All of this has been discussed a few times, but the questions keep coming up, and I think I'd like to point people to a cleaner thread to answer the questions.
So, here's some info, hopefully laid out clearly and simply. Public Mobile is NOT PERFECT FOR EVERYONE. There are some drawbacks.
- Public Mobile is a sub-brand of Telus. Owned by Telus, uses Telus network, exact same reception as Telus. If your phone works on Telus or Koodo, it works on Public.
- They ONLY have prepaid BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Device) plans. You CANNOT buy a phone through them. This means no contract, no "tab" or anything like that.
- Because it's a prepaid plan, you also CANNOT have any kind of overage charges of any kind. For example, if you run out of data, your phone stops using data. You need to buy more in the form of a top-up or a large plan if you want to use more, or wait for the next month to start. It's important that you purchase the plan that has the features you need.
- Public plans are pretty cheap, but not always cheapest. Some of the retention plans from other carriers are better. You'll never get any kind of retention plan from Public, and you can't negotiate with them on the plan costs. They do change plans from time to time, but the posted plan price on the day you sign up is the price you'll pay, minus the few incentives.
- You get incentives for referring people, having auto-pay set up, and for posting in the support forums. I get $4/mo off and my wife is getting $7/mo off right now. These are a good deal. Sometimes there are bonus incentives for referrals.
- Most of the plans are "3G speed", which means that the data speed is throttled down. The network is still 4G or whatever Telus currently runs, but this could be a problem for some people. It's not a problem for me.
- There are no "family share" type plans. All plans for for a single user.
- There's virtually zero customer service. No phone line to call, no email address, no stores you can walk into. If you can't solve your problem on the self-serve site, you need to post in the support forum and hope someone answers. There are a few employees in the forum, who act as moderators, but most of the answers come from regular users. Making a request through the forums is also how you get your invoice if you need it for business expense tracking purposes. That's a hassle, but it hasn't been problematic for me. I can see some people would hate it.
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Current plans are posted at : https://www.publicmobile.ca/en/ab/plans
You get $2/mo off for having autopay set up, which everyone should do.
I think the $40/mo (really $38) is probably good for most people: