Globalive / Wind Mobile gets the green light!

[SilentJay]

Finally, Tony Clement does something right, and tells the telco-3 where to go. It appears as the pricing plans have just been released, and they look really good! Hahaha - Telus can sukkit!!

Chat: $15 per month
Unlimited WIND to WIND calling (Canada wide)
Unlimited incoming text
100 province-wide voice minutes
50 text messages

Always Talk: $35 per month
Unlimited WIND to WIND calling (Canada wide)
Unlimited province-wide calling
Unlimited incoming text
50 outgoing text messages

Always Shout: $45 per month
Unlimited Canada-wide calling
Unlimited incoming /outgoing text messages
Voicemail

Data Plans
Infinite Mobile: $35 per month (used with any voice plan)
Unlimited internet for phones (tethering too)

Infinite Laptop: $45 per month
Unlimited internet for USB data sticks

Possibly there will be a web on your phone only type data plan for $10/mn.

BlackBerry data plans
Social BlackBerry: $10 per month
Unlimited instant messaging, Facebook and MySpace.

Infinite BlackBerry: $35 per month (used with any voice plan)
Unlimited internet for BlackBerry

Addons:
Voice: 10c Per Minute with the $15 plan
SMS: 10c each
MMS: 20c each
Voicemail: $5

Long Distance:
$20 for unlimited North America

Stores should open within a week.

Edit: All plans include Caller's ID, Call Forwarding and Call Waiting.

Edit: Voice roaming on Rogers (Wind's Roaming Partner): $0.25/min.
There will be some other addons.

[froggy]

those actually don't look that good, i think they are really underestimating how much canadians text. Now do they still have the stupid access fee? and the 911 fee that they charge but 911 still works anyway?

[towelsnap]

those actually don't look that good, i think they are really underestimating how much canadians text. Now do they still have the stupid access fee? and the 911 fee that they charge but 911 still works anyway?

+1 my bill cycle started on the fourth I'm already at 1168 msg sent

[fini]

all their price plans are no SAF. or you can look at it as SAF included.
either way, it's still cheaper than any other of rogers bell or telus.

when the other operators eliminated SAF, all they did was make the plans more expensive. and add another "recovery fee". so really they pretended to eliminate costs, but really making it even more expensive.

i will be calling retentions for rogers and getting some phones and discounts on my lines for sure.

[STeeLy]

Anybody know which network they're running on?

GSM? CDMA?

[SilentJay]

HSPA AWP - phone selection is still a little sparse right now, but they should be improving in Q1 2010.

[froggy]

all their price plans are no SAF. or you can look at it as SAF included.
either way, it's still cheaper than any other of rogers bell or telus.

when the other operators eliminated SAF, all they did was make the plans more expensive. and add another "recovery fee". so really they pretended to eliminate costs, but really making it even more expensive.

i will be calling retentions for rogers and getting some phones and discounts on my lines for sure.

it may be just because of my corporate plan with bell but it's nothing to get excited over. $16.90+ tax+ $5 message centre+ $15 unlimited texts in and out, + tax,

[fini]

it may be just because of my corporate plan with bell but it's nothing to get excited over. $16.90+ tax+ $5 message centre+ $15 unlimited texts in and out, + tax,


but you have to consider from a new customer standpoint.

you can't compare public plans with corporate or retention plans...
like... my retention plan with rogers is better than all the plans wind offers too. but that's not gonna stop me from going to rogers and getting more credits where i can. wind is also offering all of the phones for customers free......

250 mins
E/W @5PM
2500 messages
VM/CID
500MB data

45 tax in....

[froggy]

yeah I guess i'm not comparing apples to apples here

[k-existence]

Here a comparison on Howard Forums price and stuff
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?p=13322767

my current rogers retention plans beats wind but give u great negotiation =D

[STeeLy]

My fido plan is roughly the same as what these guys are offering. I pay on average $8 a month more, but I get 15% off my home phone, internet, cable... so if you think about it that way, I save around $20 a month...

maybe I can get something from Fido.

And this may sound like a stupid question but I'm not all caught up with current wireless communication stuff... but Jay, what is AWP?

[crono06]

^^ yes, what is AWP? All I know is GSM and the CDMA xD

Anyways, how does retentions at Rogers work? Just call and ask for credits/freebies? Do they make you extend the contract if you get something?

[RedRaptor]

Canadians are hypocrites.

How many times have we seen those license plate frames on domestic cars?

"Buy Import and we'll be be jobless" or whatever it says.

