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Cellular Phone Forum / Providers / Fido / January 2005City Fido from $40 to $45 - No Contract? jNo Expiry?
Hi I've been a no contract Fido customer for a many years. When City Fido came out with the $40 plan, I phoned them and had my $40 package switched to the City Fido package. I asked customer service what would happen if the plan was no longer offered someday--since I don't have a contract which means my plan would never expire. I didn't get a very clear answer and was assured I had nothing to worry about. Fido sent me a letter last December urging me to lock into an agreement with them in order to keep my City Fido rate at $40 instead of the new $45 rate. I didn't sign up for it. This year I received another letter with the same message. What happens if I don't sign up for the agreement? Can they really switch my rate to $45 even though I don't have a contract that states when my $40 rate expires? Furthermore, the wording in the letter states: "As a City Fido subscriber, you'll continue to enjoy unlimited anytime local calls within City zone for only $40 until February 17, 2005. At that time, the cost of your monthly package will become $45, as agreed one year ago." What really bothers me is that they are implying I agreed to anything at all. I didn't agree to anything. I simply ignored last year's letter and never signed an agreement with them. I was never told when switching packages over the phone what the terms of my City Fido package are. Are they trying to push me into signing a contract using this tactic? Can they really up my rate when I don't have an agreement? > Furthermore, the wording in the letter states: > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > this tactic? Can they really up my rate when I don't have an > agreement? FIDO effectively provided you with notice 1 year ago (taken from Feb 2005) that the rate for City would increase to $45 in Feb 2005 (this was a grandfathering of your existing rate plan). From a non-contract perspective, 1 years notice is actually pretty good. They are now offering to give you this rate for another 2 years if you go on a FIDO agreement. Part of the reason they can do this is due to you NOT having a contract for a set price. With City changing to $45/month + SAF ($6.95)/month (in a couple of weeks) the contract offer to maintain your previous rate seems pretty good and fair (fair, given that the rates are increasing substantially very soon). for the agreement? Can they really switch my rate to $45 even though > I don't have a contract that states when my $40 rate expires? yes they can. They are supposed to gove you one month's notice of a rate change. They already grand-fathered you at $40 for quite some time since that rate lasted only a few weeks before Fido raised City Fido to $45 not long after it launched City Fido in Vancouver. > local calls within City zone for only $40 until February 17, 2005. At > that time, the cost of your monthly package will become $45, as agreed > one year ago." Generally speaking, while the above may seem unethical, if you do not contest a change from a provider, the provider has the legal right to assume you agreed to it. Now, remember that Rogers is raising City Fido from $45 to $51.95 very soon for new subscribers. ($45 plus the $6.95 extorsion fee). What you need to do is to call Fido and ask them if the $6.95 fee will be applied to you as an existing customer NOW, and if you stay without contract, how long you could expect the $45 fee to be grandfathered before they stick the extra $6.95 extorsion fee onto to it. It might even be advantageous to switch to the $45 fee sooner rather than later if, switching later would mean that you'd switch from the $40 fee to the $51.95 one because the switch would occur after the$6,95 extorsion fee comes in force. > Can they really up my rate when I don't have an > agreement? Yep. And they can legally up it with an agreement too. The agreement is all on their side, garanteeing revenus and preventing you to defect to Bell or Telus. Those 2 year contracts will reduce likelyhood of rate changes during contract duration. However, if you do sign such a contract, make damned sure you get a free phone or one at very reduced cost otherwise you'll be without any new phone for the duration of your contract. Contracts are really ugly and anti competitive. All customers should refuse to sign such contracts and force the carriers to compete against each other. > What you need to do is to call Fido and ask them if the $6.95 fee will be > applied to you as an existing customer NOW, and if you stay without > contract, > how long you could expect the $45 fee to be grandfathered before they > stick > the extra $6.95 extorsion fee onto to it. I spoke to them today regarding this. They advised me that as long as you are on the cityfido plan before they add that system access fee (Jan 15th they advised me) that I will be grandfathered and not have to pay it untill next Jan (2006). > > What you need to do is to call Fido and ask them if the $6.95 fee will be > > applied to you as an existing customer NOW, and if you stay without [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > that system access fee (Jan 15th they advised me) that I will be > grandfathered and not have to pay it untill next Jan (2006). Why not sign an agreement and get the base rate amount guaranteed with the SAF included for 2years? Because I'm already on City Fido, and I can't convert to a contract. Plus, contracts are counterproductive to competition. :) >> > What you need to do is to call Fido and ask them if the $6.95 fee will > be [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Why not sign an agreement