I’m currently with Freedom, thinking of switching over to Public on black friday…what pros/cons can I expect? Let me know if this list I made is accurate:
Pros: MUCH BETTER coverage from the Telus network, standalone 5g up to 250mbps
Cons: Worse customer service, battery drains faster on 5g than LTE, NO WIFI CALLING
Did I get that about right?
Lack of roaming is a huge con of PM. Your SMS 2FA won’t work abroad. This can royally screw you over and I’m surprised this is still the case in 2023 where you need to be able to use your number abroad to confirm nearly anything. To the point this may get you trapped in a foreign country with no access to money or communications. As you won’t be able to log into your accounts with a foreign sim.
With Freedom, you not only have roaming, but also wifi calling, so you can call and text for free from anywhere in the world as long as you’re connected to wifi. It’s honestly a game-changer and trumps all perks of PM if you ever leave Canada and the US.
On the flipside, the signal strength and quality is a huge perk in favour of PM, but only in Canada.
battery drains faster on 5g than LTE
5G is optional - you can set your phone to use to LTE. Or just get a cheaper LTE plan if 100mbps is enough.
To be fair Freedom customer service also really sucks so I dunno if its a con to switch to Public…
Main reason people stay on Freedom is better pricing (esp on legacy plans) and access to hardware upgrades.
Public pricing is usually on par with Freedom (excluding the insane legacy plans some of us have held onto) but no hardware subsidy. Public network (even on a 4G or 3G plan) is vastly superior to Freedom.
I will also point out Freedom drains your battery like mad when it seaching for the network or unable to connect reliably to same network.
I was with Freedom Mobile for 5 years and recently switched to Public Mobile yesterday. The difference in speed and connectivity is night and day. I would always lose reception when I’m inside buildings with Freedom in Vancouver BC.
They had a 20GB 5G for $34 plan that was perfect because I barely go over 10GB per month due to work and home wifi.
Battery life on my iPhone 13 Pro Max was worse with Freedom Mobile because it kept alternating between LTE and 5G.
Contrary to most, I absolutely HATE calling telecom customer service and do this as a last resort if I can’t fix or find the information to fix something on my own. So I prefer the message boards.
My family has both. Freedom mobile customer service is easier to deal with but coverage may be spotty if you drive to rural area.
I have both PM and Telus on the same phone and find PM not as fast as Telus or FM line, so if you’re heavy data user, I’d go with FM given you stay in the city. I don’t roam in another country much but flip back and forth between airplane mode and out when I’m in US, and find FM better for roaming if you travel down south since many places and hotels have free wifi.
FM loyalty plan is pretty nice, and generally beats all other promo.
Public Mobile also has a US calling add on that rolls over. 1000 minutes for $15. I wish more companies offered one time add ons.
Ability to pause your plan without paying anything only available in freedom prepaid and not postpaid, ability to convert your reward points to international calling time with unlimited validity.
5g up to 200mbps, as per PM website.
As always it depends on your areas coverage but generally PM will be better cause of the Bell network (Telus doesn’t have many towers in Ont)
I was with public but now Koodo but would be back with PM if coverage wasn’t so bad in my work buildings underground (was none with PM and FM)
I pay for my dad’s PM bill and that’s been dropped to $18(25/m) a month with bonuses and time with them.
For me it’s all about frequency bands.
On Google write “Phone Brand&Model” kimovil Canada
Then click on the first link “Will phone work in Canada?”
You’ll see which Carrier has more compatible bands with your phone. The more bands you have the more likely you are to have connections whichever you go. For me I like to have access inside my work warehouse and subterranean parking.
Public is also a bitch with billing and their website is garbage, but for coverage alone, if you go out of the city on a regular basis, absolutely. I’ve got family in Parry Sound, Sudbury. Even standing in the middle of downtown, still roaming on Freedom
Virgin Mobile, Koodo or Fido would be my go to for cheap plans. Another less known is Lucky Mobile with Bell network which is pretty reliable. It’s all about comparing all of them and what is important for your need.
Before my billing date my line was terminated and I lost my number… Wtf… No one seems to be able to help me unless I visit a store… And I am in Europe… WTF
Meriem writes:
If I were you, I’d feel the same.
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
A better solution is to switch to an authenticator app for all sites that support it. SMS is not reliable, nor secure.
I travel a lot and never needed to use SMS as 2FA for any service. I just prepared before by using either authenticator apps, email or bank authenticator app for logging it.
Freedom roaming sucks in US!
I would agree with you but authenticator app is a work around for 2way factor authentication (I hope they realize this and allow roaming) wifi calling is not a problem big deal the signal strength is way superior so never had the urge /need /desire to use it (iknow they are working on that thru the community chats but that would be limited to Canada only unfortunately)
Just remember that if you have 3G or 4G, it will still connect at 5G if you have 5G - it just throttles the data to 3Mbps (3G) or 100Mbps (4G).