Also, alternatives have been starting to catch on, here. Such as pre-paid plans that offer significant discounts. Also FaceTime, Skype, and whatever else (although these eat into often stingy data quotas).
Many in the U.S. still have little or no clue. But I don't think it's quite as bad as before; also, someone "technically" "gaming" the system isn't as astonishing as it used to be.
Or so it seems, from my cave. Mostly, I'm just more familiar with reactions back at that time.
You can buy unlocked iPhones at apple stores in Canada. I get unlimited minutes and text with chatr. That comes with free long distance, call display, voicemail etc. everything except picture messaging or data.
Chatr doesn't sell microsims. So at the mall, there is a kiosk that will legally cut the chatr sim for $10. Chatr encourages this.
This plan works even if I travel to another city, as long as its a major center.
No contract. They're actually illegal in Quebec. Instead, companies offer the same agreements to consumers, and conscmersd just have to pay back part of the phone price if they leave early.
If you have a discounted agreement that doesnt include a subsidy, you can leave anytime you want.
FYI Chatr is a Rogers subsidiary. They created it specifically to compete[1] with the other cheap services like Wind and Mobilicity. This is why your iPhone works, because it's on the same Rogers network.
[1] Some argue that the only reason they created Chatr was to drive the smaller guys out of the market.
Yeah, I expect that's why they did it. Or at least to keep people in the Rogers ecosystem.
A lot of the smaller guys didn't work in my area, or on my iPhone.
I just wanted to highlight that a big company encourages you to unlock your phone and deface their sim cards. Chatr reps directed me to the sim cutter.
It's funny how different the implementations are, I could never understand on my trips to Canada how a mobile phone could have an area code.
Now, we have our own peccadilloes in the UK. "Free-phone" numbers are expensive from a mobile. Special cheap 'local rate' phone numbers for businesses cost a fortune.