and get the base rate amount guaranteed with the > SAF included for 2years? > Because I'm already on City Fido, and I can't convert to a contract. > Plus, contracts are counterproductive to competition. :) Anyone can convert to a contract. Contracts aren't necessarily counterproductive to competition, sometimes they make things more competitive (eg. you get a better deal if you sign one). > Anyone can convert to a contract. Contracts aren't necessarily > counterproductive to competition, sometimes they make things more > competitive (eg. you get a better deal if you sign one). Converting from normal to contract gives Fido customers absolutely nothing. They are much better off waiting for better offers from Bell/Telus as opposed to being locked in to Rogers. And even if Fido were to offer a free phone in exchange for a contract (which was not done in this case from what I read), that phone would be useless unless it can talk 850 as well as 1900 and there aren't many phones sold by Fido which do that. Also consider that in the next 10 months, the shape of the Rogers-Fido union will become much clearer. If you can get a current rate grandfathered for 12 months without contract, then it may be worth it to stay free as long as possible to get a better idea of what will happen, and you can always lock yourself in during that period if you feel you won't get a better deal elsewhere. But all customers should tell Fido/Rogers to stop trying to push contracts. If all customers refused to sign contracts, then all mobile providers woudl have to compete for our business. This is especially important now that there is no longer the underdog causing problems for the big guys. At 40$ unlimited nobody will give him better deal since there only three players now. Look at the bell offer it's 45$ for just 700 min with a free year but 3 yeras contract. Nobody will give you a good deal whitout a contract. Sign the contract asap and ask for a free phone, this way if your current one break you get a backup until the end of the contract. The 850 thing is useless since you can't roam on rogers with city fido plan so chose any Fido phone. > > Anyone can convert to a contract. Contracts aren't necessarily > > counterproductive to competition, sometimes they make things more [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > to compete for our business. This is especially important now that there is no > longer the underdog causing problems for the big guys. > Sign the contract asap and ask for a free phone, Are there precedents of people getting really good phone offers as existing customers who just sign a contract for their existing phone plan ? > one break you get a backup until the end of the contract. The 850 thing is > useless since you can't roam on rogers with city fido plan so chose any Fido > phone. The 850 thing may be useless NOW. But consider that a lot will happen within the next 2 years with regards to integration of Fido into Rogers. When Microcell anounced the roaming on Rogers thing, it left the door wide open for the city fido sitation to change starting this february. Consider also roaming to the USA where 850 is available at normal roaming rates. Allowing CityFido to roam onto Rogers would probably require some billing software changes so it couldn't be implemeted right away. > > Sign the contract asap and ask for a free phone, > > Are there precedents of people getting really good phone offers as existing > customers who just sign a contract for their existing phone plan ? He could get any phone at the fido agreement price like any new customer. I call them to get a contract to use the free roaming on rogers (on the 25$ unlimited incoming) and I get a 150$ V400 (I want a camera with 850). > > one break you get a backup until the end of the contract. The 850 thing is > > useless since you can't roam on rogers with city fido plan so chose any Fido [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Microcell anounced the roaming on Rogers thing, it left the door wide open for > the city fido sitation to change starting this february. There a lot of discussion about it, but I think they never allow it because this plan will become too cheap when compare to rogers ones and the rogers customers will migrate to it. The only advantage of rogers over Fido is the coverage so they don't want to loose it. > Consider also roaming to the USA where 850 is available at normal roaming rates. Yes it's a good point if you go there a lot and need the rural coverage. But if he go more to europe or asia than usa (like me) a 900/1800/1900 or quad band is better. > Allowing CityFido to roam onto Rogers would probably require some billing > software changes so it couldn't be implemeted right away. No , this is not the reason since they allow country fido in the beginning, then shut them out so the billing is not a problem since it work like any roaming agreement. Maybe this is the case for prepay since this need instant update but not postpay. > He could get any phone at the fido agreement price like any new customer. I > call them to get a contract to use the free roaming on rogers (on the 25$ > unlimited incoming) and I get a 150$ V400 (I want a camera with 850). You got a V400 for free, or you got to buy one at the $150 price instead of the fill $400 or whatever price ? > There a lot of discussion about it, but I think they never allow it because > this plan will become too cheap when compare to rogers ones and the rogers > customers will migrate to it. The only advantage of rogers over Fido is the > coverage so they don't want to loose it. Once Rogers gets to analize CityFido typical usage patterns, they may realise that it isn't such a bad package after all. Consider