$2 a month Canadian (Rogers) cell phone plan... am I missing something?

[Gerard]

Rogers seems to have a very very cheap pay-as-you-go plan: 75 cents a month service fee plus one cent a minute calling evenings and weekends. They hammer you for 39 cents a minute the rest of the time and 25 cents a text, but for people like me who mostly skype and thus need a phone only for emergencies and occasional casual calls, this seems like a great deal -- I would get about 2 hours a month of calling for about two bucks.

The link is hard to find on the Rogers home page, but if you go to http://www.rogers.com/web/content/wireless-products/plans and click on "pay by the minute -- talk plans" the "talk evenings and weekends" plan is the one that I'm talking about.

My question to the Mustachians is... am I missing something? I'm technologically clueless. Are there extra fees? Would I need a $400 phone? Or is this just a plan that lets Rogers look good, but that they expect nobody to want?

[Norman Johnson]

The only thing I would be wondering about (that I can't seem to find anything on their site about) is if you lose your minutes if you don't use them after a set time, such as a month or 90 days or something. I read it as: you put a $10 credit on your phone, $0.75 of that is used for a fee that month, leaving you $9.75 credit to do with as you wish until it runs out or possibly expires and or you pay another $0.75 the next month.

I also read you are charged for the voicemail you recieve (so say that's a minute) and then if you listen to it, you get charged another minute to hear it. That can add up too.

It looks like you can buy one of their phones, or bring your own unlocked phone and then get a sim card and go to town!

[Daley]

If you look at the fine print and details of these plans, you'll actually notice that it's a minimum $10 a month cell phone plan (technically as low as $8.33 a month if you buy the $100 year credit) as it's Pay As You Go (minimum top-up amount is $10 which lasts for 30 days of airtime, and unused balance will roll over). That price also doesn't include the 75¢ a month 911 tax on top of the 75¢ a month account charge, GST/PST or any regulatory tax fees charged monthly to the account, and they charge for everything, including left voicemail messages and spam text messages. You can use any carrier unlocked GSM phone with the service, however. As for the "deal" on the minutes, it depends on your calling habits and when you're home. Would you get this as a cheap emergency communications device while out of the house, or as a way to potentially make cheap night and weekend minute calls without using Skype to direct dial phone numbers?

If it's the former reason, none of the Rogers plans would make much financial sense in comparison to another provider like 7-11's Speakout Wireless. If it's for the latter reason, especially if you're planning to call from home, you'll get far better rates and a better overall deal just paying for SkypeOut minutes or investing in a cheap Grandstream HT486 (or similarly priced ATA right off the VOIP.ms configuration page) and proper home VoIP service like VOIP.ms.

[Gerard]

Thanks, folks. I guess the fast expiration of the minimum top-up might be a deal-breaker. I currently have the 7-11 phone in my sabbatical location, but it's not available when I move back home.
Back to the drawing board, I think...

[Daley]

Fran, it's been a few months, but do you or anyone else know if those are new plans there with Wind? I don't remember them having a 20¢/minute pay as you go option last October. They've got the same sort of minimum $10/month airtime going in cost restriction like Rogers, I noticed, but the overall rates are a smidge bit more reasonable. Still not as potentially cheap as 7-11's Speakout Wireless for rarely-used phone service, but a better deal for folks who'd mostly have incoming and are targeting around 50 minutes outbound or less a month.

When you do go and get a phone for "emergencies" only, you should define what constitutes an emergency and who you'll be contacting. If we're talking a true, hardcore emergency only phone that's going to dial 911 only, the CRTC (just like the FCC) has a mandate requiring all cell phones, active or inactive or even without a SIM card to be able to dial and connect to any cell tower in range when 911 (or 112) is dialed on the phone. No sense paying for phone service if you don't actually need it.

[Gerard]

Oo, just had another look at the 7-11 map, which seems to have been updated since I got my current phone, and they now have coverage back home! So I'll be covered (I guess I'll have to get a new phone number and/or sim card). Thanks, IP, for implicitly lighting a fire under my ass.