New Fido Voice+Text+Data Plans

**msavic6** · 08-01-2012, 06:43 PM

I just saw this in the Best Buy Mobile Magazine for August. They are supposedly releasing on August 8.
Thoughts?

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**WorldIRC** · 08-01-2012, 06:45 PM

Smartplans NOT available on a 3 year contract....and CD/VM still not included.

**z24gta** · 08-01-2012, 07:08 PM

$80 plan, unlimited Canada-wide plus 1GB but no caller id or vm. Someone needs to kick the dog.

**AM Radio** · 08-02-2012, 12:49 AM

"MAX PLANS"

whatever, dude.

**ceredon** · 08-02-2012, 07:34 AM

Often, when Fido comes out with new plans, I picture the marketing dept sitting around a table, high as a kite and developing the plans. I can't think of a better explanation for how they think them up.

**OCZ** · 08-02-2012, 07:42 PM

I swear guys Fido should just put down the dogs and call it quiet!!! I mean Fido is supposed to be competing with Koodo and Virgin yet it is coming out with crap/crappier plans !!!! WTF??!!

**rchl** · 08-02-2012, 10:38 PM

Forget about Koodo, they are not even competing with the premium parent Telus. Even Telus is now including VM and CD on all of their plans.
VM, CD, and Canada wide calling is now standard on both Koodo and Virgin. What has Fido done lately... eliminated per second billing.
I don't understand how they manage to sign up any new customers with these uncompetitive plans.

**ceredon** · 08-02-2012, 10:50 PM

Originally Posted by rchl

Forget about Koodo, they are not even competing with the premium parent Telus. Even Telus is now including VM and CD on all of their plans.
VM, CD, and Canada wide calling is now standard on both Koodo and Virgin. What has Fido done lately... eliminated per second billing.
I don't understand how they manage to sign up any new customers with these uncompetitive plans.

Looking at the Rogers numbers overall, they are signing up fewer and fewer.

I think they've been laying off the wrong people. They need to chop their entire marketing dept. They should be trying tto poach from another carrier. Any other carrier.

**GrenaDeD** · 08-03-2012, 12:55 AM

The new Fido plans are a joke. Its more expensive than before.

**facehugger** · 08-03-2012, 01:28 AM

Full disclosure: I work for Fido, I am not a spokesperson for Fido and any comment I make here is my own personal opinion and does not represent the opinion of Fido.

Overall, the new plans are worse in every way compared to Fido's current plans. The new $50 plan is the only exception. If you currently pay $35 for city fido and $25 for 500 MB data, you could potentially lower your monthly bill by $10 per month by switching. In all honesty this is nothing to write home about though: the $30 retention data value package is auto discounted to $25 when combined with a basic plan and it includes free call display and voicemail so assuming the customer needs call display and voicemail we could offer this exact same $60 bundle before too. In many ways seeing plans like this just makes me want to bang my head against a wall because I know for our retention agents, it makes their jobs way harder. They are being asked to save more customers despite having worse plans to offer. Bottom line here is that if you want to negotiate a halfway decent plan, you should do so on or before August 7th before the new plans take effect.

If you for some reason are crazy enough to actually want to switch to one of the new plans, but are worried you won't be able to because there isn't a 3 year version of that plan available, don't worry, Fido will gladly take your money nickel and diming you yet again by allowing you to downgrade your 3 year term to a 2 year term if you agree to pay the downgrade fee, which is determined by what 1 years worth of cancellation fees would be for you. You heard right - Fido wants to charge its customers a cancellation fee for moving from a 3 year plan to a 2 year plan, even if those customers have already completed 1 of their 3 years that they agreed to stay with Fido...

As others have pointed out, this leaves Fido neutered with plans much worse than the in-market plans of Telus, Rogers, Koodoo, etc. I am honestly at a loss to determine what Fido's niche in the mobile marketplace is supposed to be. Fido used to call itself the low cost provider, but clearly wind/mobilicity/public mobile have that niche more with their $25 unlimited data/talk/text plans. (back to school specials are on now). Confirming this direction, Rogers would rather launch Chatr rather than give Rogers/Fido any plans or discounts to even remotely come close to price and feature matching these new entrants. The new entrants are doing exactly what Fido did years ago - undercutting the competition hard with unlimited plans. Fido/Rogers are getting squeezed - and rather than become leaner and offer better plans they set up Chatr as a trough to try to catch some of the sweet customer juice being squeezed out... hopefully without waiving Fido/Rogers cancellation fees in the process.

