Why Telus Mobility is losing a 16 year Wireless Customer

I have been a Telus customer since they bought Clearnet in late 90’s. I have carried them from city to city, province to province, upgrading phone every couple years. Conservatively I have spent in phones and contracts around $23K in that time.


There was a time when a customer that was 2 years into a 3 year  contract upgrades were offered to keep the customer on contract.  For 10 years I paid for a new subsidized phone 5 times. They were heady times.

As my family grew my account ballooned to 4 phones, and as smartphones became the standard, data became the third tier of any service. As smartphones became more powerful and VOIP became easy and often free, the value of text/talk reduced dramatically while the cost of data exploded.

Industry wangs can argue endlessly about why the cost of data has exploded in recent years (CRTC, profiteering, etc.)  Or why plans get more and more expensive.

I noted recently that the short lived plan I had for my personal phone gave 10 favourite numbers unlimited text/talk, 200 non favourite local minutes and 6 GB of data for $70. At the time I thought this was reasonable value until I upgraded my wife’s phone last fall and triggered a whole new plan. She had been paying $50 for 1 GB data, 10 favourite numbers, 200 local minute. With the new phone, her now essentially worthless text/talk was bounced to unlimited in Canada for $50 a month plus $20 more for the privilege of 1 GB of data. If I wanted a new phone for myself, I would have to pay $125 /month for exactly the same features I have with a 3 year old phone as I would lose my current plan.

I had made a foolish assumption that dropping a phone to a total of 3 would reduce my $250 a month bill to $185/ month.  Instead I am now paying in $250 for 3 phones.
Having done my research I realized there is a single player in the Canada market that can offer value but has enormous caveats. Wind Mobile offers me more features for half the price but I can only use the service in major metropolitan areas. Coverage is poor or non-existent outside of major cities. Roaming is expensive.

The recent announcement of new spectrum auction that essentially restricts the sale of the spectrum to Quebcor’s Videotron helped make up my mind. I can live with the inconvenience of carrying a burner phone outside of the city for now but Videotron is the most competitive wireless provider in the country. Should it win the spectrum it would either have to immediately buy Wind or Mobilicity to fulfil its obligations and become a national carrier, which is likely. Given Verizon’s hinting at entering the Canadian market made the majors apoplectic, Videotron forcing immediate downward pressure on rates but upward pressure on features is good for consumers.

So I did it. I abandoned 16 years of loyalty (with nary an attempt at retention from Telus) based on price, features, some inconveniences, and a bet that things will get better in the long run. I bought out 2/3 of my device contracts (fyi buying out the device does not end the contract, Telus charges another $50 per contract to end it prematurely no matter how much time is left, 3 months or 18 months. I didn’t know that).

Using my phone as a test I will live with Wind, not changing my habits and see if they can meet my needs. If it turns out well, I will transition my remaining 2 phones and $180/month from Telus and pay Wind $105/month total while keeping the now $145/month difference.