Bell’s Roam Better plans allow customers to pay a daily rate for roaming with their home data plan while travelling to the USA or internationally.
The U.S. Roam Better plan costs $8 per day, while the international plan costs $12 per day, up to a max charge of 20 days per line.
The Roam Better “with home data” option allows customers to access the data from their existing account while travelling but now Bell has started notifying customers of a speed change.
Bell says, “starting on November 6, 2019, the Roam Better – with home data feature will include maximum download speeds for up to 500 MB of data usage per day.”
“Beyond 500 MB, speeds will be up to 512 Kbps for the rest of the day, suitable for light web browsing, email and messaging. Data speeds reset at 12:00 a.m. (ET) daily,” explains Bell.
iPhone in Canada reader Jesse shares the following email screenshot of the notice being sent to customers (he’s on a 10GB plan in Quebec, not an ‘unlimited’ data plan):
Customers may be familiar with the 512 Kbps throttling speed number, as that’s the speed Bell’s ‘unlimited’ data plans are slowed down to once allotted plan data is exceeded.
What does this mean for Bell customers on Roam Better? This winter when you’re on vacation, when you use more than 500 MB per day, your speeds will get slowed down.
Since Bell recently introduced ‘unlimited’ data plans, without this new cap, some customers may consume more data than the company expects—and affect the company’s bottom line.
It’ll be interesting to see whether or not Rogers and Telus will make a similar move as Bell here.
