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theoc
join:2014-05-20
North York, ON

theoc

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Wind Mobile - New wireless roaming rates for Canada & US

»mobilesyrup.com/2014/08/ ··· -canada/

Beginning August 21:
Data: $0.05 per mb
Text: $0.05 per test
Voice: $0.15 per minute

- 3G roaming in both Canada and the US


mk_416
@108.168.55.x

mk_416

Anon

Sweeet!

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

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Yeah, when I get a new phone I can finally say goodbye to Rogers. I never even considered them because when i go up north i need some sort of access and $1/MB was not an option.

nekkidtruth
YISMM
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join:2002-05-20
London, ON

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But wait! I thought WIND was dead??? /rolls eyes

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

Wind is far from dead.

Vimpelcom simply decided that it didn't want to invest more in Wind and in case Wind DID fail they would pre-empt and write off the value of their shares.

Something told me at the time that this was something of a ploy. It certainly made investors in all the new entrants very nervous and would shake out all of them ... thus reducing the competition in that space. Mobilicity is all but gone if they can find an acceptable buyer, and Public is gone. This actually increases the value of Wind.

Wind has essentially increased the base price of their services, although you do actually get a good deal ... but they've essentially eliminated the services that ran the risk of costing them the most. $20 or less per month unlimited Wind to Wind home areas was one sweet deal! Call Ottawa on a Wind cell phone to any phone in Toronto free was bound to cost them big time.

Their new plans are more appropriate.

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

I'm just hoping that they will find money somewhere to get LTE.

BGB
Wants moar interwebz
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join:2009-07-09
Waterloo, ON

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Sweet. 2 days before my trip out east... And I was about to go activate a PAYG sim tomorrow

Guspaz
Guspaz
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Montreal, QC

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This would be the result of the roaming legislation, I suppose? $50 per gigabyte is higher than I'd like, but it's the best we could hope for: the law gets the wholesale pricing by dividing incumbent data revenue by what customers actually use, not what they sell. So it doesn't matter if Robellus will sell you an extra gigabyte for $20, what matters is that most people don't use their full allocation.

For example, if they sold nothing but 5GB plans for $50, and average usage was 1GB, then the wholesale rate would be based on a 1GB for $50 pricing.

Still, it's a big improvement over the previous rates. And it's definitely far lower than the $0.16/MB that Fido charges its own customers for US roaming. Not to mention Fido's $1.45/minute roaming rate.
analog andy
join:2005-01-03
Surrey, BC

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Nice that should make my bill quite a bit smaller as I'm roaming 8 hours per day.

BGB
Wants moar interwebz
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join:2009-07-09
Waterloo, ON

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said by Guspaz:

$50 per gigabyte is higher than I'd like, but it's the best we could hope for:

To be honest with you, I am quite happy with that rate. Last time I ended up traveling outside of a Wind Zone for a week I ended up getting a Fido PAYG SIM, got 100MB of data for something like $15, which I went through in a couple of days, and ended up having to pick up another $10 card. In the end, the week cost me $30. With the 5c Min Rate listed there, for that same amount, I would get 600MB of data.

Once that comes into effect, I will be turning off my "Rogers Roaming Block" on my phone.

nekkidtruth
YISMM
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join:2002-05-20
London, ON
Netgear R7000
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Hitron CODA-4582

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said by sbrook:

Wind is far from dead.

Oh I know, I was being sarcastic. I'm with WIND and knew they weren't going anywhere. At least not any time soon.

creed3020
Premium Member
join:2006-04-26
Kitchener, ON

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This is excellent news. Can't wait to tell the wifeey that she can use her phone a little more while Wind Away and she won't get 'Robbed' by Big Red as much.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
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join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

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The base price is only $5/month , peanuts considering what you get for that $35

BGB
Wants moar interwebz
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join:2009-07-09
Waterloo, ON

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It also appears that they now allow roaming on the Bellus network... At least the Bell and Telus tower in my area is now showing as a "Wind Away" tower on my phone, where previously it was showing as a network I could not connect to.

So, if they allow roaming on Bell, Telus, and Rogers, and have reasonable roaming rates, then they just became a real competitor...

Guspaz
Guspaz
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Well, the CRTC recently ruled that exclusivity in roaming agreements was forbidden, but I'm surprised anything would come about this fast: it took Wind months to get roaming negotiated with Rogers...
bklass
Premium Member
join:2012-02-06
Canada

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said by Guspaz:

the law gets the wholesale pricing by dividing incumbent data revenue by what customers actually use, not what they sell

This is not yet clear. The CRTC has sent out interrogatories to the WSPs in order to determine the methodologies used for making the calculation. Responses are to be filed on the 27th.

»www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archi ··· 0728.htm

That being said, I believe you are probably right. The roaming cap of $0.037/MB (~$38/GB) seems really high for average retail data revenue unless it was counting actual volumes and not allotment sold (i.e. "1GB for $25!).

I blogged about it earlier in the week:

»benklass.wordpress.com/2 ··· estions/

I would not be surprised to learn that the number is also being inflated by the practice of recovering device subsidies through inflated service rates.

Teddy Boom
k kudos Received
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join:2007-01-29
Toronto, ON

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said by Guspaz:

Well, the CRTC recently ruled that exclusivity in roaming agreements was forbidden, but I'm surprised anything would come about this fast: it took Wind months to get roaming negotiated with Rogers...