We love competition because we want to save "$5", yet we complain and cry when most of us have lost our jobs due to foreign companies.

Last time I checked, Bell, Telus and Rogers are all home grown. But who cares, let's give our money to a Sheik in the Middle East.

Make up your minds already, Canadians. Do you want to save five bucks or do you want to save your jobs?

/rant.

[PCLoadLetter]

Canadians are hypocrites.

How many times have we seen those license plate frames on domestic cars?

"Buy Import and we'll be be jobless" or whatever it says.

We love competition because we want to save "$5", yet we complain and cry when most of us have lost our jobs due to foreign companies.

Last time I checked, Bell, Telus and Rogers are all home grown. But who cares, let's give our money to a Sheik in the Middle East.

Make up your minds already, Canadians. Do you want to save five bucks or do you want to save your jobs?

/rant.

I want to save $5.

[MikeyGT]

Canadians are hypocrites.

How many times have we seen those license plate frames on domestic cars?

"Buy Import and we'll be be jobless" or whatever it says.

We love competition because we want to save "$5", yet we complain and cry when most of us have lost our jobs due to foreign companies.

Last time I checked, Bell, Telus and Rogers are all home grown. But who cares, let's give our money to a Sheik in the Middle East.

Make up your minds already, Canadians. Do you want to save five bucks or do you want to save your jobs?

/rant.

your joking right? I hope your being sarcastic and having Wind come in is good for Canadian.

The whole buy domestic to keep jobs in Canada is like saying free trade is bad

[SilentJay]

Sorry, not awp, it's aws. In essence, it operates in a different frequency range.

AWS: Advanced Wireless Services
==========================
A specific band of radio frequencies (spectrum) intended to be used for next-generation wireless broadband services. Most of the spectrum will be used for 3G mobile phone service, using technologies such as WCDMA+HSDPA or CDMA EV-DO.

AWS is actually a set of paired bands, meaning it consists of two bands: one for base stations (towers) to transmit to mobile terminals (phones) and another band for phones to transmit back to towers.

The two initial AWS bands are 1710-1755 MHz and 2110-2155 MHz. Additional, smaller bands have also been proposed as an add-on to AWS, but they have not yet been finalized or auctioned off (as of August 2006.)

[SilentJay]

Canadians are hypocrites.
How many times have we seen those license plate frames on domestic cars?
"Buy Import and we'll be be jobless" or whatever it says.
We love competition because we want to save "$5", yet we complain and cry when most of us have lost our jobs due to foreign companies.
Last time I checked, Bell, Telus and Rogers are all home grown. But who cares, let's give our money to a Sheik in the Middle East.
Make up your minds already, Canadians. Do you want to save five bucks or do you want to save your jobs?
/rant.

* I appologize now: I'm dead tired, but I feel strongly about this subject... Things may not necessarily flow very well.

I'll agree to your statement on some level, however I feel that this instance is a bit different. For example, making a concious choice to purchase cookies produced in Mississauga versus Thailand: since the cookies made in Thailand, and have zero or close-to-zero investment in local jobs and facilities, and the presence of their product has almost no benefit beyond the profit reaped in the retailer supplier system. Instituting greater taxes and tarrifs on international producers of goods and services that are also produced locally is Canada's only means of getting it's cut, as well as somewhat defending its own businesses. Wind (amongst the other new telcos launching soon) actually has infrastructure investments.

Unfortunately, our incumbant ILECs don't offer much in the means of real price pressures on each other - why should they bother? Everyone gouges just as hard, everyone wins. Sort of like the OPEC of the Canadian telco world - lots of backroom shady dealings.

When you take in JUST how hard we're getting reamed, even if you factor in the tired old excuse "we're a small population, and pay and adjusted rate", significantly higher rates (as high as 60% apparently) than americans is a pretty hard pill to swallow.

Wind's foreign backing means that a good portion of the operating profits indeed go to the middle east, however I don't think the pro's are outweighed by the cons. Here's why:


Pro:
===
- Hundreds of Canadian jobs created

- Consumer choice = lower prices = technological innovation arms-race

- Canadian government still collects all of it's taxes on the entity and it's
employees

- Canada finally recognized as coming out of the Oligopoly stone-ages, could spur on foreign investment in other sectors *

*Bit of a stretch, but you get what i'm going towards


Cons:
====
- 60% (or whatever their agreement structure is) of net profits go to Osracom (proably mispelled) as opposed to lining Canadian coffers, although still taxed before it leaves CDN soil

- Once established and humming along, Globalive may elect to relocate some lower-level and uninvolved jobs offshore... Guess what, Bell has been doing that for years. There will always be local jobs though - you can't have a facilities engineer in Mumbai doing physical work here

[SilentJay]

Anyways, how does retentions at Rogers work? Just call and ask for credits/freebies? Do they make you extend the contract if you get something?

