WIND Mobile, Canada’s plucky underdog carrier, has updated their service plans across the board. The base $20 and $30 plans have both been bumped up by $5, but the $25 plan now includes Canada-wide calling. The WINDtab subsidy on the $35 plan has been increased to $150 from $100, and there’s a new top-tier plan available at $60 that has just about everything you could want: unlimited U.S. roaming, Canada/U.S.-wide calling, global texting, unlimited data, voicemail, and up to $500 subsidy on your handset.
WIND currently operates in most major Canadian population centers, and offers roaming service through Rogers. Despite the excellent prices WIND is offering, the coverage issue is a dealbreaker for many folks living in more remote areas. In any case, they’re managing to keep up with major device releases, including the HTC One (M8) and Samsung Galaxy S5.
WIND is still facing an uphill battle against dominating forces like Rogers, Bell, and TELUS, and was shouldered out of the last spectrum auctions parent company, Vimpelcom, wouldn’t put the money in to bid. As it stands, WIND currently has over 700,000 subscribers, while Rogers has upgraded or activated that many in Q4 2013 alone.
In any case, swing by WIND’s plans page for a closer look at what they’re offering. Any takers? Who’s on WIND already? Who would like to be?
Source: Marketwired
Reader comments
Wind Mobile launches new plans with nationwide calling, US roaming
I'd love to be on this carrier but I live in a rural area. Hopefully they can keep building out their network.
Posted via CB10
I use my phone way more than I use Data (on Telus). I can appreciate what Wind is doing/offering you guys on Data, but I would never compromise my phones calls. :) Just saying
Now all they need is better coverage.
I like Cookies.
I was paying Bell $115 a month for a plan that required heavy data, LD and phone use. Now I am on a contract in Kingston and Bell was dropping calls in my basement accommodation.
I put my daughter on Wind at university in Guelph, and she reported perfect service on her new Z10. I got a $40 Wind plan with my new Z10.
Now I have full reception and data speed tests showed Wind to be faster than both my old Bell service and the wifi where I stay.
Posted via CB10
Happy wind customer since november 2011. It's been awesome and I got slapped with the fair usage policy three times. :D lemme tell you, the ping is great even when slowed down, some people just love to bitch and moan! Some never read the terms and conditons, fair use policy or anything like that. It takes ALLOT of R&R before you choose *ANY* carrier in my opinion. :) besides, I don't care HOW slow the data speeds are, as long as the responsiveness is satisfying, it's fine with me. I have wifi at home and it's fast, I don't need LTE and if it comes, it will be a compliment to what wind offers. -currently paying $39/month when I grabbed that great deal. Never gonna drop the plan *ever*.
I've been with Wind for 2 years now. I love them.
Posted via CB10
Switched to wind in Feb from telus. No regrets. On there old $30 plan which is now $35. Signal in city is great. Those who say signal was horrible in past need to loom again As they've improved a lot in past years.
Posted via CB10
The plans at Wind really are a steal, such a good deal. I'm in southwestern Ontario in a city of 70,000, but no coverage here! Too bad.
Does the BlackBerry Z30 work on Wind Mobile??? I thought it didn't as the bandwidths were wrong.
Posted via CB10
Mobilicity still has a much better deal if you are in a coverage are. $35 gets me unlimited everything, including voice mail and cheaper international calling than just about any body. Wind is great if you got one of the older plans, but what used to be $35 a couple years ago is now $50
Posted via CB10
I'd be on wind in a heartbeat if I had coverage.. can't stand big 3
Posted via CB10
One thing to note with Wind reception issues: the Z10 (STL100-3) and Wind seem to have been made for each other.
On my Z10 I could get Wind coverage (not spotty: full five bars) in places I couldn't even get a signal on my various Samsung phones (NS and GNex). The Z10 actually got better reception in more places in Ottawa on Wind than it did on Fido.
The Q5... antenna isn't so great, but it's passable. I have reception at work now, which was the reason I moved from Wind to Fido in the first place, before the Z10.
