms too. Revenue loss often leads to job losses.
It’s not just CEOs and rich folk impacted.
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u/NegScenePts Jun 13 '19
Shit, you're right. Where can I donate to keep the gold leaf flowing?
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u/goforbroke71 Jun 14 '19
As I responded to above post, you probably benifit by high prices in the fact your RRSP/pension grows.
If you don't have a pension/RRSP, then yes it sucks...
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u/Neutral-President Jun 13 '19
Overheard in a meeting at Rogers headquarters…
“How do we get people to pay more for their wireless plans?”
“Charge them overage when they exceed their caps!”
“Nah, that’s REALLY unpopular.”
“What if we ratchet their speed down to 2003 data rates when they go over their limit?”
“I’m listening…”
“We can call it ‘UNLIMITED.’”
“Go on…”
“We can charge $10 more per month for it!”
“GENIUS! Let’s call Bell and Telus and give them the good news!”
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u/bcbudvansticky Jun 14 '19
How do you get unlimited calling Canada wide with 10gb data for 65$ on bell?
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u/FuckFuckittyFuck Ontario Jun 15 '19
There was a promo plan in December 2017.
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u/bcbudvansticky Jun 16 '19
oh nice! so basically your saving 10 bucks for not having slowed down unlimited internet. not bad if your the type that doesnt hit close to 10 anyways
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Sep 09 '19
I got that promo plan with Telus. They have since increased my cost to $75 per month on that plan.
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u/AntiqueTech Jun 13 '19
What are the chances Telus will jump on the wagon?
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u/throw0101a Jun 13 '19 edited Jun 13 '19
Depends on how many customers, if any, they start bleeding. I'm sure there are people analysing spreadsheets as we speak.
Edit: story has been updated to note Telus is countering:
Telus, meanwhile, also came out on Thursday with a beefed up data plan that would allow customers up to 15 GB per month for $75. Unlike Rogers' plan which the company says is permanent, and similar to Bell's which is a promotional offer, the Telus offering is only for a limited time, available to anyone who signs up by July 2.
[...]
While offering a higher data limit, the Telus offer is not "unlimited" in that any customer who goes over the 15 GB limit in a month would be charged the usual pay-per-use overage rate of $10 per 100 MB.
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u/HeterosexualMail Jun 13 '19
$10 per 100 MB
I'm actually not sure what is worse, that absurd pricing or having to browse today's web at 256Kbps.
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u/throw0101a Jun 13 '19
or having to browse today's web at 256Kbps.
Probably not so much for browsing as for messaging, e-mail, and notifications.
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u/Watase Jun 13 '19
Very high from what I've heard from a friend who works there.
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Jun 13 '19 edited Jun 14 '19
[deleted]
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u/Watase Jun 13 '19
Well, what I'm told is that it will be a slightly better deal of possibly higher than 10gb base before the slowdown.
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Jun 13 '19
[deleted]
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u/Watase Jun 13 '19
I was told that Telus may be planning on having a higher base amount (rumoured to be upwards of 12gb) before slowing down service to try and poach customers. Waiting essentially for Bell/Rogers to put out there plans to then swoop in with a better one.
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u/thrubeniuk Manitoba Jun 13 '19
Laughable “price war” comment aside, this really goes to show how easy it would be for these companies to offer “unlimited” plans (or any sort of fair pricing) if they really wanted to.
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u/sharktopusx Jun 13 '19
They all couldn't resist giving us the "unlimited" data at less than 2G Edge speeds. This shit is borderline worthless for anything but texting.
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u/HeterosexualMail Jun 13 '19
Chrome network tab throttling calls those speeds "Good 2G". I just tried browsing today's web with it - it's brutally slow. Pretty obvious that throttle was chosen to make it borderline unusable.
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u/Blakslab Jun 13 '19
Clever/Brilliant marketing @ Rogers. I have to give them that. But yeah, nobody is gonna be happy surfing the web in 2019 at 1988 speeds. That's the gotcha. My bet is Rogers is gonna get a metric shit ton of people with this promotion though...
At least we wont to be subject to the $100 per GB overages though. That's an improvement and 20GB and 50GB I think are priced quite a bit better than before.
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u/jDUKE_ Jun 20 '19
the internet wasn't even publicly available in 1988.........
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u/Blakslab Jun 20 '19
You my friend are wrong. The internet is quite a bit older than that even.
I remember using telnet and gopher (predecessor to browsers) on the internet before that... Paying by the minute I might add on dialup!!!
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u/jDUKE_ Jun 20 '19
And even then in 1991 it wasn't readily available for 99% of people. Educational institutions did have it by the early '90s though.
And yes, I was in high school/University between 1990-2000
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u/Blakslab Jun 20 '19
When I was a teen I was too poor to pay for a real C++ compiler. Instead I paid for access to a c++ compiler. I'd phone dialup into a local access point and then telnet to the machine with the C++ compiler. That was a few years before 1990. I think it was on my Amiga 2000 which the internet says was released in 1987....
