Good Job Telus

In the past year and a half Canada has seen more drastic changes in the mobile industry than its had in a long time. On December 16, 2009, A fourth mobile carrier, Wind Mobile, launched and differentiated itself from the"big 3" by providing consumers with no-contract plans and unlimited minutes. This was a first for Canadian customers, as they now were able to switch to a carrier that had no cancellation fees. 



For the first part of the year, the 3 major carriers made no significant changes to their strategies. Rogers was the first company to show their game-plan against Wind Mobile. They launched Chatr Wireless, essentially a carbon copy of Wind Mobile. Chatr offered the exact same plans, exact same coverage, but provides no data. 


Bell was the second company to launch an attack against Wind. Instead of launching a new brand, Bell relaunched Solo Mobile into two parts. Solo has plans that use the HSPA network (sim card) and plans that run on the CDMA network (no sim card). The CDMA plans once again offer the exact same plans, same coverage as Wind. 


The third major carrier is Telus, which has remained relatively quiet. Only recently have they began to make changes. From the looks of it, Telus will be employing a completely different strategy than Bell and Rogers. Instead of coming out with a new brand and duplicating plans, Telus seems to be working on improving it relations with customers by offering them more freedom. 


The first major change is updating its cancellation policy. Out of the "big 3," Telus has always had the worst cancellation fees. With Bell and Rogers, the cancellation fee would max out at $400. Telus, on the other hand never had a maximum fee, so prices can climb up to $700. With their new cancellation policy, the customer is judged on its:

• Monthly pro-rated discount = $490 / 36 months = $13.61
• Remaining discount = $490 – ($13.61 x 21 months) = $204.19
• Cancellation fee = $204.19 + $50.00 Admin fee = $254.19 (in Quebec, exclude the $50 administration fee)

The second change is with its upgrade policy. Instead of waiting the usual 2 or 3 years, its now based on calculating the discount you originally received when your contract began and then multiplying the number of months remaining on your contract. In other words, the longer you wait, the lower your fee will be, but if you want to upgrade early, you pay regardless.


The third change was just announced today. Starting in 2011, you'll be able to walk into a Telus store and have your Telus phone unlocked. For those unfamiliar with unlocking, when you walk into a mobile dealer store and purchase a phone. It is locked to the corresponding carrier. When you have it unlocked, you are able to use that phone with any carrier (as long as the phone has the carriers supported frequency). This is a big change, as never before has one of the "big 3" allowed any of their phones to be unlocked. 


Its nice to see one of the major carriers decide to differentiate itself and offer people more options. I hope Rogers and Bell take note and began to have new ideas, instead of matching others.


*Credit to Mobilesyrup for policy examples