Posted via CB10
I'm glad I had issues with my bold 9900 knocking my unlimited everything (excluding roaming) from the original $40 the old plan costs from years ago to $35 but keeping the unlimited features of the $40 plan
Posted via CB10
With wind I pay $54/month for unlimited everything including voicemail and caller ID plus american roaming, so far extremely happy with them. With bell I was paying almost $100 for 200 minutes and 1 GB of data and terrible customer service plus the states were way way extra
Awesome plan with Virgin Mobile Canada - staying.
How much is the roaming when out of the home zone?
Posted via CB10
As far as I recall it's 20 cents per minute. That cost is due to fall as the government is applying a cap to the wholesale price roaming partners charge for domestic roaming. WIND used to claim that they lost money on domestic roaming as Rogers, their assigned roaming partner in Canada, refused to negotiate with them on their fees. It's interesting that WIND has been able to negotiate a much better roaming package in the US with AT&T and T-Mobile than they could ever get from any of the incumbents at home.
I'm with Wind and from what I can remember it's .20 cents/minute.
Yes I've been SQUIRCLFIED!
I want this deal!!!!! Sweet. Now if only the big 3 would follow suit
Posted via CB10
I tried Wind and the price plan is compelling,*BUT*:
1) prices only apply to "home" zones (and now in US, which is pretty good if you do a lot of US travel); if you are in Canada however and roam outside Wind's coverage area, you pay some pretty outrageous roaming charges..
2) Their network is still quite unreliable- poor coverage, poor data speeds.
3) Their "unlimited" data sounds great, but is very slow at the best of times and is not truly "unlimited".. Once you use 10Gb, they hard limit you to 32kbits/sec download speed (this is *SLOWER* than dial-up; it *CRAWLS*); because their network speed is so slow, even if you tried downloading 24/7, my experience says it would take you about a week and a half of constant downloading to reach the 10 Gb limit, and then they throttle you down to 32kbit/sec, which means that in the rest of the month, the maximum that you could ever download, even going 24 hours/day, is another 6 Gigabytes.. ie, Max possible data you could possibly consume in one month is 16 Gigabytes due to their extreme level of throttling, ie, not even close to being "unlimited".. If someone wants to start a class action suit, I'm in..
Left bell just under a year ago for wind. Best decision ever. Services are excellent and there is never a sense I'm missing out on anything with the money saved. 2 smartphones = $70 a month after tax
Posted via CB10
#FOMO
Posted via CB10
Not really anything new. My back up phone is on WIND on the 2010 HMP which includes full national and US calling and pretty much everything else the $60 plan has except US roaming for $40. I can add and remove the US roaming at anytime for $15 so not only saving $5 per month when it's added but $20 per month when it's not needed. For international travel WIND's tariffs aren't that bad but I still find it way cheaper to grab a local SIM for where I am.
Yup I already got it . Now i pay 65$ a month and I now get everything!!!!!!!!!!!!!! unlimited all except unlimited international calls. But I can talk, text, and use data and make calls from the USA till I'm blue and my bill will always stay the same. So happy!!!! New towers new plans it just keeps getting better. I do not regret leaving Telus one bit. No more 600- 700$ phone bills
Posted via CB10
If they ever get their network ip to speed I'm there. All in good time I suppose. I spend too much time in Northern Ontario to consider it currently. However, I do like their aggressiveness.
Posted Via my Kick @ss BlackBerry Z30
I'm liking Wind more and more every day. I'll switch from rogers eventually!
Posted using the best phone ever, the Z30!
I had their current $50 plan paying $35 for two years. They had aggressive pricing the time I was signing up. But coverage limitations (busy mall in the centre of metro area - roaming charges) and absolutely terrible customer service made me move away from Wind. Now I pay slightly more for less airtime and data, but that's enough for me.
For frequency reasons I couldn't bring my phone to the new carrier, and made their phones useless while travelling in Europe (even if unlocked).
I don't miss them at all. I wouldn't recommend them to a friend.