I should also mention that this brochure only shows two types of plans, SMART and MAX. But on August 8th Fido will also have a THIRD category of plans. Don't get too excited, the biggest/best plans are still "Max" plans. The category I am talking about is... I forget what their official name will be? Maybe "basic" or "simple" plans... but they are cheap basic plans ranging from $15-$25 per month, and I would not expect them to be different feature wise from Fido's current offering of $15-$25 plans. Which means there is a very real possibility that the City Fido $35 plan will no longer be offered as of August 8th and will be grandfathered!

On the opposite side of the spectrum are customers looking for the latest, hottest phones and the streaming live sports content that only a big media company can provide. That niche is for Rogers / Bell / Telus to fight over. I don't see Fido encroaching on Rogers niche, so that leaves Fido somewhere in the middle I guess? Fido had iPhone but that's not really a choice; if we didn't carry the iPhone we would lose a third or more of our customers, easily. If iPhone was available on Wind/Public/Mobilicity we would have lost way more over the past 1 year.

I know Fido also tries to market itself as offering simple easy to understand plans that even appeals to your Grandmas and elderly people as well as first time cell buyers. This strategy was - and still is - sound, but the market is not what it once was. Fido $40 unlimited seemed like a steal at the time it launched back in 2004 compared with a $80 Rogers bill. There are no easy pickings anymore, Fido can only beg for scraps. Don't get me wrong, Fido definitely has feelings for our longtime loyal customers, some of which who have been with us for 10+ years... and any business professional will tell you to take care of those type of customers... which is why we often placate these customers with special retention offers and discounts. But the money to continue doing that has to come from somewhere, and so we have chosen to make new customers get a worse deal (per second billing, higher overusage rates for minutes, higher PPU rate for long distance, paper invoice fees, I could write much more but I think that is enough to make my point).

Surely Fido can't rest on its heels?... Or can it? That seems to be the strategy Fido is going for, to reap as much money as possible. Did you notice when every other provider advertised a 6GB super plan of some sort, Fido was silent? Fido would rather appease customers purely on a reactionary basis and leave things like "innovation" to the other guys.

I have gone to school for marketing so this isn't a healthy place for Fido to remain in for too long, or else Rogers may opt to do what Telus did to its Solo brand, which stopped taking on new activations. I would like to think Fido is nowhere near that point yet, it is a very bright future but Rogers needs to stop thinking of the Fido brand as a cash cow and start allowing it to as a business be more lean and nimble.

**icemasta** · 08-03-2012, 01:42 AM

Great post by facehugger.

Anyone think Rogers will closely kill off the Fido brand and let the other carriers deal with the low to mid level plans? It does look that way since Fido is becoming much less competitive and appealing compared to other carriers.

I have a strong feeling Chatr will be discontinued in the near future as Rogers focuses completely on the premium image of Rogers.

**ToastyinCAD** · 08-03-2012, 02:44 AM

I echo - great post. I find it unbelievable that as others get cheaper Fido gets more expensive. It's totally bizarre. As I have said numerous times - my family has had nothing but good service and plans from fido but seeing things go down like this makes me want to look elsewhere- esp as companies like Wind expand their zones or like Koodo/bell that at least see the value in offering - at the very least - packaged deals. I used to tell people that it was worth sticking with Fido purely due to good service and decent plans but sadly I think good service is all that will remain in a short while...

**ChappyHappy** · 08-03-2012, 08:42 PM

The dog's look in the picture: *Really?*

**alexforget82** · 08-11-2012, 11:33 AM

About the new plan, i try by Facebook to add the 50$ plan to the iPhone of my wife...the guy said yes and calling me 5min after to told me this plan is not available to a 3 years contract...but it's not write on the web site of Fido in the "terms and conditions" of this plan.

I make a complaint to the CCST...they transfer it to Fido...so well see...

**WorldIRC** · 08-11-2012, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by alexforget82

About the new plan, i try by Facebook to add the 50$ plan to the iPhone of my wife...the guy said yes and calling me 5min after to told me this plan is not available to a 3 years contract...but it's not write on the web site of Fido in the "terms and conditions" of this plan.

I make a complaint to the CCST...they transfer it to Fido...so well see...

If the plan doesn't exist, then it doesn't exist. Fido's terms ALSO state they are not responsible for "typographical errors". Considering no damage has been done to you as a result, you likely won't get that plan.