Retentions for all of the "big-3" work the same way. If you've built a solid relationship with them (at least a certain amount of time as a loyal customer, bills are always paid up, don't call in every 2 weeks asking for freebies, etc), you can call them up directly once you are close to your contract completion, and ask what they can do to reward you for your loyalty or you're interested in another company's offerings, and was hoping that they could offer you something similar.

Freebies and upgrades will almost always result in contract extensions though.

[k-existence]

Anyways, how does retentions at Rogers work? Just call and ask for credits/freebies? Do they make you extend the contract if you get something?

Well... there a MASSIVE thread on redflagdeals and you don't want to go reading the whole thread but here is the general idea...

It varies from the retention rep who picks up. One rep will give you EVERYTHING and the next will give you nothing. Basically, you call in telling them your not to happy with your plan (at this point some retention people will start offering you crap depending if your on contract or not).. it works way best when you tell them you want to cancel your plan (be careful because they can start cancelling ur phone lol) or another competitor is offering you a better plan. If your rep is not giving you want you want and being a ass then just call again later and try again. but not too often otherwise they might flag your account...

Sometimes you will need to extend contract, sometimes not, depends on if you going to get a phone or not. I didn't need to extend my contract and I didn't get a phone.

anyways its a longggggg story about retetions about how they can screw you over with promising things and then its not there on the bill (it happened to me... :flaming) but to give you an idea of what I got after my retention calls (3 in total) my plan is 250 anytime minutes - CD - VM - unlimited incoming - unlimited even/weekends @ 8:00 for $16 tax/fees in :bana no contract too (except they did promise me free texting too but they didnt give me in... thats another story and i need to call in soon)

[Scottobot]

I wonder how much money changed hands to make Ottawa overrule the CRTC's ruling.

[crono06]

Ahhhhh... Maybe I'll give retentions a try once my contract is almost up... In 2 years --;;

[omalak]

Canadians are hypocrites.

How many times have we seen those license plate frames on domestic cars?

"Buy Import and we'll be be jobless" or whatever it says.

We love competition because we want to save "$5", yet we complain and cry when most of us have lost our jobs due to foreign companies.

Last time I checked, Bell, Telus and Rogers are all home grown. But who cares, let's give our money to a Sheik in the Middle East.

Make up your minds already, Canadians. Do you want to save five bucks or do you want to save your jobs?

/rant.



I couldn.t give a rats ass about where my employer is frm asd long as they provide me a job oppertunity in canada..

The big 3 are too f'ingbig anyways i highly doubt GlobalLive will even cut into 5-10% of their market share..

Global Live has just created 800 more telcom jobs in the canadian wireless market.. I dont see whats wrong..

And oh who gives a shit if the company is Canadian.. in the back they are sleeping with arabs amaericans and euros anyways..

Examples
ATI
Labatt
Tim Hortons (up to a few months ago
Stelco
Dofasco
Alcan
Molson
CN Rail
CCM
Bauer


and i'm sure there are a hell of alot more.. What about our oilsands?

:pop

[STeeLy]

Ahhhhh... Maybe I'll give retentions a try once my contract is almost up... In 2 years --;;

I might too actually... ahahaha... with all my rogers services cuz bell is bugging the hell out of me.

[fini]

I might too actually... ahahaha... with all my rogers services cuz bell is bugging the hell out of me.


Ahhhhh... Maybe I'll give retentions a try once my contract is almost up... In 2 years --;;

you guys, that's far too long to wait.
you should do it at either of these points in time:

1) you are 1 year into your contract to you renew/top up to 3 years (self explanatory)
2) a key change in the market comes about (wireless number port, windmobile launch, etc)

[STeeLy]

but when you're in the contract you're kinda locked, so if you threaten to leave, they get your $600 or whatever it is... so wouldn't it make sense to wait til contract is up for renewal?