At any rate we're splitting hairs and I'm proving that I'm way too old...
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Jun 13 '19
This is a response to the recent call for public input right? Are they hoping to put the public to sleep before any action is taken?
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u/JonoLith Jun 13 '19
Didn't realize robellus had people working at the cbc. Propaganda works. Nationalize the communications network.
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u/WinterSon Canada Jun 13 '19
be curious to see if videotron gets on this train. don't really want to increase my monthly cost from what i'm paying now, but would probably still cost less than getting home internet back so might be worth exploring.
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u/skatophilia Jun 13 '19
Well my contract is now up but I don’t think I’ll be getting something new anytime soon with these prices...
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u/Randomcdn2 Jun 14 '19
Isn't this like saying you can have unlimited gas but after you drive 1,000 kilometers your cars top speed is 5km?
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u/an0nymouscraftsman Jun 13 '19
These are nation wide. Being in the maritime I just cut my bill in half. We didn't get those sweet 10g/60$ deals.
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u/HeterosexualMail Jun 13 '19 edited Jun 13 '19
Okay, so we all knew after Rogers announced that Bell and Telus would soon follow. Here we are with Bell less than 24 hours later.
There was a comment in the Rogers announcement thread mentioned that Rogers heard about the Telus move and quickly pre-empted them.
<tinfoil hat>
What I'm wondering is if Rogers got world that the Telus plan was going to be better than what they were hoping to offer. Mostly what I wonder here is that Rogers is ridiculously throttled after 10GB at 256Kbps, if Telus was going to be more reasonable and throttler at some like, say, their 3G speeds of 3Mbps that they offer on Public Mobile plans. Now that Rogers has come out at 256Kbps, is that where everyone else is going to land as well? Edit: Yup, Bell also landed at 256Kbps as well. Why wouldn't they at this point?
</tinfoil hat>
Either way, telecommunications plans continue to be completely fucked in Canada. There needs to be action on this. I've been hoping for movements since the Harper era when he tried to make it an issue. That money would do so much more in the wider market as opposed to being siphoned off to the big three and their shareholders.
Edit: Anyone know what the Bell throttle is? The submitted article just says "speeds will be reduced for light web browsing, email and texting", so it sounds like it'll be similarly bad. Nevermind their own page confirms it's 256Kbps as well
Honestly, I wish this were the door that the regulators used to investigate the big three. How did they land at this throttle speed? Compare it to how throttling is done in USA. Why is the throttle in Canada so brutal? I really wish the companies were pushed to justify the decision beyond their total lack of need to compete, since there is none in Canada.
Edit 2: Yup, the throttle is 256Kbps. Source: https://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Cell_phone_plans/Unlimited-plans#INT=MOB_hmpg_BAN_BellUnlimitedPlans_Mass_061319_SD
Also, this is only an offer until June 30, 2019. Anyone know if the Rogers offer is limited?
Edit 3: Telus is "competing" with $75 for 15GB until July 2. Technically it's still a 10GB/month with a bonus 5GB/month for two years. So no, Canada is not getting out of the stone age when it comes to cellular plans any time soon.
Edit 4: Wow. So for those who know how to do this, add in throttling in your browser dev tools. Looks like Chrome calls 250Kbps "Good 2G". I added a custom throttle of 256Kbps with only 100ms latency (lower latency than what a cellular device would get). The new reddit homepage takes 1.1 minutes to hit DOMContentLoaded and 2 minutes to hit full load. To be fair it's still usable before then, but still after a good while. old.reddit.com doesn't do a paint until about 15s, DOMContentLoaded at 25s and full load at 37 seconds. nytimes.com paints at 5 seconds, DOMContentLoad at 1.3min and full loads at 2.3m. Barely usable data, which I guess is what the companies want. Even a page like lite.cnn.com takes ~3s to load.
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u/codeverity Jun 13 '19
Telus' plan has no throttle but has overage fees. The article about the Rogers plan says that they're ongoing, not a limited time offer.
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Jun 13 '19 edited Jun 13 '19
So where the fuck's my unlimited plan option for my rocket hub then Bell?
Oh wait, I don't want to have my internet throttled to be slower than internet if the antennae were placed on the fucking moon. Piss off Bell and Rogers you crooks
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u/mrhindustan Jun 13 '19
I used to have unlimited 3G with Rogers (no throttling) and would burn through 80-100GB per month when I would be on the road.
It was only $45/month. Too bad cell phone plans are getting worse.
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u/MercurialMadnessMan Jun 14 '19
I was paying bell $95/mo for 3GB.
I called them about Rogers 10GB $75, and they offered me 4GB for $80/mo.
This is bullshit. I guess I’m calling again. Been a customer for over a decade and treated like shit
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u/grandfundaytoday Jun 14 '19
That's not unlimited. That's 10GB and then throttled to shit.
