Bell getting the iPhone - Who's jumping ship?

[Doju]

I'm not too fond of Rogers, personally. Where I live, the nearest 3G connection is two and a half miles out of town. Not optimal. Their EDGE network is rather solid, though. Plus, where I work I don't even get a bar of service unless I drive for half an hour away from work.

Bell/Aliant (Bell bought Aliant and Aliant is massive where I live, southern Nova Scotia as Aliant had blanketed our area) has the best service where I live, bar none. 19 out of 20 people I know will have Aliant/Bell.

So, when I went to get a phone, I naturally went to Bell. Only, all their phones were horrible. They now have a Pre, which may have kept me there, but compared to the iPhone the Pre is very slow in my experiences. So, I went with Rogers as they had the iPhone.

Now that Bell has the iPhone, I'm SO jumping ship from Rogers to Bell. I only got Rogers because of the phone, and sacrificed Bell's amazing coverage. Now I get BOTH!

Now, the part that makes me almost euphoric, is that, as I said, I don't get a bar of 3G unless I drive two and a half hours outside town. Now Bell's whole network will not only be 3G, but 21MBps 3G, vs Rogers' 7.2MBps. This is a dream come true. Going from incredibly sluggish EDGE to blazing fast 3G.

I'm staying with Rogers till this summer, though. It will bring my contract down a fair bit, and I'll cancel the contract and sell the iPhone 3GS, then wait for Apple to release the new phone, and I get the amazing new, 4th gen iPhone on the best network by far for me. This will be an iPhone dream come true.

Hallelujah. I've had every iPhone so far, and I guess I'm getting the new one, even though I didn't plan it.

 

[Colonel Badger]

I'm not too fond of Rogers, personally. Where I live, the nearest 3G connection is two and a half miles out of town. Not optimal. Their EDGE network is rather solid, though. Plus, where I work I don't even get a bar of service unless I drive for half an hour away from work.

Bell/Aliant (Bell bought Aliant and Aliant is massive where I live, southern Nova Scotia as Aliant had blanketed our area) has the best service where I live, bar none. 19 out of 20 people I know will have Aliant/Bell.

So, when I went to get a phone, I naturally went to Bell. Only, all their phones were horrible. They now have a Pre, which may have kept me there, but compared to the iPhone the Pre is very slow in my experiences. So, I went with Rogers as they had the iPhone.

Now that Bell has the iPhone, I'm SO jumping ship from Rogers to Bell. I only got Rogers because of the phone, and sacrificed Bell's amazing coverage. Now I get BOTH!

Now, the part that makes me almost euphoric, is that, as I said, I don't get a bar of 3G unless I drive two and a half hours outside town. Now Bell's whole network will not only be 3G, but 21MBps 3G, vs Rogers' 7.2MBps. This is a dream come true. Going from incredibly sluggish EDGE to blazing fast 3G.

I'm staying with Rogers till this summer, though. It will bring my contract down a fair bit, and I'll cancel the contract and sell the iPhone 3GS, then wait for Apple to release the new phone, and I get the amazing new, 4th gen iPhone on the best network by far for me. This will be an iPhone dream come true.

Hallelujah. I've had every iPhone so far, and I guess I'm getting the new one, even though I didn't plan it.

iPhone 3GS only supports up to 7.2Mbps.

 

[MRTaylor]

I signed up for a new Rogers contract in June... If I had known about the BellAliant iphone then I wouldn't have. I also live in a heavy Bell coverage area (NB) and found the Rogers coverage horrible where I live, no comparison at all. I'd love to switch but don't want to front the ETF's.

 

[Metal-Head]

Nope

I will never use any of Bell's services again. I was pretty much told by one of their Customer Service Managers that they lie to their customers and make up their own policies as they see fit. I'll take Rogers over them any day.

 

[Kevlar]

I think it will all depend on how good the HSDPA coverage is at first. I have a feeling the coverage is going to be for the major centers to begin with only. And they don't have a GSM backbone to fall back on for Edge coverage, so I think rural area's could be without good coverage if any coverage. Bell is as bad if worse the Rogers for customer service though. And I have always found telus to be hit or miss.

 

[junkmeh]

What's truly great about this news is that there will be not one but THREE carriers in Canada with the iPhone; which means that there is a good chance of eventual phone plan price drops as a result of competition. So far, I've been reasonably content with my Rogers contract, however, I am interested in seeing what Bell and Telus offer (and what Rogers subsequently offers to address the competition) in the coming months/year.

 

[hugoleveille]

I have been using Bell since I dont know when and because of that I have a realy,really good voice plan. I just called them and they told my I could keep it no problem, I will just need a data plan.

This is really cool

 

[Kevlar]

What's truly great about this news is that there will be not one but THREE carriers in Canada with the iPhone; which means that there is a good chance of eventual phone plan price drops as a result of competition. So far, I've been reasonably content with my Rogers contract, however, I am interested in seeing what Bell and Telus offer (and what Rogers subsequently offers to address the competition) in the coming months/year.

Sadly I doubt you are going to see reduces in price. Each is just going to match what the other is priced. Telus may have some kind of launch price, but I doubt Bell will. Again Bell and Telus I think are going to as successful as their network is. Meaning if they don't have entire coverage due to no GSM Edge coverage available in the smaller regions, they may not do as well as they hope. If they are able to provide the coverage they do now but entirely 3G (the joint telus and bell network) then I could see that forcing Rogers to do something to compete.

 

[mcmanus7]

I am going to wait to decide if I made a good decision.... I switched from Bell to Fido almost exactly a year ago...

It really depends on the plans that Bellus come out with... Personally I would NEVER EVER EVER think about switching back to Telus... but I might be tempted by Bell...

My plan right now is decent..

