Archived from groups: alt.cellular.fido (More info?)
A a suggestion for the many of you who are pissed off at what Rogers is
doing to you:
-Switch to prepaid and forward your calls. At ten bucks a month,
consider it semi-expensive voicemail until everyone knows that you've
changed number or no longer use your cell. Just leave a voice message
with your new number or use call forwarding to your regular/new number.
Keep this up for a month or two until everyone you know or everyone
that you'd given the old number too has figured it out, then cancel. If
they hassle you for $25 to switch from a regular plan to prepaid, tell
them that you'll cancel on the spot. It might not get them to waive the
fee, but they'll give you the $25 in airtime credit so that you don't
cancel. And remember to ask for any remaining balance you have to be
transferred to your prepaid service (remember - even on a regular plan,
you're paying one month's service up front).
If you don't want to do this, another means of protest is to call and
cancel a service whenever they jack up the rate for it? 'New' long
distance rate? Call and ask to have long distance disabled on your
phone. Jacking up voicemail and call-id? If you're a student, you
should know that if you sign up your account (don't worry, you don't
have to switch anything) on the studentphonestore.com site, you get
call-id vmail for free. If not a student, call and cancel one or both
services and make a point of noting your account to indicate why you are
cancelling the service. I myself couldn't have been bothered to do this
and cancelled my account outright.
I'm still waiting for Virgin Mobile to accept activations of old BM
phones, but it looks like a pipe dream at this point. I'm not paying a
hundred bucks for yet another cheapass plastic phone. I've got quite
the collection as it is, including a few BM phones.
At this point I'm just using calling cards and pay phones whenever I'm
outside to make calls. I give people my home number and check my
messages from a payphone or work phone during the day. Those new flat
late l-distance cards charge about 5 cents a min when calling from a
payphone, so I no longer even buy those Bell prepaid payphone cards (25
cents a call translates to 5 mins at that rate. I rarely have to talk
for more than 5 mins while I'm on the go).
So, ya... there are cheaper alternatives as we wait for number
portability. I really don't think portability will solve anything
personally, since there are only three players left and none of them
will want to compete to lower their margins. We'll effectively go from
landline monopoly to wireless oligopoly... but that's a rant for another
day.
A a suggestion for the many of you who are pissed off at what Rogers is
doing to you:
-Switch to prepaid and forward your calls. At ten bucks a month,
consider it semi-expensive voicemail until everyone knows that you've
changed number or no longer use your cell. Just leave a voice message
with your new number or use call forwarding to your regular/new number.
Keep this up for a month or two until everyone you know or everyone
that you'd given the old number too has figured it out, then cancel. If
they hassle you for $25 to switch from a regular plan to prepaid, tell
them that you'll cancel on the spot. It might not get them to waive the
fee, but they'll give you the $25 in airtime credit so that you don't
cancel. And remember to ask for any remaining balance you have to be
transferred to your prepaid service (remember - even on a regular plan,
you're paying one month's service up front).
If you don't want to do this, another means of protest is to call and
cancel a service whenever they jack up the rate for it? 'New' long
distance rate? Call and ask to have long distance disabled on your
phone. Jacking up voicemail and call-id? If you're a student, you
should know that if you sign up your account (don't worry, you don't
have to switch anything) on the studentphonestore.com site, you get
call-id vmail for free. If not a student, call and cancel one or both
services and make a point of noting your account to indicate why you are
cancelling the service. I myself couldn't have been bothered to do this
and cancelled my account outright.
I'm still waiting for Virgin Mobile to accept activations of old BM
phones, but it looks like a pipe dream at this point. I'm not paying a
hundred bucks for yet another cheapass plastic phone. I've got quite
the collection as it is, including a few BM phones.
At this point I'm just using calling cards and pay phones whenever I'm
outside to make calls. I give people my home number and check my
messages from a payphone or work phone during the day. Those new flat
late l-distance cards charge about 5 cents a min when calling from a
payphone, so I no longer even buy those Bell prepaid payphone cards (25
cents a call translates to 5 mins at that rate. I rarely have to talk
for more than 5 mins while I'm on the go).
So, ya... there are cheaper alternatives as we wait for number
portability. I really don't think portability will solve anything
personally, since there are only three players left and none of them
will want to compete to lower their margins. We'll effectively go from
landline monopoly to wireless oligopoly... but that's a rant for another
day.
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