# Telus vs. Bell



## squawx (Aug 10, 2010)

I am looking into getting the iPhone 4. I am with Koodo right now, so I am looking to change to Telus or Bell. Anyone have any opinions on which is better to go with, given the plans they offer, service, etc?


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## Paul82 (Sep 19, 2007)

Service is the same or at least it should be as it's the same network... Plans are pretty specific to your needs... Though I'd prefer telus for their customer service it's not the best but it's much better than bell (not sure it's possible to be worse)


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Since you don't give your location, I will suggest not to use Telus if you live in, or travel to, either Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Telus has no roaming privileges with Sask Tel or Manitoba Telephone Service, so my Telus 3GS iPhone was dead on a recent trip there.


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## Puccasaurus (Dec 28, 2003)

I find Telus customer service to be good, though their plans are not the most competitive unless you talk to retentions. Text messaging seems particularly weak on Telus -- there was a time when I kept getting other people's texts but that seems to be fixed these days.


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## RunTheWorldOnMac (Apr 23, 2006)

You can't talk to a real person at Bell after 7pm. I don't know how those clowns continue to operate.


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## daniels (Jul 27, 2009)

i'd go with neither one, fido and rogers have edge internet when 3G is not available and cheaper plans. If you are going to go with telus or bell only then i'd go with telus because they're data early cancellation fee is $200 unlike bell who charge $400.00. I hate telus customer service i have to call them every month because they get something wrong with my bill. Im on fido right now paying $25.00 for the voice plan and have a flexible data rate from:
100mb to 1GB, 
$10.00 for 100mb
$15.00 for 150mb
$20.00 for 500mb
$25.00 for 1GB 
25cents per mb after 1GB.


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##  Dumpling (May 28, 2010)

No complaints with Telus as of yet. I have been a customer for 7 years and on contract with a 3GS for 9 months. Collusion has gone into full swing recently as the $50 plans are about the same between Telus and Bell. However, with Telus you get voicemail 3 (this is automatically iPhone visual voicemail) and a choice of 1 of 3 options. You can double regular airtime minutes, have unlimited text messaging (including MMS), or 5 favourite numbers with unlimited talk and text. With Bell, for the same $50 you only get 5 favourites for unlimited talk and text. Visual voicemail is only available as a $20 bundle add on. Unfortunately, Telus has removed 2 excellent free perks as of Sunday. Early evenings and weekends free as well as 6 months free calling are now gone. Seems that they are taking advantage of the iPhone demand to see how little they can get away with giving to rabid Canadian iPhone fans. These 2 perks alone really separated Telus from the bunch and it is a shame they have done this. The credo of selling less for more $ from the idiots that run Telcos will never go away it seems. A family member was ready to sign with Telus when the iPhone 4 was a little easier to get. After they removed those 2 perks they have changed their mind and are going to wait for them to be offered again. Judging from the launch fail Telus had last year with the iPhone and their quick reaction with better plans, I hope that Rogers takes the lion's share of business with iPhone 4.


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## CantStop (Aug 8, 2010)

Bell is the worst.


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## Crem (Jul 8, 2010)

i was with bell before going to my iphone 4 (which is on telus) and they were the absolute worst company to deal with, terrible customer service, i dont recommend them at all... telus has been great tho, perfect signal, good customer service too


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

SINC said:


> Since you don't give your location, I will suggest not to use Telus if you live in, or travel to, either Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Telus has no roaming privileges with Sask Tel or Manitoba Telephone Service, so my Telus 3GS iPhone was dead on a recent trip there.


Ditto on this. Telus' maps show 3G in Winnipeg, but it's *not* there. Telus reps will often insist to potential customers that it is, but it's not.

Telus' insistence on relying on the whims of all the local carriers rather than building their own towers has really turned being under contract to them into an adventure. They used to have data across the whole province in Manitoba. They sold Blackberries, and all kinds of other smartphones with big data usage. Problem was, their data was sold based on their ability to use MTS's towers for it, and shortly after that MTS cut them off. So you have a province full of Telus customers under three year contracts who suddenly had no data outside of Winnipeg city limits, and unless they're using a CDMA phone, no signal of any kind anywhere.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

I get the feeling people have had good and bad experiences with every cell phone provider.
I have two cell phones with Bell for close to ten years now and never had a problem, either with their billing or their customer service - not that I ever use their customer service except once every few years to get a "hardware refresh"
Another cell phone used to be with Fido - that ended up being a bit of a disaster where I in the end had to send a registered letter to get the service cancelled - it was just impossible to do over the phone.
That cell phone service is now with Virgin simply because they had the best rate for what was needed - no problems with them either.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

Virgin is Bell, so your providers haven't actually changed even if the logo on your bill has.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

I switched from Fido to Virgin with the third cell phone, but that happened before Bell obtained 100% ownership of Virgin.
Virgin uses the bell network, but I think their billing and customer support are different.
Their plans are certainly dramatically different


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## SnowDX (Nov 10, 2010)

SINC said:


> Since you don't give your location, I will suggest not to use Telus if you live in, or travel to, either Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Telus has no roaming privileges with Sask Tel or Manitoba Telephone Service, so my Telus 3GS iPhone was dead on a recent trip there.


I realize I am bumping a thread that's a few months old, but in case anyone is searching and comes up with this thread, I wanted to correct the information here.

With regards to Saskatchewan, as of the date you posted this, the reason you could not use A Telus iPhone in Saskatchewan had nothing to do with roaming agreements. It had to do with the fact that the iPhone was on the HSPA network and on August 10, 2010, SaskTel did not have an HSPA network up and running for public use. Anyone with a Telus CDMA phone would have been fine in Saskatchewan since Telus has had full use of the SaskTel CDMA network since spring 2009 (prior to that they only shared the network for the cities and major highways). August 16 was when SaskTel launched the HSPA network and Telus was allowed to have customers on it a week later. Telus has an agreement with SaskTel for the HSPA network so now anyone with a Telus HSPA device, will have coverage in SK. The network isn't complete yet but it's already better than Rogers coverage in SK. The main areas are covered now and many small towns as well, they are still filling in the smaller areas though.


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