Looks like the Canadian carriers are taking another page from the U.S. carriers and doing their best to get rid of the older, grandfathered plans that offered up some excellent value. Before the Wireless Code was adopted and did away with three-year contracts, the carriers would often offer great deals to entice you to sign up for three years. You could get a popular 6GBs of data for only $30 a month and whenever you upgrade you could grandfather that plan on your new deal – those days are, for the most part, gone.
Both Rogers and Bell are forcing – let’s say making it more difficult – for customers to keep their legacy plans and pricing and not having to “upgrade” to one of their Share Plans, a valid Smart Picks or Voice & Data Lite Plan. Our source confirmed this from company representatives of the two networks. The ‘transitioning’ period is coming to an end so when you go to perform a hardware upgrade you will have some new choices to make. TELUS confirmed that if you are in a $70 or more monthly plan, they will allow you to carry over your legacy plan.
Rogers said that since the Wireless Code came into effect, the new plans are a prerequisite when you get a hardware upgrade, although in the past the store manager could override the requirement – but they no longer have that authority. That option was taken away from Bell employees quite sometime ago.
It seems as long as you pay full-price for your device, from either the carrier or somebody else, and activate it on their network, you will be allowed to stay on your old plan indefinitely. It’s all about the bottom-line and if the carriers do not have to subsidize the new, more expensive smartphones, they will allow you some lee-way.
Some of these changes may have come about with the announcement of the new iPhone 6, as carriers never received as good a deal from Apple and had to pay a higher subsidy than other devices. If you are on one of the grandfathered or legacy-type plans, it may be to your benefit to purchase your new iPhone 6 outright to keep your existing plan in place – it could end up costing you less in the long run.
Please hook up with us on our Google+ Page and let us know if you will start buying your devices outright to keep your existing plan in place, or will you go the usual upgrade path and switch plans…as always, we would love to hear from you.