If coverage was better in my area... I would definitely switch.... with needing 4 phones in my family .... I would be saving big! $$!!! and getting More
Posted via CB10
Also I've teathered my laptop off of my BBZ10 quite a few times and the speed has been decent enough- still no complaints there
Been with Wind for the past while and have been very happy; the roaming charges through Rogers hasn't been too steep either. So far great experiance!
I was a Telus customer for 10 years then I left for Rogers for the last five years. Honestly I had no problems with Telus. If I had an issue, someone would always be there to fix the problem and offer me a credit. So no issue with them. Service was great. When I switched to Rogers, Within 24 hours I started receiving random calls from companies asking me to buy things. Seems like Rogers sold my information to Call centre's. I didn't like this. Nor did I liked being on hold for minutes at a time to just be transferred to another representative who didn't feel like helping me so he transferred me back into the Q. The list goes on and on..... I left Rogers for Wind. I pay 43 including taxes for unlimited service in Canada and unlimited Data. The service is not the best for Data but the phone calls are amazing. It's worth the Money but Wind either needs to buy more Cell towers or create a plan cheap for people to use other networks Towers. So we can have reliable coverage everywhere. Using Wind service in United States is much better than using it in Toronto. I find that a little funny. But still such a better value than paying 160 a month for services on the big three
Posted from my Awesome Z10!
One last thing... BlackBerry z10 stl100-3 is a global phone. I can use it on any of the big three and wind networks. Plus Att and T-Mobile networks in the United States. Digicel In Trinidad and the Caribbean and other places also. I recommend this phone to anyone who travels around the world. Make sure you get it unlocked.
Posted from my Awesome Z10!
Good plans, but i can't handle their data speeds. If this is what Rogers plans looked like, they would put every other provider out of business!
Posted via CB10
I've been on Wind for a couple months now. I got on a special deal they did at the start of the year, so not one of the current offerings, but the price can't be beat. Looking at the new chart, I'm basically on the $40 but for $39.
Within the GTA it's great, full signal strength everywhere I've been in the west end. Coverage is their biggest problem; when I go out of town to visit family, there's no service.
I can't really comment on the data speed, but the rare times when I have used it, it's seemed fast enough for me.
Data speeds is pretty good , i stream mlb.tv games with no issues so far.
Posted via CB10
When it comes to call quality and reliability, wind fails big time. CORE feature is call quality which is big time lacking. Hungry for signals drain your battery so fast, and you will blame your phone.
Wind, mobilicity and public is for kids only who wants to stick with data which speed is always congested.
I am too happy to pay Koodo more but definitely reliable to receive call anywhere.
Posted via CB10
My call quality is amazing on Wind. I use a blackberry z10... and I always get full HD calling. Only problem I see is video calling in the network. it can start to lag.
Posted from my Awesome Z10!
Ditto here as well. I get HD calling most everywhere I call including Washington DC when I call friends. Love WIND!
Yes I've been SQUIRCLFIED!
I'm a happy Wind customer. The Unlimited US roaming in intriguing, especially at that price. Imagine if they had such a plan for Canadian "Wind Away" roaming
I'm a Toronto to Barrie traveler every day and wind is awesome in toronto & even better in the suburbs of south barrie. It even works great when I travel to the falls. I even get a hone signal in buffalo. Your hand set matters people!
I'm on Wind now rocking my Z10 and I'm loving it. So hassle free knowing my bill is never a surprise. Customer Service was great when I was signing up, and the service only improves. It's fantastic for someone that doesn't leave the city like me. Hopefully they can work out a domestic roaming agreement so those outside the city can enjoy true mobile freedom.
Posted via CB10
Urban vs non urban is not the only issue. An even bigger issue imo is terrible indoor signal penetration. This is the reason I ultimately gave up on Wind after 3 years. I got sick of missing calls while in a restaurant, supermarket, etc. That and the horrendously slow data in my area 1-2mbps down on a good day.
Great deal on paper but very much ymmv. Doesn't hurt to try though.
Posted via CB10
Exactly! I'm enjoying 75+mbps, there's no way I can handle 1-2mbps. And then when the fair usage policy kicks in i would go crazy!
Posted via CB10
So you get more than 5-10GB on your non-Wind plan?
