PC Mobile selling SIMs now?

[ceredon]

Is your wife a heavy data user? If not, maybe Telus prepaid would also be a viable iPhone option with $20/month for 250 MB data and unlimited SMS, and voice is 20¢/min if you're on such a package. And it sounds like they are not huge sticklers about which APN you use, and extra data is not disproportionately punitive.

She's not a huge user of anything. She uses it just for emergencies and to call me when she is leaving work at night. She usually puts on $10 a month with Fido and usually has a balance at the end of each month, as she doesn't have data. She doesn't want to spend much more. But, I figure if were to switch he to PC Mobile, the for $15 minimum refill every month, she could talk for $0.20/minute and have unlimited data for $7/month, which she would only really use for email and facebook. She doesn't text at all. Paying anything more would be wasting money for her usage. My other option would be to unlock on old SE dumb phone I have and have her use that instead on PC mobile, that way no mystery texts, but then there wouldn't be a need for data either, so she might as well stay with Fido.

[cmstlist]

I've verified that my phone can receive calls directed to the assigned 604 number from my WIND phone (although I get "Unknown" caller ID), but it still can't send SMS to 72767. It also fails to receive SMS from WIND or from my Google Voice number. I've checked the settings and the SMSC is configured properly in the phone, but something just isn't happy at the moment.

[ceredon]

Did you insert the SIM and then change the APN or change the APN and then insert the SIM? I did the former first and data wouldn't work for me, even after a reboot. But when I pulled the SIM, installed the APN and the inserted the SIM, everything worked fine.

I just reread your previous post. Seems like you did what I did originally, by disabling data, inserting the SIM and then adding the APN. Try pulling your SIM, installing the APN and then inserting the SIM. Worked for me anyway.

[cmstlist]

My other option would be to unlock on old SE dumb phone I have and have her use that instead on PC mobile, that way no mystery texts, but then there wouldn't be a need for data either, so she might as well stay with Fido.

Remember it would have to be a 3G dumb phone to work on PC.

Did you insert the SIM and then change the APN or change the APN and then insert the SIM? I did the former first and data wouldn't work for me, even after a reboot. But when I pulled the SIM, installed the APN and the inserted the SIM, everything worked fine.

The APN shouldn't matter for SMS. I haven't tested data yet. Just now though I got the free welcome SMS from PC Mobile, and now 72767 works as expected. I guess it takes some time to update the system. Now it says I have a $9.75 balance (I asked them to add the mobile browsing upon signup).

[ceredon]

Regarding 49988:
http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Facetime


No idea about the other one.

Yeah, I saw that. That would be the Facetime registration. That could still be the issue, even though I disabled facetime. The good news would be that my old 3G that she uses doesn't support facetime, so I wouldn't expect it to be sending anything. I've also read on the Apple support boards that that number might be used by Youtube for something. That wouldn't be as good, as even the old 3G has youtube as a built in process.

[ceredon]

Remember it would have to be a 3G dumb phone to work on PC.

Doh! Forgot about that, and I had just mentioned that to a coworker wondering about bringing his Fido phone to PC Mobile.

The APN shouldn't matter for SMS. I haven't tested data yet. Just now though I got the free welcome SMS from PC Mobile, and now 72767 works as expected. I guess it takes some time to update the system. Now it says I have a $9.75 balance (I asked them to add the mobile browsing upon signup).

nice.

[ceredon]

Starting to see copies of these silent texts being sent in my GV mailbox. The message is "STATE", but unfortunately the SMS copy function doesn't tell me what the original destination number was.

[cmstlist]

Okay I added the APN with proxy. Still unable to browse the external Internet but I did notice that I can go to SIM Toolkit > Self Serve and it gives me a mobile web page with my PC balance. The URL is: http://mselfserve.ca/pc/index.htm

Since mikereidis upthread reported a delay before mobile browsing actually worked, I will take a break and come back to it.

At $10 for the chance to fiddle around with another network, I don't mind at all... it's fun!

I was thinking if I can get this to work, it might be an ideal data solution for the times that I travel outside of WIND zones but within Canada.

[ceredon]

^The $10 experiment was exactly what I was thinking. And your idea for Wind customers is awesome.

[cmstlist]

^The $10 experiment was exactly what I was thinking. And your idea for Wind customers is awesome.

=)

Not to mention that the 240-day (8 months) period for SIM expiry means this can be for very occasional usage. Let's say I go on three trips outside of WIND zones: February, May and December.

