Low-priced option of pay as you go plans to use for unlock super phones in 2014
If you do not want spend too much money on all bigger plans in Canada. Here is cheaper version of option available. In these plans you can buy your own unlocked good iPhone or Android phone and then use these low priced pay as you go plan. In my experience, 7-11 Speak out, Kodoo and Petro Canada are best deals.
If you want a unlocked super phone in Canada, what is the very least that I can pay?
If you’re like me, you want a smartphone but you simply do not want to be sucked into the monthly expense. See that’s the trick with mobile phones and the plans that are offered. You get sucked into a monthly commitment because frankly that’s just a good business model.
Let us see low cost unlocked phones and plans option available:
First cheap phone plan -7-11 Speak out
As I mentioned earlier, 711 Speakout is pretty much the best solution out there for the cheapest prepaid plan or pay as you go solution. The biggest selling point is that you get a 365 day expiry date on airtime, regardless if it’s a small top up. It’s very unfortunate that the lack of competition in Canada for mobile phone plans has led to this situation. Perhaps you can suggest a theory why it is that for almost all the pay as you go plans in Canada, the only way you can get 365 day expiry is if you spend $100 for airtime. Considering that it’s across the board, it appears that these companies are cooperating with each other in this regard.
There is one major issue with 7-11 Speakout. Data usage. As of June 30, 2013 they are discontinuing their web/data plans. Their website suggests soon they will announce a new pay as you go data plan but on the phone they can’t give an idea when the announcement will come. Right now, I can confirm that 7-11 Speakout does not allow you to tether or create a wifi mobile hotspot. It’s hard to say whether this upcoming Speakout Data plan will include the option to tether. If it does, the 7-11 Speakout is a pretty clear winner in the Canadian prepaid market.
For my set of criteria, call forwarding doesn’t come with 7-11 Speakout. Perhaps not a deal breaker for you, but I really want that flexibility. PC Mobile (see below) does have it as a free feature.
2nd Cheap phone plan-Petro Canada Mobility
They run on the Rogers network. I think the closest comparison would be 711 Speakout which means this is a good option. For me, they unfortunately don’t offer call forwarding and do not allow data tethering. That said, this may be good option even though it’s essentially the exact same as 7-11 Speakout. You can add $10 for a month of unlimited mobile web browsing, but with 7-11 ditching their similar web browsing, I would think Petro-Canada will be changing or removing this option in the near future. The reason Petro Canada Mobile gets a decent review by me is because they have a bit more flexibility with their Anytime Plans and the airtime you buy. Spend $15 you get 1 month expiry, spend $25 you get 4 months expiry, spend $50 you get 6 months expiry and $100 gets you the industry standard 365 days expiry. In a head-to-head comparison, 7-11 Speakout still is the best option because they allow for a 365 expiry on a $25 top up.
3rd cheap option-Koodo
I did quite a bit of research myself a few months back, and I finally settled on Koodo pre-paid. But there is a trick to it. You need to get the smallest base plan ($15), and buy your talk time and data as add-ons, and here’s why. Your talk time and data add-ons roll over, as long as you maintain the base plan (minimum $15/month). I pay $25 for 500 anytime minutes, which allows me to call anywhere in Canada any time I want. A further $30 for 1GB of data. If I don’t use all my minutes and or data, I just keep the $15/month base plan active and my minutes/data will roll over. I bought 500 minutes of talk time, and 1GB of data when I activated my phone on the Koodo network (if the phone model matters, I have an HTC One) and after 3 months I still have minutes and data, so it’s only cost me $30 for the last 60 days. Granted, you’re still paying $15/month for service, but at least you’re not paying for data you never get to use. But that being said, it would seem that the other providers will cost you more than $15/month if you have to keep buying more data and talk time every month.
Currently Koodo has double minute and double data option for this plan
Unlocked IPhone 4s works with Petro and 7-11 plans
Get iPhone 4s which uses micro sim. Speakout sells micro sim. If you are concerned about warranty, then activate the sim with any other phone’s IMEI and insert the sim after activating it. Also, the Apple cannot voic your warranty since Speakout’s micro Sim is legit/ not modified.
Unlocked 5s iPhone works with Petro and 7-11 plans
You can cut micro sim to nano, if you google it there are many references on how. If you want an expert to do it, search kijiji, there are some who offer the service for $10 to $15.
http://www.airportal.de/nanosim
