WIND Mobile launches in Vancouver

By on Jun 3, 2010 at 3:01 AM
General June 3, 2010

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Alright, Vancouverites, you’ve been a bunch of good sports politely clapping as WIND Mobile rolled out in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton, but your time has finally come. Starting today, much of Metro Vancouver will be transformed into a WIND Home Zone with the flip of a switch by Chairman Tony Lacavera and friend of BGR CEO Ken Campbell. Launch day festivities will kick off at 10am for members of the media, but Joe and Jane Public will be able to hit up the Yaletown store at 11am to get a first-hand glimpse of what WIND’s all about. Just exactly how far WIND’s coverage will reach in Lotus Land we’re not sure, but here’s to hoping that WIND’s outrageous roaming fees won’t bite too many people in the backside.

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15 Comments

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  • L.G

    Cool.

  • Jane

    No thanks. I’ll stick with one of the big three (or the subsidies of the big three) so I don’t pay a bajillion dollars when I step outside of a home zone or my cell connects to a partners tower.

    • HO

      …yeah…trolls usually come with that pathetic answer, mainly Robbelus trolls, btw, even roaming on Wind is cheaper than roaming on Robbelus networks…

      • Mike M

        You idiot! Some people work and live in different areas of the city which even though are in the “local calling area” won’t have Wind reception. You fail to understand what the guy is saying. BOTH areas may be local but there may not be reception in both areas. Therefore you will be paying roaming charges on Wind even when you’re still in your calling area. You’re the only troll here. And a stupid troll too.

      • Joe Schmoe

        And what you fail to understand as you have obviously never used WIND or you would know this already, is that you CANNOT roam on Rogers network inside of a HOME zone as WIND has disabled all roaming on Rogers within their home zones. That is why they have kept their new Vancouver HOME zone so small. Once the network is more reliable in this new expansion, they will expand the official HOME zone. Unfortunately, in Toronto it means where in some areas the network is sub-par, instead of getting 2G Rogers GSM, you get no connection at all. But you do NOT get roaming charges.

    • Tdot34

      Outside of the Home Zone your rate (0.25 cents a minute) is actually cheaper than a long distance call from the big three (0.40 cents a minute). The home zone in Vancouver is pretty much the same size as the local call zone for any of the big 3. So really you are better off. Not to mention the Wind Home Zone will grow as they expand their network. 5 years from now 90% of Canada will be a Wind Home Zone.

      The only draw back with Wind is that you must pay up front for a phone, and the network is still in its infancy, so you can probably expect a few problems. But for rate plans that are half the price it is probably worth it.

      The $450 for a Bold 9700 is made up for and then some through cheaper rate plans over a 3 year contract with any of the big 3

      Best thing about Wind, is that as they grow it will force the big 3 to lower their retardedly expensive plans

    • Mik

      Agreed, this system of theirs is kinda set up for those that say, never leave the city, ever.
      Those that are doin time, and those that are looking at doing time.

      More a criminals carrier/network then anything imo.

  • strider_mt2k

    Wake me when they get to the 5th element.

  • Joe Schmoe

    Outrageous roaming fees? What are you talking about BGR? It’s a flat $0.25/min anywhere in Canada or the US when outside a home zone. How is that outrageous? That’s $0.25/min compared to the average $0.70-$0.80/min the Big 3 charge just for long distance calls in Canada alone. And they charge even more for roaming in the US.

    If you’re talking about roaming rates in other countries like Europe or Asia, well, get a SIM card from there, like everyone else does.

    According to Industry Canada and this web page http://www.canadiancow.com/wind/
    this is the latest list of towers that are submitted by WIND. If you take a look at Vancouver, they have towers listed in Langley.

  • Mik

    Lets see, pretty much provincially border to border coverage with big 3 or, just plain old city coverage for a dollar or two less,…..hmmm

    Their offer, is like dust blowing in the wind, dollars if your not a coke dealer.

    Day late, dollar short cell company.

    • Tdot34

      Must be a Rogers employee…

    • Mike M

      Agreed! And tonnes of dropped calls from what I hear from a friend who got Wind.

  • CellPhanatic

    WIND’s roaming fees are WAY cheaper than any other provider in Canada, they’re doing an amazing job with their network. Think about it, Robellus probably has 1200 towers in Toronto alone, WIND probably has around 200-400 that are currently online. Obviously their gonna have some growing pains, look at when Fido first launched. Their service sucked for months! Pretty much all your calls would drop. With WIND, the amount of times I’ve experienced that can be counted on both my hands, and this is since I got my phone in December. Like stated earlier when you’re inside a WIND Home zone you cannot use WIND Away, although I’ve been told that if you’re near the border of their coverage zone, in certain area’s they’ve allowed WIND Away due to public demand, but regardless your phone will clearly show you that you’re in WIND Away and you’ll know that you’ll end up paying $0.25/minute for a call to Canada OR USA, which is much better than my old Robbers rate of $0.35/minute for a local call. Oh and don’t forget, Roger’s has reduced the size of their local calling area’s twice in the past year, so which company do you think is actually better for Canadians? WIND’s customer service is AMAZING and their employees actually listen to you. Their service is going to continue to improve with time and soon, when all of Canada is covered, all the haters and trolls out there will probably switch to WIND and start gloating about how they’ve always loved and supported WIND. Don’t hate, appreciate. Church!

  • genoki

    In Vancouver, Wind does not disable roaming in their home zone. If you don’t get Wind reception, then you flip to away zone and incur any charges.

    I have Wind Unlimited Data, I was downtown Vancouver (at sitting outside of Starbucks beside Scotiabank Theatre 900 Burrard St – essentially the centre of their home zone). Today I discovered I was charged ~ $10 for half an hour of checking email & websurfing while at that location.

    I use HTC HD2. It appears that either my phone or Wind network will not automatically flip back to their home zone connection.

    So be careful Wind users, its not enough that you are in their mapped zone area. If Wind signal doesn’t reach you, you are in $$ zone. Sucks.

    If my mobile life with Wind is going to be paranoia about home/away zone, is that any kind of life? I was hoping for so much more. Frak.

  • UseYourBrain

    If you’re afriad of being dinged on roaming in your WIND zone then just disable ‘roaming’ on your handset. Problem solved!

    Now if your handset doesn’t have that feature then that sucks you didn’t check for that when you were looking for a new handset. People just use your brains, Cantel (Rogers now for you young’ins) back in 1993 through 1995 had one hell of a blackhole on Granville Street from just north of 41st to around 33rd or so and they knew about it but did very little. I can’t remember the number of times that I dropped an important call on my way into downtown from YVR after returning to Vancouver. WIND has already more towers and coverage in place than Cantel did after being in business for more than 2 years and WIND has only been in service for almost 3 months. Give them another year and I’d bet you’ll forget the dropped calls and only remember the high bills and minute counting from being with the other big 3.

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