CRTC Hearing February 12, 2013 - AM

My big annoyance with carriers is the lack of access for prepaid users to postpaid plans. I'm not talking about subsidizes, I'm talking about why prepaid users are subject to often more comprehensively expensive and feature-lacking selection of plans. If we were talking about Telus, looking at their prepaid selection is completely lacking in offering any daytime minute and free evening + weekend selection of plans instead only offering pay-per-use daytime and the choice of purchasing evening + weekend add-on. Some users like myself like the bill-shock security that prepaid offers but it is appalling to have very unfavourable access to inferior plans. Allowing prepaid users equal access to postpaid plans can also easily solve any max overage issues since the maximum a prepaid user tops up can only be deducted from any charges and not a random and often high figure like Telus' $200. A great innovation is from Mobilicity and their MyWallet idea. It allows for the carrier, in this instance Mobilicity, to only be allowed to charge their customer their monthly fee and if the user adds funds to their MyWallet then only those funds are accessible to pay-per-use/overage. For example if I only add $10 to MyWallet, if I'm all of sudden roaming excessively, only $10 can be used out of my account and no excess charges on the consumer side.

I have watched many hours so far of these hearings, and there is something I have not yet seen addressed in relation to why caps are necessary. Especially with the new wave of LTE devices, data speeds have gotten faster, but caps have stayed a relatively the same level. I used to have a 30$ month 6GB 3G plan, and now have have a package plan that includes 5GB instead of 6GB, yet my speeds are on the order of 10 times faster. At work I have measured the actual performance of the LTE network at 2.6 megaBYTEs per second (20Mbits/s or 9.3 GB an hour). My provider charges an overage fee of 10$/GB. Now, if I set my phone to silent and walk into a business meeting while there happens to be an application dowloading at top speed on my phone(unknown to me), it is entirely possible that in 1 hour I will rack up 90$ of overages fees. This is one of the reasons a cap is absolutely necessary to prevent billshock, because the span of time it takes you to incur huge fees is getting shorter, and shorter. My provider only displays data usage on their website 'within 4 hours'. In 4 hours, I could conceivably use up 37 gigabytes of data, and this is not even considering the top speed of my device.

I agree with Hagop Barounian. Currently, postpaid plans and prepaid plans are COMPLETELY separate! Ideally, a customer should be able to choose a plan on pre-paid basis as well as post-paid basis. If it's pre-paid, you do not have the option of getting device subsidy, you also pay the monthly amount in "advance". If it's post-paid, you may get device subsidy, and you are billed monthly for your usage (plan fee + any overages). Currently, carriers try to push you to POSTPAID service by offering very INFERIOR plans on prepaid service. New carriers (like WIND Mobile) work in a more consumer-friendly way. You sign-up for their plan (say $45 plan). You pay in that $45 in advance. In addition, WIND allows you to pay an additional amount (say, $20) that will be used to cover any overages. This way, your maximum overage is limited to $20 (the amount you put in the overage amount). Mobilicity also operates in a similarly consumer friendly manner (like WIND). They allow you to choose any plan (postpaid/prepaid) and allow you to add funds to something called "MyWallet". Funds from MyWallet can be used to cover overages. Also, LOCKED DEVICES are a HUGE PROBLEM! There are three problems here: 1. Device is locked eventhough you are already subjected to early-termination-fee. Why is device locked if customer is already bound by contract and has agreed to pay financial penalty? 2. Sometimes customers buy the device outright (without any subsidy). So, technically, the device should NOT be locked at all. Yet, carriers lock this device and do not unlock it for free. 3. Some carriers (eg: Rogers) have offered to unlock device. But they are charging a $50 FEE. This sounds like robbery to me. The device (purchased outright, without any subsidy) should not have been locked in the first place. So, instead of unlocking the device, the carriers are now asking you to pay an additional $50 to undo something that they (the carriers) should NOT have done in the first place. Thanks C

LOL! I love seeing these guys roasted. They are almost always full of **** by the way CRTC.