Review: Mobilicity

By A Dawn

Mobilicity’s New Unlimited Plans: More Bad News For The Big Three As They Are Losing Their Already Fragile Grip

After manipulating Canadian cell phone consumers with their overpriced plans and inhumane 3 year contracts for a long time, it looks like the big three phone companies are finally losing their tight-grip on the Canadian mobile market. With the arrival of a third new Phone Company, the big three have more than enough to worry about while trying to hold onto existing clients. Signing up new customers onto 3 year contracts will be much tougher to do now.

Mobilicity Offers Simple, Unlimited Plans

All Mobilicity plans are contract free, unlimited, include caller ID, and offer Mobilicity to Mobilicity calling. There are six simple plans:

 Text only North America – Unlimited for $15 per month

 Local call – Unlimited for $25 per month

 Local call and text – Unlimited for $35 per month

 Local call, Canadian long distance, text, voicemail – Unlimited for $45 per month

 Local call, North American long distance, global text, voicemail, call waiting, forwarding, 3 way calling – Unlimited for $55 per month

 All of the above $55 plan + Data – Unlimited for $65 per month

Also, Mobilicity offers Unlimited Internet access and add-on bundles. Let’s go over these as well:

Unlimited Internet Data Stick Plan

 Plan costs $40 per month (Wind Mobile costs $55 per month)

 Data Stick costs $100 (Wind Mobile Data Stick costs $150)

 Internet speed up to 3.6 Mbps. Mobilicity does not mention speed anywhere on their site, so I had to call them to get this. (Wind Mobile speed is up to 7.2 Mbps)

Mobilicity Ad-Ons

To capture Canada’s multi-ethnic communities, Mobilicity has launched two wireless long-distance add-on bundles offering unlimited calling to some Asian countries. This is the first time I’ve seen this type of bundle in Canada. Let’s have a quick look:

 East Asia Long Distance Add-On – Unlimited for $20 per month. Eligible countries: China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Japan and Vietnam.

 South Asia Long Distance Add-On – Unlimited for $20 per month. Eligible countries: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Mobilicity – Need to Know

Before I go into my take on Mobilicity, let’s look at what you need to know:

 No contracts, system access fees, 911 fees, or any other fees just like Wind Mobile. Handsets are not subsidized either (just like Wind Mobile).

 Just like Wind Mobile (which recently claimed to have 100,000 subscribers-ED), Mobilicity allows you to buy just a SIM card (without a phone) and use it with your current (unlocked) handset.  Mobilicity operates on the AWS band (1700 Mhz/BandIV), and a majority of phones available in North America (like the iPhone) are not compatible with this band. However, a lot of new phones (including Google’s Nexus One) do support this band.  Mobilicity will verify if your current handset is compatible with their service.

 Roaming costs 20 cents a minute in Canada and 50 cents a minute in the US. However, Mobilicity doesn’t offer US roaming (yet).

My Take

All Mobilicity plans look pretty good. Their $65 plan offering unlimited Data, unlimited Canada/US calling, and global text seems too good to be true; especially for those of us who have been subjected to overpaying for big 3 plans that give us almost nothing. Mobilicity’s Unlimited Internet Data Stick Plan is also a huge blow to the big 3. Furthermore, it’s $15 a month cheaper than Wind Mobile. Currently, I subscribe to Wind Mobile’s Unlimited Data Plan for $55 a month and I am considering switching to Mobilicity’s $40 a month plan (I will be losing $150 which I paid to buy the Wind Data stick and it will cost me another $100 to buy the Mobilicity Data Stick).

Some Mobilicity Facts

 The word “Mobilicity” is a crossbreed of words ‘mobile’ and ’simplicity’.

 Mobilicity’s 3.5G AWS network built and managed by Ericsson, the Swedish network company that took over Nortel’s wireless business last year.

 Billing, ordering, customer care and operational support systems provided by international telecom support company Amdocs.

 Mobilicity used to be called Dave Wireless (Data & Audio Visual Enterprises Wireless Inc.) Mobilicity is backed by Canadian private investment firm Obelysk and globalprivate investment firm Quadrangle Capital Partners

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About the author:

Award-winning author A Dawn is a City University of New York Economics graduate. The former Financial Advisor now works as a Data Integrity Analyst for a major Canadian wealth management corporation. He created Canada’s Personal Finance Website to make the world of personal finance easy and accessible for everyone. "
Invest Now" is author’s first book. He makes his home in the world class city of Toronto. You can read more posts at A Dawn Journal.

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