[sc:mobile-category ]I’ve been with Bell for my mobile service since my first phone in the late 90’s. That’s a long time and if I had to sum it up in just one word it would be; overpriced.
Let’s face it, there’s no real competition in the mobile space in Canada, the big three don’t even try to compete on price as each time one raises theirs, the other follow suit.
All you have to do is look at the massive profits they make to understand how uncompetitive the space really is. Companies that have competition have lower profits as they must fight to keep customers happy. Companies that don’t have competition can reap larger profits as customers don’t really have anywhere to go.
Having said that, there is hope that things will change and there have been several times I’ve almost jumped ship to Wind. My biggest concern has always been the coverage. My home and work are covered by the Wind network but there are a few area’s I spend time at that are not.
The recent reduction in their roaming rates finally pushed me over the edge, kind of at least, and I decided to pick up a SIM to use in one of my older phones.
It turns out though that Wind uses such an uncommon frequency (1700) that virtually no phones support it. I had my SIM for two months before I found a phone to use with it (see my Blu Win HD post for details).
Setup was easy (I of course had to manually set the APN’s) and once up and running everything was good. I had reasonable signal strength everywhere I’ve been and overall the speed has been quite good as well.
I’m not going to switch from Bell quite yet, as much as the Blu Win HD is a fine phone, it doesn’t compare to my 925 and the 925 doesn’t support the 1700 spectrum.
To get me to switch one of two things will have to happen:
- The next flagship Nokia phone supports 1700 band.
- Wind upgrades their network with a more common band.
I expect Wind to be involved in the next spectrum auction so perhaps they will get the right spectrum to support future phones.
Overall I’d recommend Wind if you wanted one of the phones they support and lived inside their network.