 

[juicyred]

For about a month I've been darn close to signing on with Fido (Rogers) and find the news re: Telus and Bell getting the iPhone quite interesting.

I'd like to move away from Telus altogether and will probably still go with Fido unless there are major price differences announced.

I'm always for there being more options out there though - the more the merrier for consumers.

 

[Doju]

iPhone 3GS only supports up to 7.2Mbps.

I know, but as I mentioned above, I'll be getting the new iPhone 4th gen. Who knows what that will support?

And yeah, I just signed up for a three year with the 3G S as well, and definitely wouldn't have if I knew Bell was coming, but at the same time I'm more than willing to just end it. I can sell my 3G S for near the price of termination fees.

Bell's customer service may be sub-par, but I really don't care. Anything to do with the phone itself, I call Apple. Anything with my plan I use Bell's website. Voila, no human interaction with Bell customer support.

Even if I had to, I'd take bad customer support and amazing coverage over alright customer support and poor coverage.

I think it will all depend on how good the HSDPA coverage is at first. I have a feeling the coverage is going to be for the major centers to begin with only. And they don't have a GSM backbone to fall back on for Edge coverage, so I think rural area's could be without good coverage if any coverage. Bell is as bad if worse the Rogers for customer service though. And I have always found telus to be hit or miss.

Not quite. Bell and Telus' merged network will be converted from a mix of EDGE and 3G CMDA to all 3G HSPA GSM. Yeah, you either have 3G or nothing basically, but it's rare that you won't have 3G at all, at least where I live where it's blanketed in EDGE and 3G at the moment.

 

[nateo200]

Not a cunook but Rogers 3G seams rock solid....Brb waiting for T-Mobile to get iPhone and for the iPhone to support the proper UMTS frequencys....

 

[Hutch1]

I know, but as I mentioned above, I'll be getting the new iPhone 4th gen. Who knows what that will support?

So this is future jumping ship. If Bell has better coverage in your area then hell you'd be stupid to stay, actually it was kind of silly to go with Rogers just to get an iPhone with poor service.

That being said by the time Apple releases a 4G iPhone Rogers 4G LTE network will be up and running too, they are in the process of installing and rolling it out now, visited a site today that is being upgraded. Visited a Bell site that was suppose to be upgraded but it has been postponed so....

 

[eRondeau]

Yes, but does Bell permit tethering? Rogers encourages it -- I'm allowed up to 6GB/month with my launch package. AFAIK Bell still charges $8/MB for tethering... so that would equal... hmmm... carry the 6... $48,000/month under Bell's plan. Seems a little pricey to me.

(BTW I'm posting this thru my Rogers 3G iPhone tethering connection from my cottage in the middle of nowhere...)

 

[DARKiLLUSiON]

I may jump the ship to possibly Telus..right now where I live..(maybe given..I live in the basement) but I get 1..if I'm lucky 2 bars at best from Fido so we shall see oh and I'm not an iPhone as of yet and my contract is due next summer

 

[Doju]

So this is future jumping ship. If Bell has better coverage in your area then hell you'd be stupid to stay, actually it was kind of silly to go with Rogers just to get an iPhone with poor service.

That being said by the time Apple releases a 4G iPhone Rogers 4G LTE network will be up and running too, they are in the process of installing and rolling it out now, visited a site today that is being upgraded. Visited a Bell site that was suppose to be upgraded but it has been postponed so....

I don't think it was. If Bell had it, I'd have definitely gone with them, but if they didn't, I'd go with Rogers over again easily. Bell has better service, but when I signed up for Rogers Bell had NO good phones. Their only alright one now is a Pre. Alright service with a great phone > great service with a phone you want to die.

And yeah, I hope Bell is reasonable with tethering. If we get 3G where I live, versus EDGE now, I'd definitely use it a lot more than I do now.

 

[trainguy77]

I am in the same boat except with telus. I came from telus this past summer just do to the iPhone. I had a much better price plan with telus. Now I pay way more for my voice because I am with rogers. I don't mind rogers vs telus. They both have the ups and downs. The big thing is I want better pricing out of rogers. I may be able to get that out of retention in a couple months. If so I will stay. If not I will jump ship if i can get a similar plan to what I used to have with telus.

 

[taran420]

Not sure about jumping ships, but since we have options now I will definately use it as a bargaining tool in getting a better deal, and yes it works

 

[DeusInvictus7]

OP, you do know that Rogers already has the HSPA+ 21mbps network running, right? They already deployed it in major cities about a couple weeks ago, so they are ahead of Bell/Telus by about 2 months.

The only plus for HSPA+ at the moment for people with the 3GS is that we might get closer to the max of 7.2mbps. The highest I ever got was about 2 weeks ago, I got 5.5mbps on 3G.

Anyway, back on the original topic, I'm staying with Rogers, not because I think they are awesome or that Bell/Telus suck, it's just that I work for Rogers and get half off on all my services . That and I haven't had any problems with my coverage and stuff, so there's no reason for me to leave.

 

[RoboCop001]

OP, you do know that Rogers already has the HSPA+ 21mbps network running, right? They already deployed it in major cities about a couple weeks ago, so they are ahead of Bell/Telus by about 2 months.

The only plus for HSPA+ at the moment for people with the 3GS is that we might get closer to the max of 7.2mbps. The highest I ever got was about 2 weeks ago, I got 5.5mbps on 3G.

Anyway, back on the original topic, I'm staying with Rogers, not because I think they are awesome or that Bell/Telus suck, it's just that I work for Rogers and get half off on all my services . That and I haven't had any problems with my coverage and stuff, so there's no reason for me to leave.

Do you know what's going on with the tethering thing?

I remember reading that tethering is free for people with certain data plans, including the 6GB plan which I have, until December.

But what happens after that?? lol I hope it's still free.