Dealing with Rogers in the face of the incoming WIND
Being that WIND is still about 4-6 months away from reaching here in Vancouver, my options for my choice of mobile phone carrier are still limited to Rogers, TELUS, and Bell. Fortunately, all three carriers are running UMTS networks in the city, but being that they have a triopoly, my ability to get a better deal is still quite limited.
However, it seems that Rogers will bend to keep me even though I am within contract.
It works like this: my plan compared to WIND's offerings is $20 more than it really should be. With the time remaining left in my contract, it would be only a few months to recoup the losses incurred by the early-exit. By explaining this to the the rep, she worked out the following for $10-less than what I am currently paying:
- 200 daytime minutes
- 1,000 evenings/weekends (starting at 7 PM)
- Rogers-to-Rogers calling
- Voicemail
- Caller ID
- 1 GB traffic (2x what I have now)
It works out to be slightly better than what I have now and is $10 cheaper. I also get twice the data that I had before.
How does this stack up to WIND? Well, what it means here is that while I will not necessarily get WIND features (such as 5 GB traffic limits and no overages charges, just traffic shaping), I won't have to spend as much staying with my current carrier. On top of that, Rogers is requesting that I extend my subscription by a year to get this sort of pricing.
The last part is making it a bit harder to jump. Do I stay with Rogers for a few more months until WIND makes it way here and then try again, or do I take a gamble and just stay put?
I believe that I will check out TELUS and see what they have to say also.