Telus-owned Public Mobile has tweaked its plans yet again, this time debuting a new international calling plan on Friday.
A new $45/65GB 5G plan includes 1,000 monthly long distance minutes, to go with Canada-US talk, text and data.
The long distance minutes include calls from Canada to China, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. Calls must originate from Canada. Public Mobile says “any unused minutes will expire at the end of your billing cycle.”
The $36/50GB 5G plan that increased in price by $2 this week has dropped by $1 to $35, but now at 4G speeds instead of 5G. Two steps forward, but one step back, right?
Also gone is the $50/60GB 5G promo plan.
Public Mobile has four plans right now in the $30 range, so it is clearly trying to funnel customers into a higher priced plan at $45 per month as it offers Canada-US data, plus international calling. Higher average revenue per user metrics are important to investors.
Again, the best time to get a cellphone plan deal is to wait for Black Friday at the end of November.
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Is long distance minutes still a thing? Most of the world outside North America uses messaging/calling via WhatsApp/Telegram. Excluding China/Hong Kong, where it is banned. Even the USA now have more than 100 million WhatsApp users.
Or maybe it is part of the transition to a data-focussed future, where they give you something of "perceived value", but never use.
Believe it or not, there are still some older folk, especially back in the old country that still use/rely on a land line, either cuz they can’t/know how to properly use/operate a smartphone, or otherwise prefer to stick to the tried and true land line they’ve known and used for the ages. In those odd instances, long distance still comes in handy.
Fully agree with that scenario.
But can the same be said for mobile phones? My grandmother's sister (92 or 93) uses WhatsApp calling. She does not really understand the difference between a normal or data call. She just knows that it works.
This plan is of no use to me