Fido Long Time Customer (14 years)

[Munshi]

I'm writing this for first time in 14years to let all fido customer and management know that. After being many years customer I wasn't treated as loyal customer.

Those who in Fido for longer time please considering change. Fido all want is new customer they don't care for old customer. I had 2 cell phone plan which I just moved to another company with similar money with more.

If I didn't move I wouldn't know what I was paying to fido was waste. Some of the core area I was getting 2g connection if thee is no LTE/4g. and there wasn't any service in elevator and basement where I live.

With my new provider I don't get 2g connection at all plus I have service in basement and elevator.

After I left Winback team called me to offer deal with much not different basically offering in market plan with 20% discount and that is only for 2 years. it mean I will be paying sky high price after 2 years. their offer was even worst than Loyaly offer.

I have only Home Internet currently with Fido which will soon will be gone to my new provider.

This is feedback to company and customer to alerts.

[Cawtau · Accepted solution]

Hello Munshi,

  Welcome to the community!

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@Munshi wrote:..With my new provider I don't get 2g connection at all plus I have service in basement and elevator...

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  You're not getting 2G with your new provider because they do not operate a 2G network anymore. Even when they did (Bell network), their 2G network was CDMA-based and not GSM-based.

  Many factors may influence cellular signal. Coverage depends, in part, on your location relative to the cellular towers. If you're located further from the Fido/Rogers cellular towers then their signal might not be able to penetrate into elevators and/or your basement. On the other hand, if you're closer to the other providers' cellular towers, their signal would be better able to penetrate deeper into buildings. You can get an idea of your area cellular towers here.

  Does that mean your new provider is better? Not necessarily. They may be better for you given your situation. However, no provider will suit everyone's needs in all locations. People need to figure out which provider is better for them, given their own set of circumstances.

Hope this helps 😀

Cheers

[Cawtau]

Hello again,

  You seem to have missed the point that:

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@Cawtau wrote:...Coverage depends, in part, on your location relative to the cellular towers...

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~taken from here. 

  The mobile providers' cellular towers are not necessarily situated at the same locations. There are a similar number of celluar towers for both providers in the Davisville area. However, their locations are slightly different. As a result, the coverage from the different providers can vary slightly, depending on your location relative to the cellular towers. It's likely that your location is closer to a Bell tower and is just outside (or on the edge) of Fido/Rogers coverage.

  You don't have to be living in the North to be outside of coverage. For example, I was hoping to switch my mother from Rogers Prepaid to Telus Prepaid. However, when I inserted the Telus SIM into her phone, she got no signal at all. She lives in a medium-sized city so it wasn't like she's out in the middle of nowhere, but her location just happens to be outside of Telus (Bell) coverage. She's now with a provider which uses Rogers' networks.

  The nature of cellular phones is that they are dependent on their locations relative to the cellular towers. Some areas will have better coverage from a particular provider; other areas will have better coverage from another provider.

  You should also note that there are many factors which can affect signal transmission, including (but not limited to) distance from cellular towers, frequency used, as well as possible sources of interference (ie buildings, trees, terrain, etc).

  For the record, Rogers intends to decommission the GSM (2G) network by December 31st, 2020 (see here).

Hope this helps 😀

Cheers

[Munshi]

@ Cawtau (MVP)

(You're not getting 2G with your new provider because they do not operate a 2G network anymore. Even when they did (Bell network), their 2G network was CDMA-based and not GSM-based.)

Good to know that Fido still providing 2G connection. Perhaps Fido forcing all existing customer with grandfather plan to connect on 2G or 3G when LTE connection full with in market plan user and Rogers own customer.

I’m in the GTA not in North, I was getting 2G connection in downtown Davisville Area and Scarborough. Good that you provide the tower MAP. I see a lot RED tower in downtown and come to know that some are 2G tower still Rogers using for their parent company like Fido and Chatr to use when they routing capacity over loaded with Rogers own customer.

