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Text Message charges to Turbo Hub |
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I am one of those unlucky enough to be stuck on a Bell Turbo Hub (with no other options other than Satellite available - Bell refuses DSL service despite close promixity), with their outrageous usage charges and further up-charge of data.
Turbo hubs/Rocket Hubs are for the most desperate who Bell refuses to service via other means. Bell prefers is that way in my opinion.... they certainly don't have any incentive to upgrade DSL when they have you as a Turbo Hub Customer. I get it, if you are not entitled to a landline, you probably shouldn't be entitled to DSL.... however, I have had up to 3 landlines... with no DSL available... curiously the Bell Turbo Hub rep is more than happy to help get services though. Anyways, I digress on Bell's true lack of interest in the provision of service... something the CRTC will hopefully effect within a few years.... that isn't really on topic for my own post.
I run 2 Hubs (with a total of 3 sim card plans), to get a total of 60 gigs bandwidth. Usually one or more of them have usage charges while I swap out a sim card. Two of my plans are "Loyalty" and the other is a "Flex Promo". Curiously, all of them cost the same in terms of monthly charges, and total overages, minus the way overage usage billing is done....
Being somewhat emboldened by Ben Klass' complaint to the CRTC regarding their mobile TV issues (which uses the same spectrum I do, except mobile TV users got usage at a sharply discounted rate), and the CRTC's ruling on it, I was wondering if there is something to be suggested about tackling these two issues I have noticed about the Turbo Hub:
1) Bell Turbo Hubs with their current billing practices uncharge even further on overages.... A per gigabyte overage cost is $10.00..... and if you use your cap, plus 0.001 gigabytes, Bell automatically rounds to 1 gigabyte in their overage on certain plans.
This applies to 2 of my plans. The Loyalty plans are charged at $10.00 per Gigabyte, and the "Flex Promo" plan is charged at 0.0097 a megabyte.
It seems to me that Bell, on it's overages, can charge up to 99.9% more on some overages without there being actual usage.... in short, you could be paying $9.99 more on a Bill for data you didn't use.
Is there anywhere mandated by the CRTC that Bell has to charge for actual usage down to the megabyte or even byte, and not round up to the maximum of $9.99 per overage?
Is there any standardized method in place for charging for data, and standardized unit of measurement?
I will note, Bell's usage meter goes down to about the megabyte, and all bills are reported that way.
2) The text messaging charge. I have received more than one bill to my Turbo Hub for txt messages that were "received" at $0.40 a text message. I had two text messages recieved alone this bill.... I assume likely to be ads or spamming.
Considering the fact that the Turbo Hub isn't a txt messaging device per say (it is essentially a cellular modem and router in one box).... is billing for received text messages allowed?
I have attached some screen shots from some of my previous bills... cropped to remove personal information.
Thanks for any help.
Ryan