$10 to buy the SIM early February, 25¢/day every day, balance expires early March
Wait until May, top up $15, use for the month, balance expires in June
Wait until December, top up $15, etc.
Total data spend = $40 for 3 trips in a year

Or if you live close enough to a PC store, just buy a new $10 SIM each time :P

But who knows, within a year PC may have actually closed up this loophole.

[cmstlist]

I've noticed I can ping Google from the Android Testing screen, for the first few seconds after activating the APN. Then it fails. Strange.

Edit, curiosity got the better of me. I tried inet.bell.ca just long enough to run the ping test 3 times (successfully), and then back to proxy. Balance dropped from 9.75 to 8.35. Won't try that again

Still can't access anything other than the self serve page from the proxy APN, two hours after activation. Any ideas?

Sent via the HowardForums Android app

[ceredon]

Could try calling support

I can't think of anything beyond the regular: reboot, reset, retry.

[mikereidis]

No idea. Superstore only had the $15 and $25 amounts on their shelves.

I was back there today and saw $15, $25 and $100. I'm reasonably sure I've read someone say the original $10 credits and the $15 top-ups lasts 30 days (or a month?), and $100 lasts 1 year. But I'm not sure about $25, but I think it must be 1-2 months. $100 is supposed to be the best deal time per dollar wise.

I'm figuring $100 (plus tax) will allow about $8 of calls or whatever per year, with 12 months of UMB. Downside with $100 is the possibility of Bell/PC changes or config muck-ups to deplete it very quickly, with perhaps no recourse if you've already used up your one time charge reversal.

What's funny is I don't think the expiration times are written anywhere. Not on the cards I saw today, not on the pamphlets, nor the in store display nor anywhere on the PC website. They REALLY have a low budget operation, but I guess we customers benefit, from the low rates anyway. I just hope they're making enough money to stay in operation.


BTW, I'm realizing now that PC must be running the Bell software for doing provisioning and all the other stuff the CSRs do on the phone. So in Bell's accounting/billing system exists all the Bell/Telus/Solo/Virgin/PC etc customers and plans with fields to say which MVNO it is and different values for each of the plans each so called "carrier" supports.

So although Pres Choice does not offer data plans, their customer entries in Bell's system do allow for charging exorbitant rates for data. The default "per use" rates are likely the highest.

Have I heard that the CSRs are the same CSRs as for Bell etc ? They just answer for and "pretend" to be with a given company, perhaps changing on a per call basis ?

Given the likely age of their system, and all the MVNO current, special, corporate and grandfathered plans, I'd bet the software and configs are quite a confusing mess. But messes, at least, often have holes, and I'd like to think holes in the plans of a small, cheap, understaffed MVNO like PresChoice are much more likely to go un-noticed by the carrier.


Also, my impression is that the carriers figure that browsing on dumb-phones with tiny screens is painful enough that it serves as a natural form of bandwidth management.

[ceredon]

First time I called into activate the reps answered 'thanks for calling Bell'. Once u said I was calling to activate a PC mobile SIM he switched into PC Mobile mode.

[mikereidis]

I also note that the URLs on the SIM package are broken. "Visit pctelecom.ca/SIMterms for SIM Terms & Conditions" - that redirects me to a page with no SIM-aware information. And on the SIM holder itself, "pctelecom.ca/support" which takes me to a "not found" page. Clearly this is a "soft launch" :P

So far it sees three networks that it's calling "PC mobile", all of them, but it's failing to register. Presumably the SIM is just coded to use that name for all CDN networks regardless of compatibility. Aha, after a few more minutes it registered.

Yes. We are the guinea pigs/beta testers/hole finders, LOL.

I was reading last night about "Enhanced Operator Name String". This is a SIM feature that renames cell sites.

So for example, my local Rogers cellsites appear as "Wind Away" when I use the Wind SIM. And the same sites are Rogers, Fido etc with those respective SIMs. I think I recall Rogers is "Rogers" on a Bell SIM and that's OK since they don't inter-operate and most cell phone users will rarely do a network search and see the competition.

What's weird though is that the 4 local networks I can see here are all named "PC Mobile", even though the 2nd one is GSM which is Rogers. The first, third and fourth are all WCDMA but I can only connect to the first. Maybe PresChoice SIM labels everything PC Mobile, LOL. I'll have to try some SIM swaps again to verify what the sites are, of course setting APN to "Fake APN" and turning WiFi on and disabling cell data first to avoid any surprises.