the comment from Ted Rogers about the ARPU for City Fido being unusually high. Once he realises that City Fido customers will put long distance on theor phone, add more options etc), he may realise that it won't be a drain on Roger's revenus. > Yes it's a good point if you go there a lot and need the rural coverage. > But if he go more to europe or asia than usa (like me) a 900/1800/1900 or > quad band is better. Thing is that newer phones to come out this and next year will likely have 850/900/1800/1900 instead of 900/1800/1900. So waiting a few months for the next batch of phones to come out may be worth it, especially if, once you're locked into a 2 year contract, your odds of changing handsets are very low. > No , this is not the reason since they allow country fido in the beginning, > then shut them out so the billing is not a problem since it work like any > roaming agreement. Maybe this is the case for prepay since this need > instant update but not postpay. The problem with CityFido roaming onto Rogers is for urban areas. CityFido already "roams" when it leaves your designated city coverage and yo are charged $0.20 per minute. So allowing CityFido to roam onto Rogers outside your city shouldn't be a problem since you already expect to be paying. The problem lies inside a city where you are expected to never pay for usage. If you get into a neighbourhood where there is weak Fido but strong Rogers, your phone would want to lock into Rogers. Rogers would want to bill Fido for it, but Fido couldn't bill you because you're not supposed to pay when inside your city. And Rogers wouldn't want Fido customers to start hogging bandwidth inside cities at a time when Rogers doesn't have much spare bandwidth on its towers. So they would need software where Fido would decide to accept or reject roaming on Rogers based on a "blacklist" of Rogers antennas that lie inside a customer's "free" coverage area. (eg:L accept roaming outside of your city, but inside your own city, your phohne wouldn't be allowed to fall back onto Rogers.) This is quite different from Telus blocking Fido analog service in vancouver. Telus didn't care about what package you were on, it just blocked anyone with a fido handset in vancouver. Here, the situation is different, Rogers's system don't know if a fido subscriber is CityFido or not. Rogers sends a transaction to Fido asking whether roaming is permitted or not. If that transaction doesn't include exact location of customer, then Fido woudln't know whether to allow or disallow roaming by that CityFido subscriber. > > He could get any phone at the fido agreement price like any new customer. I > > call them to get a contract to use the free roaming on rogers (on the 25$ > > unlimited incoming) and I get a 150$ V400 (I want a camera with 850). > > You got a V400 for free, or you got to buy one at the $150 price instead of > the fill $400 or whatever price ? Not or free, it was the normal "contract" price of 150$ But they do some strange calculations with the fido dollars and the price come to about 125$ and the fido dollars went to zero. > > There a lot of discussion about it, but I think they never allow it because > > this plan will become too cheap when compare to rogers ones and the rogers [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > next batch of phones to come out may be worth it, especially if, once you're > locked into a 2 year contract, your odds of changing handsets are very low. Motorola are like this but it look like Nokia and Ericsson are not very fast to do this since their newer models are still in 2 versions of triband. This is strance since it look not very dificult to add a fourth band on a triple one since these bands are almost the same range of frequency. Maybe it's a Motorola patent? > > No , this is not the reason since they allow country fido in the beginning, > > then shut them out so the billing is not a problem since it work like any [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > location of customer, then Fido woudln't know whether to allow or disallow > roaming by that CityFido subscriber. Ok, this is why they need to adjust their system. > Motorola are like this but it look like Nokia and Ericsson are not very fast > to do this since their newer models are still in 2 versions of triband. > This is strance since it look not very dificult to add a fourth band on a > triple one since these bands are almost the same range of frequency. Maybe > it's a Motorola patent? Chipsets for quad band phones are readily available. There is also talk of GSM 400 taking hold...which could mean quint band phones. > > Allowing CityFido to roam onto Rogers would probably require some billing > > software changes so it couldn't be implemeted right away. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > roaming agreement. Maybe this is the case for prepay since this need > instant update but not postpay. Actually.. billing was issue. They are counterproductive in that once you are "in" a contract, you can't really go searching elsewhere for better service until your contract expires. No. I can't convert to a contract. But maybe my source of information is incorrect. If you have an opportunity, call Fido and see what they tell you. Maybe if you call in the afternoon and not the morning like I did you'll get a different response. :) >> Because I'm already on City Fido, and I can't convert to a contract. >> Plus, contracts are counterproductive to competition. :) > > Anyone can convert to a contract. Contracts aren't necessarily > counterproductive to competition, sometimes they make things more > competitive (eg. you get a better deal if you sign one). |
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