The Big Three's Low Cost Data-only Plans, Take 2

[acurrie]

It looks like Canada's Big Three carriers have taken a second stab at low cost data options, and at least one of the plans is twice as good as it was before—or at least, only half as bad.

iPhone in Canada reported Friday that Koodo, Public and Virgin have each launched a variation on the plan you see above (a screenshot from Koodo's Ontario page): $30/month for 1 GB of LTE data. Virgin is actually a bit cheaper, at $28/month, and enrolling in Public's AutoPay will get you the same rate.

Nothing from Fido as of this writing.

Calls are billed at 60¢ per minute (and presumably blocked altogether on Public); outgoing texts are 60¢ each on Koodo, but free on Virgin (I think?). I believe the idea for these plans is that the user would rely on messaging apps (ie. data) for communication.

And indeed, this new 1 GB monthly data bucket is twice as generous as what The Big Three were proposing this time last year. If you're wondering why they can't just charge $25/month and be done with it, it's because users might then begin to question their egregious data overage rates, obviously...

Sources: iPhone in Canada, Mobile Syrup

[ma678]

Isn't it still expensive?

Sent from my ONEPLUS 6T using Tapatalk

[acurrie]

For the rest of the world, definitely. For Canada? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