I heard many time that Fido giving excuse that Freedom don’t have enough tower to cover the core area. I feel the Fido and Freedom are similar.

Good that you advice Fido customer should change the provider to see the other provider as well and find out who provide better service and suit the customer. Now I would suggest all to try Others network.

[thePoodleFarmer]

I came the other way, from Bell to FIDO for much the same reason.

This time last year I was a loyal Bell customer, landlines for maybe 30 years before finally migrating to Mobility. I live in a rural area, and the landline option here is only twisted pair copper. Dial-Up Internet. And that remains to this day the only landline option. no DSL, no Fibe, no Cable. So I migrated to a Bell Mobility plan with a good data plan through a corporate rate my wife could get at work. For 4 years I had consistently good 4G (HSPA/HSPA+) and weak but usable LTE. Data download speed when updating Windows was consistently decent around 6-8 Mbps. Not earthshaking, but better than 56.6k Dial-Up.

Then in June last year we had a windstorm. The Bell equipment on their only tower that covers our area was damaged. They fixed it. Sorta. My wireless data rates dropped to 0.4Mbps measured on a Bell phone using their own web-based app. I called after a few weeks. Got a service ticket number. 10 days later called to follow-up as no change. Called again after another 10 days, still no callback from Tech support. Called again after 10 days, they promised to escalate my complaint. 

Finally got a call after 6 weeks from a tech sitting in a control room. He told me about the damage and the repairs. Everything he could see from the site read-outs was in the green. All the Field Techs were busy in October fixing forest fire damage in cottage country for the rich seasonal people from Toronto who had the pull with Corporate. When cottage season was almost over. No, there was no one who was going to come out and climb a rural tower to see who screwed up what. Wait until the next Network Upgrade. No we don't know when, no you don't get a rebate on your monthly fee. BELL does not guarantee that you get service.

So I switched to FIDO the next day. And OMG I get 35Mbps download speeds. if I had known that 5 years ago I would never have got a Bell phone.

Update: A year after the original tower damage, still no change in service from Bell. i added another FIDO phone to my plan for my wife. She still has a Bell phone. FIDO/Rogers does not have any signal where she works. She took my FIDO to work to check and i had to get US Roaming reversed even though she didn't cross an International border. but Bell is a corporate partner for the business where she works and have installed dedicated equipment to service the location.  But last night she was happy using her an hour of FIDO Shake-a-bytes to update her Apple stuff. And she cancelled the Bell SIM she had just for her iPad because she has enough connectivity speed and data at home now to run multiple devices from one shared hotspot. And she cut her Bell plan down, the total savings realized made adding another FIDO phone revenue neutral.

Lesson: No one provider is perfect for everyone in every circumstance.  And don't be fooled by the patter. The TELUS rep won't mention that they piggyback on BELL in our area, and have no dedicated facilities of their own. So if you don't get Bell, you pay a lot to switch and don't get Telus either. or Virgin, or Koodo. And my wife will tell you everywhere she drives on the way to work where the FIDO/Rogers signal goes to zero, and Bell doesn't. 

It's a big country. i like FIDO, they haven't messed up a bill (yet...) and they have a strong and reliable signal where I physically am 95% of the time.  My wife likes both FIDO and Bell, and I won't make any comments about her loyalty that that would be considered socially or culturally inappropriate given the current atmosphere we live in.

[FidoFaiza]

Hi @Munshi! 

We are sad to lose you after all these years I am also sorry to read that you didn't feel appreciated as a loyal customer. We are always looking to improve our services and welcome any feedback that allow us to do so. 

That said, I'd like to send you a PM to further discuss your experience. 

We hope to talk to you soon!

[Munshi]

not sure if my feedback would help Fido. let me know what you want to know. I can tell onething my whole family was using Fido. After I Moved on my other family Member is on the move. there are about 6 more line with Fido which soon will be taken away from Fido.

Fido what I see is more like Freedom mobile which I wouldn't believe if I wasn't moved to competitor.

I guess you would like to know who is the new provider. Its Virgin Mobile.