Price changes to CityFido

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.fido (More info?)

> Another tidbit: the per-second billing to fido customers is supposedly
> written into the contract between rogers and fido and will last an
> undisclosed number of years, they was negotiated by microcell to protect
> their customers. In other words, once that contract runs out, expect
> per-second billing to be phased out as well. My guess is 2 years.

And you were sitting at what seat at that table...?

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.fido (More info?)

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 16:52:55 -0500, JF Mezei
<jfmezei.spamnot@teksavvy.com> wrote:

>Note that "CityFido" style packages are now appearing in the USA. Can't
>remember the company, but one offers a CityFido clone for USD $40 per
>month. If/when this picks up momentum, Rogers may have to rethink its
>dislike of the concept of cityfido.

Well, I'm paying $45/month for CF - I was paying $30 before for one of
the regular minute packages (and I very rarely went over).

So they're getting a $15/month increase from me and I'm probably using
even less than I did on my $30 package (I just don't like being timed
when making a call)...

But for the conveniance of not having to watch my airtime should I
need a lot of it at some point, I'm willing to pay the extra.

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.fido (More info?)

Someone wrote:
> Well, I'm paying $45/month for CF - I was paying $30 before for one of
> the regular minute packages (and I very rarely went over).
>
> So they're getting a $15/month increase from me


It is interesting how Rogers seems to really dislike CityFido. It was
normal when Fido was a competitor, but rather strange now that it is a
rogers product. The plan was designed to raise the ARPU for Fido. And
supposedly, the ARPU for cityfido customers is over $60, and Ted Rogers
is quoted as wondering why that is and this can't be right. He probably
didn't factor in the fact that if you drop your landline, your long
distance calls will go through Fido, and whenever you get out of the
city, you pay roaming charges, pay SMS etc etc.

On the surface, CityFido looks great with "unlimited minutes". And it
looks very threathening to competitors. But when it comes down to it, it
might just be quite profitable for Fido, especially if you don't have
that many teenage girls on it :-)

But Rogers seems out to kill it.

*IF* this increase will allow CityFido to roam on Rogers once outside
their home city (where all minutes are billed), perhaps this might be
good. (This assumes that they would have fixed the software to block
roaming in the base city and enable it oustide the covreage area so that
Rogers doesn't have to handle any "unlimited" coverage.

Does anyone know how much Rogers charges for minutes that exceed one's
plan minutes ? Fido once said that the per-second billing was 40%
cheaper. So Rogers would Fido to collect the same amount that Rogers
would charge for the equivalen with a 40% premium becayuse Fido bills by
the second.

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.fido (More info?)

> But Rogers seems out to kill it.

Foreshadowing are we? Give it another day..

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.fido (More info?)

JF Mezei wrote:
> In case you haven't seen this:
>
> Effective January 12th 2005, Fido started to charge $0.30 per minute for
> cityfido customer roaming outside their base city, up from $0.20.
>
> They also raised the 911 fee from .25 up to 0.50
>
> Note that "CityFido" style packages are now appearing in the USA. Can't
> remember the company, but one offers a CityFido clone for USD $40 per
> month. If/when this picks up momentum, Rogers may have to rethink its
> dislike of the concept of cityfido.

Yes, as a matter of fact, there are many companies that offer unlimited
calling in the US:
Cricket (https://www.mycricket.com/)
Unicel (www.unicel.com)
TRIANGLE TELEPHONE COOPERATIVE (http://www.mtintouch.com/pcs.html)
SUREWEST WIRELESS (http://www.surewestwireless.com)
SAGEBRUSH CELLULAR (http://www.sagebrushcell.com/Index.php)
METRO PCS (http://www.metropcs.com/)

These are just to name a few. I think that unlimited minutes
local-based calling plans are wonderful, and I too hope that Rogers will
keep them around.


> Another tidbit: the per-second billing to fido customers is supposedly
> written into the contract between rogers and fido and will last an
> undisclosed number of years, they was negotiated by microcell to protect
> their customers. In other words, once that contract runs out, expect
> per-second billing to be phased out as well. My guess is 2 years.