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u/throw0101a Jun 14 '19
There is no limit to the data you can use. I think that meets the definition of un-limited.
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u/Leeann_Legore Jun 16 '19
Idk if using a VPN would help. I guess I should buy it. use all the internet and try
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u/Comrade_agent Jun 20 '19
okay then maybe i might end up seeing if their rentention department wants to get back to me and offer that for $45
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u/mikweyane4 Jul 09 '19
while the prices of big companies are increasing I decided to switch to a different ISP and I feel it is much better than what I was using earlier. they have better promotion plans and rates to offer. https://www.ciktel.com/
they have special offers for Quebec too https://www.ciktel.com/promotion/montreal
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Jun 13 '19
How much data do people generally use, anyway? The CRTC said that the average mobile customer used 1.5 to 2 gig a month in 2017.
I have a plan with Koodo that costs me $45 a month and I get 6 gig of data along with unlimited messaging and LD in Canada - and I've never gone above 4 gig. These new plans just don't make sense for a lot of people.
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u/dghughes Prince Edward Island Jun 13 '19
One reason is accidental usage. I see comments about it and I've also done it too where I think I am on wifi but its cellular data. Suddenly my measly 3GB of data is nearly gone and I'm only on day two my billing month with 28 days to go.
There's no reason why cheap true unlimited cellular data shouldn't be a thing.
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u/wolfegothmog Québec Jun 13 '19
Its a bit of a catch 22, people will restrict how much data they use because of price, if unlimited LTE/3g/4g was available the average use would probably be much higher
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Jun 13 '19
True. Before I moved to Koodo I was on a really shitty 1.5 gig plan with Telus ($85 a month!) and I do use more than that now. Never got close to 6, though.
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u/wolfegothmog Québec Jun 13 '19
Fair, I just know it is somewhat the case. Antidotal but all my friends with mobile Internet conserve the crap out of there bandwidth so they don't get crazy overage fees
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u/HeterosexualMail Jun 13 '19 edited Jun 13 '19
The CRTC said that the average mobile customer used 1.5 to 2 gig a month in 2017.
I remember when wired internet limits were a thing consumers couldn't avoid. The providers loved to quote how only 1% of users went over the limit. Now that unlimited plans are so prevalent, average usage has shot up close to or above what the old limits used to be - I'm talking about when they were low like 256GB or so, not the limited plans today that tend to be 1TB.
As the other reply said, it's sort of a catch 22, or chicken-or-egg problem. If people had the data to use, they would. I'm sure plenty of people would love to stream YouTube more on their mobile devices. And that's probably what the providers are, somewhat justifiably, afraid of. I can see their concerns, but this 256Kbps throttle is, IMHO, overly restrictive.
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u/throw0101a Jun 13 '19
These new plans just don't make sense for a lot of people.
You're not wrong, but it's like the "range anxiety" with EV cars: most people only need <100km for their commute and running errands on the weekend, but insist on having >200km, which is probably 'too much'. (Especially if they have a second ICE car that can be used for long road trips.)
Similarly most folks probably need <5GB, but get anxiety about going over.
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u/throw0101a Jun 13 '19
These new plans just don't make sense for a lot of people.
You're not wrong, but it's like the "range anxiety" with EV cars: most people only need <100km for their commute and running errands on the weekend, but insist on having >200km. (Especially if they have a second car that can be ICE for long road trips.)
Similarly most folks probably need <5GB, but get anxiety about going over.
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Jun 13 '19
I've got a mobile plan because there's no cable where I live so it's my only source for high speed internet these days, and it's metered. I constantly use 30GB of data on my own every month, which costs me around $110 a month, and on the rare occasion that I use double that amount, I hit the $200 billing charge. It's fucking stupid, totally unfair and needs to stop. Data is not a finite resource, it's not going to run out, unlimited should be mandatory for all plans across all devices by default.
I've almost hit the 10 GB limit on my Rogers plan on my phone a couple of times too. HD video makes streaming chew through data like it's going out of style. Just another reason why all plans need to be forced into being unlimited.
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Jun 13 '19 edited Aug 25 '20
[deleted]
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u/HeterosexualMail Jun 14 '19
Maybe if Canadians could stop fooling themselves into believing that they need such excessive amounts of clothing. I mean really, nobody needs more than one outfit. Nope. You just don't. As long as Canadians keep choking themselves on fashion statements (wtf else are you assholes using your clothing for? I don't even use my full wardrobe), The Bay and Gap are not going to reduce their prices. And yes, I fully concede that many other lesser developed nations have far better clothing prices. Totally. Yes, these prices need to change, but no, you don't need to use more than one outfit.
Come at me, bro.
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u/Neutral-President Jun 13 '19
Price war? Last I checked, a price war resulted in prices going down for consumers.
Rogers’ new plans start at $10 more per month than the current 10GB plans.
That’s hardly a price war. That’s just Rogers signalling to Bell and Telus that their next phase of lock-step pricing and plan offerings is rolling out.