I've notice just really recently, my friend bought a fido moto v60i about
1-2 weeks ago for 50.00 plus tax on the spot with phone activated, and now
another friend of mine bought one today for $25.00!!!!! at fido, they seem
to have lowered the price even more recently, its insane, the war that has
begun with all these cell phone companies, question is whats yet to come?

The only thing that Fido has to do to compete is to grow it's revenues and
this is usually done by increasing customer numbers.  In this business,
churn has always been a problem and Fido needs to avoid that by providing
excellent customer service and competitive rates.   It seems to me that
their rates are pretty good but customer service can often be "lacking".
Other *small* things: reduce the cost of SMS messages (especially between
Fido customers, since that doesn't cost as much as inter-operator) so that
people have an incentive to use it more.   Allow access to voicemail from
landlines without charge.

Just a couple of thoughts .......

It would be interesting to hear about experiences of any Fido customer who
called to cancel service and told Fido they accepted a Telus/AT&T/Bell offer.
I suspect that Fido customer retention would get quite agressive to retain
such customers.

What the Telus/AT&T/Bell offers will really do is weaken Fido to some extent
because it will have to further increase the cost of retention of customers
with free phones etc.

One also has to consider why a customer has chosen Fido.  If they chose it
solely based on advertising and because they like dogs, then yes, the customer
can easily be lost if Telus/AT&T/Bell just dangle a dog biscuit to attract them.

But if a Fido customer chose Fido because of no contracts and lower prices,
then such customers are more likely to realise that the dog biscuit Telus
tries to lure him with is laced with a sleeping agent that will keep you
asleep for 2 years.

However, for the masses, I unfortunatly suspect that what attracts one to a
mobile provider or another is the phone.

Consider current Telus ads that show cool phones with colour, photos etc. A
fido customer with an older phone, upon seing these ads might get a favourable
impression of Telus, so when Telus then makes him an offer to switch, even if
the phone doesn't have pictures/colour/etc, he may be tempted to jump ship.

This is why I am somewhat disapointed that Fido isn't flaunting camera phones
to tell the world "look, I am cool too". ( The story of Fido: first with
technology, last to admit it has it).

Personally, the current ads with the offer of free fido-fido for 2 months is a
big TURN OFF for me. For one thing, I consider it misleading advertising since
someone who gets that offer and starts calling me all the time will be costing
ME airtime because I don't have Fido-to-Fido, and secondly, I do not like
those "free for x months" offers.

I have a feeling that Fido switched from the dog theme to "regretably only
from Fido" and they will try to find any "scam" that fits into that theme.
Look at the "free day" scam. The ads clearly stated that the president was
giving Fido customers one free day per week. How come, as a Fido subscriber, I
didn't get that ?

If they really want the  "regretably only from fido" to work, they should
re-instate answer-to-end and apply it to all its customers, even prepaid. That
would be a good christmas gift.

Remember that Fido has just emerged of bankrupcy. They've had a couple of
years of "neglect" on their network due to lack of money, while AT?T and Bell
continued to work on their network. Fido doesn't have unlimited resources, and
they have to carefully decide how much of their limited resources are
allocated to network improvements and how much to subsidies for phones and
other freebes.

It costs Fido "monopoly" money to give 2 months of free fido-to-fido. It costs
"real" money to subsidize a nokia/moto/ericcson phone. So it is a lot easier
for Fido to advertise freebies that don't cost it anything, especially if the
christmas customer doesn't stay with Fido. But will those ads really work ?

If Fido's restraint  results in it starting to be seen as being behind others
in terms of technology, it may cost it a lot of potential new customers who
will chose the network that advertises the coolest phones on TV. And it may
weaken existing customer's loyalty to Fido if Fido can't counter the lure of
fancy handsets from other networks.

What Fido should do to counter the Telus/AT&T/Bell attempst at stealing its
cutsomers is give all its cutsomers a little christmas cookie (such as
answer-to-end). It wouldn't cost Fido a lot, would give it yet another
"regretably only from Fido, and more importantly, might greatly reduce any
thought of jumping ship by existing customers.

When a customer calls to cancel service, it is often too late even with gifts
from retention department. It is best to kill the urge to move well before
they take root.

Introduce Cityfido in Ontario.

N.

They will do nothing, this is from the email I got from fido:

"Regarding the marketing strategy described in your e-mail, rest assured
that
it will never be Fido's one. Here at Fido we are cool, honest and simple! We
do not try to lure you with free handsets. Indeed, if a service provider
gives you a handset, it clearly knows that it will get back its money with
the usage fees. However, here at Fido, we do not do business this way. We
offer our customers the best rates on the market that allow you to save on a
daily basis!"