Koodo Mobile, Fido and Virgin Mobile have simultaneously launched a promo offering bonus data on select BYOD plans, available in all provinces except Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec.
Those bringing their own phone to these networks can get a $45 per month plan with 2GB Of data, which includes unlimited Canada-wide calling.
TELUS’ Koodo has upped the ante by offering their $55/month plan with 3GB data and $65/month plan with 4GB data, with offers ending on February 19th.
Virgin’s other BYOD plans only offer 1GB extra data, while Fido only has a $45/2GB promo, dubbed as a “Lunar New Year Offer”.
While these promos are not as enticing as the holiday $60/10GB plans offered by the ‘Big 3’, if you’re on an older plan paying the same price with less data, it may be worth calling in to make the switch. But beware of the new $7/100MB data overages though.
Let us know if you’ll be jumping on any of these promos.
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absolutely terrible in this day and age..
Pure garbage.
Simultaneously = collusion
No collusion, just one of those coincidences…
Oligopoly!
I’m paying $7.50 a month now for 3gb data only from Fido (+Fongo). 🙂 Normal plan is $15, but I threatened to cancel and they didn’t call my bluff, so yes, my phone plan is $90 per year and I’m happy with that.
That is amazing! Any tips? What did you say to them? How long have been a Fido customer?
Fido seems to fairly regularly offer the 3gb “tablet plan” for $15 a month. I’ve read that they now officially require you to have a normal phone plan to add this tablet plan, but there are apparently ways around that. It wasn’t a condition when I signed up, but according to threads on Red Flag Deals some people have had luck getting CSR’s at Fido kiosks to give them this plan without having a regular cell plan. So I would check there. They have a long thread on this.
I recently noticed in this thread that retentions was offering 50% credits to some who threatened to leave the $15 plan, even after having been a customer for a short time. That’s what I did.
The tablet plan works in your phone like any normal sim and you actually get a phone number to go with it, but it costs $1 a minute. To get around that, people port their numbers to Fongo, which is a voip app that uses the data plan for ongoing and outgoing calling for free to virtually anywhere in Canada. It also includes voicemail, caller id, etc. SMS service costs about $20 per year so I guess I should add a few dollars a month to the $7.50.
Fongo is about 95% as reliable as a regular plan I find. On rare occasions, your calls will go directly to voicemail if you’re, say, on a spotty wifi network, but if that bothers you, you can set up call forwarding to your tablet plan phone number for those cases. You can also use that number through the regular dialer in cases of emergency where you might only have edge service in the middle of nowhere.
I make about one phone call a week so it’s not an issue at all for me and I often use other phones to call my Fongo service to make sure it’s working and it always seems to be.
I wouldn’t use Fongo to run a business, but for everything else, especially if making calls is lower on your user case scenario, like it is for most people these days, then it’s an amazing solution.
Oh, and additional data on this package is $10 per gig, so 5gb at $15 a month would cost you $35 or $27.50 if you got the retentions discount. They offer that credit for a year, but hopefully I can get it renewed after that. Worst case I go back to $15 per month.
I’ve been doing this for about 4 years now and have taken calls over 3G networks while standing on sand dunes in Africa. That’s the nice thing when everything goes over data.
Still a rip off.
Still far from wow. In Asia, for example in India most service providers offer Unlimited nationwide calling and 1GB data per day for a 90 day cycle for as low as INR399 (CAD 8). No kidding.
Weak… No one forget about the $60/10gb offer.
The real question is, are they still giving 10% discount on these plans when you bring your own device ?
Wow. Just further proof the $60/10GB BYOD deal was a one time thing the Big 3 believed they were forced to do out of panic and we’ll never see anything like it again on an established Canadian wireless provider. Just glad the Big 3 didn’t realize how insignificant Freedom Mobile and their network is until after the fact.
Yeah, I don’t think we’ll ever see that offer again given the demand for it. Their support systems were overwhelmed for days after the promo expired.
