This info is fresh off the oven. I had a meeting with some of the guys working at Bell Mobility yesterday and they mentioned that they’ll be offering a bundle/package where users can place as many calls as they wish for free. They also mentioned that Rogers will have a very similar offer. Here is how it will work:
You’ll need to buy a bundle from say Bell. For example you must have your landline phone, cell phone and Internet service all through them (sorry I don’t know what the bundles will include, maybe Internet won’t be necessary, I’m just guessing). You can then place free calls to any phone number (including cell phones) that are subscribed to Bell.
So here’s a possible scenario and I’ll use Rogers for my example coz they are well known for their cell phone services. Let’s say your parents subscribe to a Rogers bundle and you do the same. You will be able to phone your parents or other Rogers subscribers on their cell phone or Rogers digital home phone for free anytime of the day as long as both of you are in Canada.
This can end up saving you $$$ especially if you talk on your cell phone a lot. The only drawback is that Bell, Rogers and Telus will not cooperate so placing a phone call between two different providers will be costly.
With Rogers its called The Ultimate Chat & Send promotion. They are offering it as a 3 month promotion for new activations on cell phones. However if you call and lay down some sweet talk they will add that feature to an existing plan. I had called on 6 separate occasions and on the 7th try I eventually got them to add it. So you might have to be a little persistent and call back multiple times.
heh … I could just use Skype and get the same thing (for free if my Mom would use Skype too) without having to deal with the notorious “technical support hotline” droogies at any of these old monoliths.
Which makes me kinda wonder, y’know, the vendor lock-in and viral subscription angles of it and all, do you suppose this is our first real tangible evidence of a serious crack in the Tower’s foundations?
How could skype replace a cell phone?
even if you have a skype phone you can’t use it unless you have wireless connection. A cell phone can be used anywhere
From my understanding is that
Bell: unlimited local calling (I assume it’s both way, cell landline?)
With Bell Mobility’s new calling plans you can get free local calls between any Bell mobile, residential or business phone. And because almost everyone has at least one Bell line, that’s a lot of free calls. Get Bell to Bell calling today for as little as $10/month.
Rogers: Landline(Rogers home phone)->Cell unlimited
but not the other way around i.e. Rogers rip you off on Cell->Landline
and so far I haven’t seen any bid ads from Rogers to match Bell’s offer
Thanks Jerry for the info 🙂
Rogers and Bell are going to offer free cell -> landline and cell -> cell
The packages i’m talking about are not out yet… they are still calculating economic models etc. but the plans should be out soon
The hooker in all this, as I see it, is that it will only work between you (supposedly a Bell client) and others who are also Bell clients. Fifteen or more years ago, I think most Canadians were Bell clients, but I suspect that mnay of the people that I call are not. I fear (and by the way, I am a BCE stockholder) that once again, Bell is doing too little too late. Remember those Bell ads where they used tennis balls to represent all the people who were returning to Bell? Yeah, right!!
I was with Rogers for 7 years!! 7 fabulous years and 2 years ago I signed a 3 year family contract with Telus – biggest mistake I ever made. Telus just has to be behind in everything. I can’t wait until my contract with Telus is over because I will definately get one of rogers to rogers free talk plans (the majority of people I know either have rogers home phone or cell)