[fini]

but when you're in the contract you're kinda locked, so if you threaten to leave, they get your $600 or whatever it is... so wouldn't it make sense to wait til contract is up for renewal?

that's their standard answer when you call in and tell them you want to leave. but if they don't believe you are a churn risk, they will give you nothing.

what i say, and it's almost always 100% true. is that even after i pay the cancel fee, it will work out cheaper for me if i go to the competition anyway. so why should i stay with you if you can't value me as a customer over XX years?

if they offer you nothing and tell you to leave. tell them you'll think about it.
if they offer you less than what you want, tell them you'll think about it. and try again later for a more lenient rep.
if they offer you what you want, then yahoo! money saved.

[silvermist99]

Global Live has just created 800 more telcom jobs in the canadian wireless market.. I dont see whats wrong..



and rogers laid off 1800

[omalak]

and rogers laid off 1800

yes i heard.. What types of jobs and at what levels is the question.. Rogers is getting its hands tied in too many things.. It is in cable and telcom magazines sports teams... When you diversify so much you have to expect that they will have their ups and downs in terms of workforce size.


Rogers should stop diversifying and stick to its cable and telcom business.. Happy customers dont leave.. And rogers customer service leaves people far from happy

[froggy]

yes i heard.. What types of jobs and at what levels is the question.. Rogers is getting its hands tied in too many things.. It is in cable and telcom magazines sports teams... When you diversify so much you have to expect that they will have their ups and downs in terms of workforce size.


Rogers should stop diversifying and stick to its cable and telcom business.. Happy customers dont leave.. And rogers customer service leaves people far from happy

mostly whitecollar, and managment type positions, so no more sr, jr, exectuve etc, etc vps for the same position.

[silvermist99]

yes i heard.. What types of jobs and at what levels is the question.. Rogers is getting its hands tied in too many things.. It is in cable and telcom magazines sports teams... When you diversify so much you have to expect that they will have their ups and downs in terms of workforce size.


Rogers should stop diversifying and stick to its cable and telcom business.. Happy customers dont leave.. And rogers customer service leaves people far from happy

mid managements are getting canned to streamline operations and WIND is hiring mostly entry/low management. Rogers is still hiring customer facing staff/call center/ Tier 1 support to 'improve customer service'.. but there will be less management to train the new hirees meanwhile things are getting more complicated by the second. Maybe they'll opt into hiring more skilled customer facing staff paying higher wages. TELUS pays their Canadian customer service staff damn well and it shows.

from a consumer perspective WIND is definitely good to drive the much needed prices down. Will need a lot more time to tell whether it is good for the Canadian Economy or not. Things are really shaky with the big three losing millions in caps since Wednesday~ news and the speculation of WIND launching before Christmas. Down the road, there is the danger of them getting ridiculously big overtaking the big 3, if that ever happens, our $$ will be going to Egypt ? Sort of like the 407?

[hatthi]

mostly whitecollar, and managment type positions, so no more sr, jr, exectuve etc, etc vps for the same position.


They've also brought Cable, Rogers Wireless and Fido Wireless under the same umbrella.

[GSXi]

Lets just hope Rogers, Telus and Bell (who partially does already) don't start move jobs oversea. A lot of Canadians are actually employed or contracted to these companies.

What's the point in saving money, but with less ppl who can afford it.

[silvermist99]

Lets just hope Rogers, Telus and Bell (who partially does already) don't start move jobs oversea. A lot of Canadians are actually employed or contracted to these companies.

What's the point in saving money, but with less ppl who can afford it.

TELUS 2nd HQ "TELUS International" in Manila is rapidly expanding :blah

[SilentJay]

Again, Bell has already been outsourcing for years.

[fini]

Maybe they'll opt into hiring more skilled customer facing staff paying higher wages. TELUS pays their Canadian customer service staff damn well and it shows.



The people who work that job don't think so since that position has a grossly high turnover rate.

[SilentJay]

Call centre jobs, no matter how glorified, will be not-so-well-paid, and the turnover is a given. I'd have to say though, that Telus reps all seem to carry an air of "holier-than-thou" with them, be it on the phone or on hofo.

[fini]

Call centre jobs, no matter how glorified, will be not-so-well-paid, and the turnover is a given. I'd have to say though, that Telus reps all seem to carry an air of "holier-than-thou" with them, be it on the phone or on hofo.

haha... that's what i wanted to say... but didn't know if i was gonna offend anyone.

but agree 100%

[SilentJay]

:P I've worked in a call centre for 4.5 years, and have been a telus customer since 1996ish, so I can speak for both demographics

[silvermist99]

The people who work that job don't think so since that position has a grossly high turnover rate.

19-22 per hour + bonus and benefits is well paid in my books for a white collar job that isnt labor intensive and do not require post secondary education.