Shaw’s wireless carrier, Freedom Mobile, launched a prepaid annual plan for $99 with unlimited talk and text back in March. Now, it appears the wireless carrier has another annual prepaid plan, but with 5GB of data for one year.
The new offering costs $199 annually and with it comes unlimited talk, text and 5GB of data. Yes, that is 5GB of LTE data to use over 12 months, or 416MB per month. It’s essentially the $99 plan but with 5GB data added for $100 more.
In the end, it works out to $16.58 per month with 416MB of data to use monthly. If you happen to exceed the 5GB of data before your 365 days are up, you’ll see throttled data until your plan renewal date, or you can purchase a $15/1GB add-on.
Looking at the math, you may be better off getting the $99 annual prepaid plan, then just purchasing a $15/1GB add-on. The price per gigabyte works out to be cheaper at $75 for 5GB, versus $99 for 5GB.
A comparable prepaid plan could be Telus-owned Public Mobile’s $15/month option, which includes 100 minutes of nationwide talk, unlimited international SMS/MMS, unlimited incoming calls and a bonus 250MB of 3G data with AutoPay. With Public Mobile’s AutoPay, you save an extra $2 off per month, so it works out to $13/month.
While this plan may not appeal to heavy data users, those who like prepaid and use data sparingly might want to take a look at this if they have decent coverage from Freedom Mobile in their area. But to think of 5GB of data to be used over a year? That just sounds crazy.
