UMB will be gone June 30th, 2013 | Page 11 | 7-Eleven Rates and Plans | Consumer forum

i doubt they are paying the data portion of UMB as measured data, i.e. unprofitable.

SO is just a low cost reseller and if the data is costing a lot, they would drop the service long ago.

Cold Cash said: And he's playing word games with "data" which is data regardless of how we spin it.

I'm not playing wordgames. This whole Data vs Browsing has been flogged to death. If you don't understand the whole smoke and mirrors of it all, then keep bringing it up.

These people seem to understand the semantics of Data vs UMB.

https://www.speakoutwireless.ca/speak/7-eleven-rates-and-plans/poll-do-you-feel-cheated-by-the-unadvertised-buy-10-umb-get-free-data-limited-time-only-plan/

Data is data, however it can be routed and port restricted, hence the complaint "I CAN HAS NOT VOIPZ?" or "WHY NOZE APP WURKZ?"

But you are ultimately right. Data is data, and your point is probably being hammered home by Rogers to Speakout as we speak.

Did Speakout lose any money? Probably not by the terms of their contract with Rogers.

By definition, no provider can lose money by transmitting X amount of data. It's the throughput that counts and no provider loses money when the throughput is congested. It's just congested, and lost packets don't cost anything except customer complaints, and we all know the big three don't care.

However they do care if SO charges $5/gb when other plans are offering $10/100mb. The oligarchy does not like that and the nail that sticks up will be hammered down.

They did it to Wind and Mobilicity. They didn't want competition, so instead of making an obscene amount of profit, they dialed their package prices down, and made the cost benefit of trying a new player in town lower.

Rogers has even more control over Speakout.

Again I don't think either company expected proxied data to be circumvented when they created the concept of UMB.

However, I'm going to laugh when people call up Speakout to complain "Hey with UMB I was using 5GB/month using all my apps for $10. I am extremely upset that for the same $10 you are only giving me 100mb." to which they'll politely say "I'm really sorry sir. UMB was a great plan for unlimited browsing but our customers demanded that ALL their apps work so we discontinued the UMB and are now pleased to provided all with a data plan at rates COMPETETIVE to other service providers."

People will call and complain, arguing that they don't understand the semantics between UMB and data, but the writing on the wall is clear. Just like the unproxied browsing data, UMB was a great idea that the big three did not like and had to hammer down.

SO will smile through their teeth, and you will complain to your hearts content, but there won't be a damn thing that they can do about it. And they're just fine with that too. The new service plan will probably be sculpted by a statistician. 70% will probably not notice an improvement in their phone function with no overage over 100mb/month, 10% will probably notice an improvement, 10% will bitterly complain but stick with SO and the last 10% will probably be like this guy:

http://forums.redflagdeals.com.....x-1267055/

Of which, they'll be happy to be rid of them.

Do you really think customer satisfaction really matters in the telcom world? If it did, there would be no oligarchy.

So when it does happen, please be nice to the Call Agents. It's really out of their control

fefrie said:

However they do care if SO charges $5/gb when other plans are offering $10/100mb. The oligarchy does not like that and the nail that sticks up will be hammered down.

Seems you don't follow what RoBelUs are up to. In particular, Rogers in FACT does sell wireless data at $6/GB to their "loyal customers", and have even offered unlimited Voice&SMS AND 2GB of data for around $45 recently!!! I'm not kidding you here. Can you see where any SO plan ( including my "blue sky" ones ) could compete with that last one???

Contrary to what we all may think, when you combine a Canadian public with their eyes and ears glued to their smart phones 24/7, with three major vendors who are simultaneously rolling out LTE, you do in fact have competition and you do get exactly whats going on in this country.

Now if people dropped the phones for a few hours ... so would prices...

And there is still all that 3G infrastructure, probably all paid up by now, to be used by MVNOs as very profitable wholesale market for RoBelUs. BTW, maybe SO goes to someone else for infrastructure other than Rogers? Possible???

I have an active SO sim, but primarily I use Koodo postpaid for my phone. I think they have the most interesting prepaid concept (perhaps others use it that I'm not aware of) and based on some of the feedback here it sound like it might be a good match for many SO users. They have a base plan of $15 for unlimited texting each month. From there a la carte you add voice minutes and data buckets that never expire as long as you continue paying for the base plan. So a 500MB data bucket for $25 could last a users for 1+ years.

The issue here of course if that is doesn't serve those who merely keep SO service for emergencies. But if they offered two styles of prepaid, something like the above and a simple 'Pay per [min/text/kb]' as an alternate then that could make everyone happy.

chimpanzee said:

15/month base price is too expensive.

I agree but for those who text a lot, they may already be paying $15/mth to SO for the unlimited texting option so this Koodo option is no different because it also includes unlimited texting.

The lowest common denominator is what keeps SMS viable. Even if you have data, not all your friends/family necessarily do, so you're forced to either text or make a call. More than that though, I think some people are just accustomed to SMS because it's universal and they've been using it for years. I know some phones help figure out how to locate your contacts across multiple services, but for some the concept of having to remember which app to use to contact which set of their friends/family is an inconvenience.

For me, I primarily contact my wife and she's an SMS gal even though she's primarily within wifi range. I don't mind because when my phone is running low on battery I can turn off cellular data and wifi to greatly extend my battery life and know that she can still get a hold of me.

There are other reasons why SMS is still the best choice for some people.

Stephanie said:

I've been using SpeakOut for about 10 months now on my iPhone 4, strictly for voice. For what I use it for, it's the best deal around. I have WiFi at home and at work, and honestly I don't need or care about browsing teh interwebz on my phone anyways.

I'm with Stephanie - In fact I think I might be SO's target market. The phone is my "I'm late/lost/looking for you" tool. Occasionally I look up something or check my email. That's a two or three times a week activity at most but I feel more comfortable having access so I pay the monthly internet fee Since I pay $10/month for a service I often don't use pay-per-use will likely be fine for me. (Unless their rates are crippling.)

I think people forget that SO wasn't really designed to support the day-long use of an smart phone. You guys are clever, you've made their system work for you. 99% of you don't even use SO phones...and they accomodate that! -You've been able to access some really cheap communication as a result.

IMO SO has always been a pretty fair provider. I have communication and internet and don't have to pay $50 a month for the rest of my life. I think you should put on your big boy pants. Don't trash-talk SO just because the gravy train has reached it's destination.

** Crickets chirping **

Starting to see some changes in plan structure as a result of the Wireless Code (Fido changed tab contracts and Koodo is leaked to be launching new tiered tab structure). It's possible that the delay in SO launching a new data service was because Rogers wanted a bit of time to see how things shook out from the CRTC ruling before allowing SO to gain some sort of competitive advantage using their own network.

Ok, I just got the Message about Violation of terms... ya ya.. Now they tell you they will remove the feature without refund...

dat OK, I left the phone on last night downloading stuff anyway.. non stop. me no kare. Also this was on PetroCanada..