Freedom will most likely offer it again, they like to shake things up as the new kid.
Freedom is offering 10GB for $50 on their site now and no one cares. Their network is not robust enough even in downtown cores to pull subscribers from the Big 3. I’m glad they got them to sweat so I and many others could get a good deal for the holidays but you’ll never see anything that sweet again from Telus, Bell or Rogers and their flanker brands ever again. There’s no chance.
I pay $45 for 4GB (fido), national calling and international text. $45 for 2 GB isn’t a very good deal
I don’t understand consumer complaints about Canadian telecomunication companies. You want all the wireless perks and fast LTE data and you don’t want to pay for it. These companies invested a lot in their infrastructure to get you to this point. If you don’t feel like having the latest smart phone or if you don’t care that it takes 15 minutes to download a Google page on your smart phone then keep complaining otherwise keep your mouth shut and appreciate what you have. Don’t even try to compare us with the U.S. they are 380 million and we are less that the population of California which is 43 million. You want to pay less for your monthly plan then go buy yourself a phone and pay $1300. Tired of hearing people complaining to get free stuff
You’re missing the point. The complaints are because the 3 companies DO NOT complete for customers, they fix prices simutaniously and offer the illusion of choice. Obviously they can offer better deals as the 10gb offer during the holiday season was evident of that.
I have 20GB for 100.00 with freedom
that’s 17 GB more for same price I was paying with Telus. And my speeds are no different than telus. No complaints. You know there are many places that telus still has no signal in. It’s not about complaining.. it’s about getting a good deal for the same exact quality.
I’m not here to hate on Freedom Mobile. I think they offer good value for their plans. With that said, they’re not as fast as Telus in Ontario. I’m not sure about other regions.
Australia which shares many similar climate, distance and low population in remote areas as Canada has very low cellular and data rates….
We pay far more for data than any other country, I bought a sim card at the airport in Vietnam for 9 dollars that had 6GB of data on it.. In thailand you can get unlimited data for 30 days for $20.00.. don’t gimme that shit about the country being too big, we have multiple providers, it’s about greed plain and simple.
you’re right. I work in a call center outside canada
Of course these offers can’t match what is offered in Europe by far , but it is what it is and I will switch my plan .
I was offered $50/5GB by Koodo shortly after switching to Public Mobile’s $40/4GB plan in late-August. And I switched from Koodo. $45/2GB is abysmal. I was hoping we’d see the return of $60/10GB by the Big 3 and their respective flanker brands.
I’m currently on Koodo’s $50.40 plan (it was a $56 holiday plan they offered years ago, and now I get a 10% no-tab discount). I get 2 gb and unlimited talk and text. I’ve never used more than 2 gb. Koodo hasn’t raised the price since I’ve been with them which is 5 years now. If I make the switch to the $45 plan, my concern is they will raise the price later… do you think Koodo does this, or only Fido and Virgin does this to customers?
Koodo has never raised prices, same with Telus for existing customers. As long as you keep your plan your price stays the same, it does not out of the blue go up. We’ve setup many customers on far better plan that yours over the past 4 years.
Is there a better option I should take? I like Koodo and the service is good, so I don’t want to switch to another company. I don’t want to spend more money, and 2 gb is plenty for me. Maybe I could pay less if I wanted only 1-1.5gb ?
Telus owned PM just did aftaf years of promises to the contrary, don’t assume anything.
Can anyone confirm, if No-Tab 10% discount is still available on these plans for BYOD subscribers ?
Generally no, but I’ve had retentions add it to my account back when freedom was offering the $50 plan. So it still exists, it just takes some work to get.
As a bonus when i called in to get the $60/10 GB deal they forgot to remove it so now I’m only paying 54 on both my lines.
Just hold out guys, when they start losing revenue and subscribers they will match freedom on 10gb for 60$ again, you just need to stay vigilant.