People complain about the fair use policy a lot, but it's still better than paying $80/mo for 500mb.
Posted via CB10
I'm with Rogers now out of choice I miss wind I had there 40 unlimited everything plan I loved it and there network is a lot better than when it launched. Now I'm stuck paying 130.00 after taxes I'm going back when the contract is finished!
Posted via CB10
The US needs to follow suit. Those plans are awesome!
Posted from my BlackBerry Q10 on AT&T
I am wondering if it would pay for US Americans to sign up with Wind in Canada using a forwarding address or PO. Box and just start roaming the US at those rates...
"No Q10?" -> "Buy from Chen... "
Wish it would work here. Alas. Stuck in the boonies.
Posted via CB10
Haters can hate but if you stay in the city and don't want cell coverage when you leave then wind rocks.
Posted via CB10
The $35 plan does not include unlimited Canada wide talk and it looks like they also removed the unlimited Canada wide wind to wind talk which makes this plan worse than the previous $30 plan.
Posted via CB10
Had a rep tell me that LTE is coming soon, but it doesn't matter, had wind, terrible experience, it's only worth it if you stay in an urban area. Coverage sucks, they would need to overhaul a lot before I would personally try them out in the future.
Like their rate plans, great for a light usage person who stays with the coverage area.
Posted via CB10
$60 bucks for unlimited across North America damn!
Swordsmanship Channel
Simon, the $35 plan includes unlimited data and province-wide calling only, not Canada-wide calling like the $25 plan, which doesn't come with data.
Posted via CB10
I live in the GTA, so I'm never outside the wind zone. Now running Z30 on 4g rocks... added the 10gb option for $10, still end up going a bit over, but no costs over that. Same plan on the big 3 is $185... I pay $50... so I don't mind stopping on the highway to grab wifi... Wind rules!
Posted via CB10
If wind ever got LTE, I'd make the switch as soon as my plan was up.
Posted via CB10
If wind had LTE, I would dump my home ISP.
Mobile broadband is NOT an alternative to high speed internet access at home. I know that for a fact because those that abuse it really ruin it for others who need it most. My isp gives me 25/10, unlimited bandwidth, far better than any LTE I tested since the ping is 20 ms or less.
I have wind and while their signal is 7.5 or 8 best I like the unlimited option....i swear if wind ever had LTE I would be heaven
too bad Wind sucks for coverage outside of urban areas. At least Bell and Rogers and Telus has the coverage where I am, and where I drive through daily to get to and from work in the middle of nowhere!
You work?
I thought it was full time work blasting those damn firsters.
:)
Posted by the Crackberry Pirate
I wish. Network may be a deal breaker though.
Posted via CB10
If only their signal is great I would switched right away.. Rogers needs to have plans like this
Posted via CB10
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahagagagahahahahahahah
White Z10
I've been with WIND for a couple of years now. I so love it.
Aside from elevators and underground parking, the only time signal has been an issue is in the heart of a huge mall. In some neighbourhoods I actually get a stronger signal than my friends that are with the big companies.
The ability to use data freely, get the most out of my phone and pay half the price of the Big 3 more than makes up for the very rare instance of a weak signal.
Posted via CB10
Now if only they would stock the Z30. . .
Posted via CB10
I see so many people who never leave the city, but pay $80 a month for 1-2 gigs of data with the big 3, and then go over and pay another $20-30! Most just continue to do it because they assume Wind "isn't good". Wind rocks if you live and work in their home zones. Also: YOU CAN still use your phone when you aren't in Wind home! I add on $10 a month for wind away from Rogers towers.
Via The BlackBerry Z10 Experience.
Lucky for me to have unlimited Canada/US for $40 on WIND. Still a good deal though. My family has saved thousands over 3 years with them.
Me too. $40 unlimited North American calling, unlimited global messaging and unlimited data since 2011. The coverage is 90% for where I am, and unlimited data is the reason I stick with them despite the lesser coverage.
Via The BlackBerry Z10 Experience.
Still a better deal than most cell companies in the U.S.
Posted via CB10