Re: OT: Cellular telephone service

Keith Snape wrote:

> Long story short - don't let someone rabid distaste for Sasktel as a
> Telco discourage you from investigate Sasktel as a wireless provider.

I have a rabid distaste for Sasktel as well. They have been phoning me
lately to try to get me to renew my plan. (I have a sasktel phone on
the lowest plan plus a Rogers phone that I actually use.)

As far as I know, though, OpenOffice.org Calc does not share my rabid
distaste for Sasktel. I believe it is impartial when it tells me that
in the past 7 months, Rogers has been slightly cheaper than Sasktel
would be for me. (Rogers: $641.78 Jan-July, Sasktel's best fit plan
with 20/20 hindsight: $676.49) My airtime in the months in question has
ranged from 450 to 1400 minutes. The Roger's plan seems to have a
better cushion for my varying usage. My monthly bills ranged from $85
to $108, whereas the best-fit Sasktel plan ranged from $80 to $135. The
next plan up at Sasktel doesn't help. Then my 7 month total would be
$788 and the monthly bills would range from $102 to $135. In addition,
I can't get a knowlegable answer from the people phoning me regarding a
low-usage data plan addon. Currently with Rogers, I pay an additional
$5/month to get 2MB of data. As near as I can tell, Sasktel doesn't
have a comparable option. I would need to sign up for the $25/month 4MB
data plan in addition to a voice plan. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

> or Telus. Ultimately for casual city-only use, Rogers is likely going
> to be the better bet - but still be aware of the other options.

And, ultimately, for moderate to heavy city and hwy 11 use with
occasional data, Rogers is still the better bet.

My summary: Sasktel => coverage, Rogers => pretty much everything else.

BTW, my first cell phone (Nokia P30) cost me $800 (clearance price. was
$3000 when it was released) and my plan on Cantel was $15/month with 30
minutes included with 50c minutes after that. (No contract required.)
My battery provided about 45 minutes of talk time or about 8 hours of
standby. At the time, Cantel's coverage in the city was noticably
better than Sasktel's, but, of course, Sasktel had a few highways as well.

ttyl
srw
Received on Sat Sep 2 09:28:37 2006