Ya, but.. Cogeco just "voluntarily" lowered their CBB rates too. There is A LOT going on, and it is all tied together somehow
markf
join:2008-01-24
Scarborough, ON

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I'm hoping that they do end up offering buckets of data for a price (i.e. 500 MB for $15 or something like that).

For planned travel, it would be better for me to buy a bucket and use it rather than keeping track of every MB to watch my bill.

Even if they don't, it's a lot better than before. I cancelled my Bell Tablet SIM in anticipation of this. For a few days at a time it's a good rate from Wind.

The Bell SIM was a good deal when I went out east. I used about 2.5 GB for $40. Once I hit 1 GB the price jumped from $20 to $40 (up to 5GB) so on Wind that would have cost me $135 in roaming.

If I go out of the Wind Zone like that again, I'll pick up another Bell Tablet SIM only plan to cover me, but for occasional usage this is a much better deal for us.

Guspaz
Guspaz
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Montreal, QC

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There was a bill that implemented it and all the companies already sent in the info to the government. My understanding was that the CRTC was not involved in that process.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
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join:2009-06-15
Canada

4 edits

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OK, so am I to understand from this announcement that WIND will soon have a single a-la-carte rate structure for ALL roaming within Canada AND the lower 48 or so USA states, and that Canadian Roaming will mean 'anywhere which is not in a WIND Home Zone' ?

If that is true, then at least things will be simpler for subscribers than right now, as well as less costly under those circumstances.

SIMPLER seems better, in THIS case anyway.

So why did Rogers soften up on WIND for Canadian Roaming ?

Or is this just a re-crunch of the numbers by WIND ? (and Rogers did not change their wholesale rates)

Possibly they saved enough money by eliminating PAYG plans earlier this year to help with this coming group of changes.

Next, it would be welcome if they were to introduce a Canadian Roaming add-on (something like the USA $15 one), or a plan with such capability built-in.

EDITED to fix multiple typos
bklass
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Canada

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The government amends the law, the CRTC implements the changes. The roaming caps that they released are based on figures given in ## by the carriers. The letter they sent out requests more information about how those figures are calculated. In my view the law seems to provide for the possibility that it could either be data traffic or allotment.

Also, the new change comes with a provision that says anything the CRTC determines shall prevail over the legislative cap, as well as a provision allowing an order in council to remove the legislated roaming cap.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
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Somewhere in

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Adding a Canada roaming would bring the price close to robellus.

For me :
$30/regular home
$8 VM (after march/15)
15 Canada roaming
---------
$53 and its still dog slow
MaynardKrebs
We did it. We heaved Steve. Yipee.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-17

MaynardKrebs

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Yes, but the money wouldn't be going to Robellustron, and therein lies the charm.

BGB
Wants moar interwebz
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join:2009-07-09
Waterloo, ON

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said by elwoodblues:

Adding a Canada roaming would bring the price close to robellus.

For me, it would be the following. (It helps I don't have VM, as I got rid of it since all that was being left was spam messages, and why pay $8 for telemarketers to leave messages)

$39 US/CAN Promo Plan
$15 CAN Roaming
---------------------------
Total: $54 + tax - This would still be cheaper than what I was paying Telus when I left them.

I could care less about LTE as well. It would be more of a bonus than a requirement as I don't stream videos or other stuff that needs the bandwidth on my phone.

Odds are though they won't offer a $15 add-on, which is not a deal breaker for me as I'm in a Wind Zone the most of the time, and it's unlikely I would go over $15 a month in the new roaming rate structure.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
Premium Member
join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues

Premium Member

Get an app called MR Number(droid), cuts down on telemarketers like mad. It can be configured to just hang up when they call.

I love it.

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
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join:2008-04-28
Tronna

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Wut?

I'm impressed, despite my current issues with WIND that's actually pretty good.

EQ

ekster
Hi there
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join:2010-07-16
Sainte-Anne-De-Bellevue, QC

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Now if only they could get some spectrum in Quebec so I could finally get away from Rogers.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
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said by HiVolt:

Yeah, when I get a new phone I can finally say goodbye to Rogers. I never even considered them because when i go up north i need some sort of access and $1/MB was not an option.

Think about this way, you pay Rogers say $60/month, and you can go to Wind for say $40, would you spend more then $20 each and every month for the entire year in roaming charges?

That's how I look at it, the extra costs every so often, don't outweigh the general savings I get from Wind.

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

Yeah, I will only require the $35/month wind plan (plus you get credits for bring your own device) so with $5/100MB, I can easily roam up north, being a little more conservative with what i use, and still come up way ahead.

Plus I plan on installing DSL at the cottage next spring, so the data roaming need will be much less. Other than going up to the cottage during (may-oct) i am rarely outside of Wind's home network.

The only thing I dread is losing LTE...

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

Davesnothere

Premium Member

 
Unfortunately, for those of us who are NOT in WIND's 'home' network, this new deal is still a non-starter, at least for domestic talk.

When they pulled the plug on their PAYG/Prepaid plans earlier this year, WE lost all hope of reasonable rates in that category for the foreseeable future (unless WIND either finishes building their own network, and/or negotiates a better domestic roaming deal with one or another of the other carriers.).

The data rate is much better, but then again, considering what it was before, that's not really saying much.