Double Blind

I like to keep things simple, but apparently simple was too much for Virgin Mobile, but they have screwed up royally and thus it will be costing them my future cash flow. It will not cause me much pain to switch phone numbers, but it is a pain to shop around for a price efficient plan that works for my rather meager needs.

I have been using Virgin Mobile for the past five years, mainly for voice, and the odd text message (average is once a month). So my usage requirements are very basic. My plan costs $30 (plus HST) a month, for 200 outbound minutes, unlimited incoming calls, voice mail and caller ID. This was sufficient for my needs. I also do not really care about “evening and weekends” since I do not have much volume at this time – the majority of my calls taken are inbound and during regular waking hours.

They also had an ideal local calling area – an Aldergrove, BC phone number has a local calling area that can take calls as local all the way west from Sechelt to Chilliwack – which is very relevant given my travel patterns. Since finding this information is not available online (and why cell providers don’t put it online is beyond me, probably because they can change them every week), I sent an email a year ago and confirmed the area.

Why not get a Chilliwack phone number? People in Vancouver would have to dial my phone long distance to reach me.

My phone is a very basic Nokia 6015i, which is a wonderful, compact, durable phone that only needs to be charged once every three days. I do not need a Blackberry or anything with data capability. Simple and lightweight are the requirements, with an easily adjustable volume.

The reason why I am switching is because of two incidents. On the week of September 13th, all outbound calls from the Chilliwack local calling area resulted in a busy signal, no matter what phone number was dialed (except for support – 611). The phone could still take incoming calls which worked fine. This annoyed me, although I could use Google Talk for outbound calls. After a few messages to customer support (which has been woefully inadequate, by virtue of the fact that the people on the other end are reading script sheets from the Philippines and cannot do anything other than send emails to second level support), they managed to fix something and service was OK again that weekend. Total outage time of not being able to place outgoing calls was five days, but apparently this was due to some “upgrade” they were doing in the back-end.

I consider it unacceptable if your business is providing mobile service, but you cannot provision outbound calls for your customers.

The second incident which “broke the straw on the camel’s back” was when I discovered today that when I took calls in Chilliwack, they are suddenly long distance, and my phone balance was being decreased by 30 cents a minute, when just a month ago the calls costing nothing (because Chilliwack is in the local calling area). I called support, and the first guy gave me this lecture about how local unlimited incoming works, and him explaining how “You have to be in Aldergrove for it to be local. You were in Chilliwack”. I just hung up on him, and called back in an hour. I changed my approach with the second customer rep – I asked “Where can I receive a phone call and it be a local call?”. She started reading the list of local calling area cities, including Chilliwack, and then I interrupted her at that point and said… “But I received a call from Chilliwack, and it was long distance!”. She looked at the account and indeed, this was the case. She wrote a “ticket”, put an extra $10 into the account and told me that it would take 3-5 business days to look at, but couldn’t give any more information (nor do I think they give these people any information to work with at all).

So now, whether they actually fix the problem or not, I’m determined to get away from Virgin Mobile (and Bell Canada, who owns Virgin Mobile). At least Fido/Rogers gave you a month of notice when they shrunk their local calling area.

The whole concept of the “local calling area” is an accounting construct, designed to get people to pay more for their service. The marginal cost to provide a phone call from Vancouver to Toronto is exactly the same as making a local phone call. Also, each telephone and mobile provider has their own calling tables with respect to what constitutes a local call or not, and finding this information is very difficult.

Alternatives

1. Get rid of the mobile phone and strictly use the internet for any phone activity. This is starting to be an attractive option. It’s primary drawback is that you generally need a phone number to have any sort of activity in society. Personally, I’m fine with not having a phone number and just using e-mail and occasionally Skype or whatever when making outbound calls. However, I can imagine it may cause problems and is not good for business.

If I do it, it feels like I’m one step away from moving out in a shack with a typewriter to pen up my 200-page manifesto. Who knows, in another few years I just might feel like doing that, as long as that shack has high speed internet connected to it.

2. Get a magic jack, and get a 604 phone number. This will require an internet connection to utilize, and will cost about $40 for the device and $20 yearly.

3. Get a Shaw landline phone. At least Shaw still uses people in Canada for their call centers, and the cost is relatively acceptable given that I already use them for high speed internet (the marginal cost when factoring in bundling would be an extra $11/month+HST). I don’t know what the situation is regarding local calling areas, however – I would prefer to have a Vancouver number. Something to consider is using Simultaneous Ring and link it with a phone that has unlimited incoming.

4. Get another cell phone and plan. This is the most “conventional” idea, and will end up costing me more money, and more hassle. But it is a potential option if I can find something that is financially acceptable.

I just hope that Google succeeds in destroying the traditional phone system as we know it. The concept of phone numbers, the concept of “long distance”, and just the annoyance and agony that telecom companies seem to impart on their customers makes me wish for the day when it all happens.

I’m leaning toward option #3 – which is quite funny considering that there has been a huge migration away from land lines to mobile phones.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 7th, 2010 and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.