Re: OT: Cellular telephone service

Having used both Rogers and Sasktel within the past two years - I
guess I can comment on both. As a Sasktel employee though, I'm a
little biased.

Admittedly the pricing on certain plans (very casual / low use is a
prime) with Rogers, can end up being a bit (say $10-15 a month minimum
for very low use, compared to Sasktel's bare minimum at $25ish). In
other cases for certain high-use plans may swing in Sasktel's favor
(large amounts of long-distance canada wide, etc). Get as much detail
on the plans you're comparing as you can get - look at plan cost,
administartion fees, 911 fees, minutes, time-of-day impact, inclusive
features - even factor in taxes.

Hardware offerings is uncontested Rogers. GSM just develops and
populates quicker due to higher overall world-wide market and use.
CDMA's historically always been a bit laggardly on new hardware as
well. This looks like it'll get a bit better (in much
quicker-than-normal periods of time for new hardware in market) over
the following year or so. You want gadgets - look at Rogers hardware.

That being said, my one big suggestion is to pick your dealer
carefully. They're the ones you'll be dealing with for any and all
hardware related questions or issues, so the long-term relationship is
important (I think). Avoid mall kiosks, flightly sounding employees,
and whatnot. They're the ones who don't really care to be doing what
they are doing, and don't pay attention when they're at it. They're
the ones most likely to screw something up that has you calling
customer services or the technical support queues, sounding like you
missed your meds

If buying Sasktel hardware - you get what you pay for. Avoid the $0
or $0-30 priced phones, most are a cycle or two outdated, and
feature-lacking.

Oh - and remember that you can always change your rateplan with
Sasktel. My specific deal with Rogers had so many strings attached to
plan changes that I never did, so it was a suprise when I went to work
for Sasktel and discovered with them you can change your plan as often
as you need. Be it 10 days while you're on vacation, or every two
months. No charge, no limit. It can really be used to keep your
bills as low as they can possibly be.

Dave - you might want to re-check the US/North American roaming
comparison again. Depending on how far back you were last looking, it
may have changed very drastically in Sasktels favor. Then again, I
may be the one out of date.

Number portability is still looking like it's on track - as far as I'm aware.

On 9/1/06, Dave Hall <dave-slg@dnh.sk.ca> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 01, 2006 at 03:31:10PM -0600, Reid Towsley wrote:
> > In the next month or so I would like to buy a cell phone, and while I am
> > sure I can figure out which phone is the right one for me, what I would
> > like to ask is what company should I get my phone service through? I
> > haven't been keeping up to date at all with the cellular services around
> > town since I haven't needed (read: couldn't afford) a phone until now.
> > Has anyone here dealt with a few different companies and would like to
> > share their experiences?
>
> I'm happy with Rogers service and coverage (I don't travel much off the
> major highways in Sask.) I just do TDMA because U.S. roaming is cheaper
> than GSM and used to be a bit better/cheaper than SaskTel. I also like my
> trusty old Nokia phone which just works (tm) and works well.
>
> My main complaint is their rates have been slowly creeping upward.
>
> Once number portability comes in next year as scheduled (hopefully), I'll
> probably look at switching.
>
> --
>
> Dave
>
>
> --
> "Well, there's SPAM, egg, sausage, and SPAM. That's not got MUCH SPAM in it."
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message with the word "unsubscribe" (without the
> quotes) in the body to linux-request@slg.org
> Archives are at http://list.slg.org/
>
Received on Fri Sep 1 17:39:21 2006