My personal experience with Fizz Mobile
Very good! Honestly, I am very pleased with Fizz. As a tech-savvy person, I like to be able to manage my account myself, and Fizz has a great web application to do that. I’ve only had to contact support two times, by live chat, and I always received super fast response (unlike my past experience with one of the big three, where I’d have to wait, and wait…). For the service, perks I get, and price, I haven’t found anything at least similar in all Canada (if you know something better, please do let me know in a comment below).
Now, a little more about the tech-specs 🙂 Currently, my base account plan is $30.60/month, but it’s down to $29.60/month with a $1 rebate for being with the service for more than 1 year. A little more about perks and upgrades below. For this, I am getting unlimited Canada wide calling, unlimited international SMS and MMS, and 4Gb data per month that rolls over for 2 months, if not used. So currently, I have over 12Gb available, which is pretty neat. I am getting a slightly better plan, because I signed up early on when the service was still in beta. Those who signed up earlier than me, are getting even better plans, like dirt cheap $15/month plans 🙂 As far as I know, the current plans are still attractively priced, and are about to be increased in the future. Fizz had a plan to increase the plans in Spring 2020, however come the pandemic, they decided to postpone this for a later time, a decision I kindly respect.
Now about perks and upgrades… Fizz has an interesting incentive model through perks and upgrades. Perks are basically free stuff you get from time to time, for example: free data, Bixi rides, etc. Most recently I received 5 x 1Gb mobile data that I can activate during 90 days, and use within 1 month. You can also gift your data to friends or charity, if you don’t need it. The nice thing about gifting your data, Fizz will donate money to local charity organizations. Upgrades are another incentive that are given based on accumulated loyalty points. The more time you spend with Fizz, the more loyalty points you will get. You can also get loyalty points by helping others in the community forums. If you have Fizz Internet, that will also give you even more loyalty points every month and upgrades. Some upgrades that I am aware of and currently use: monthly data (250Mb, 500Mb), monthly $ rebate, voicemail. These upgrades are unlocked as you gain more points, and level up.
Another important aspect is customer support. So far, I haven’t really needed to have much customer support, but on the two occasions that I have, it was a very good experience. I chose to contact support by Facebook messenger, and the response time was very quick (under 5 minutes). I found this to be a great experience, because I did not have to wait on the phone with silly music playing in the background, but mostly because I was communicating to the agent in written form. From my past experience with two of the big three (lower cost services) companies, who were using call centers outside of Canada, with agents having accents very difficult to understand, the live chat was great! However, I feel this may work better with people like me who are more tech-savvy and know their way around using a web application, and who don’t need guidance over the phone.
Regarding coverage – you need to sign up within Quebec, or the Ottawa region. If you get the Canada wide unlimited calling & data, you can still use service outside of the coverage area, it’s just considered roaming with partner networks. It is mentioned that you can use their service outside of the coverage area for up to 3 months, but there are legends online about people who’ve been out for longer and still use their service. Also, keep in mind that Fizz is actually owned and using Videotron’s network, so you get the reliability of a big mobile operator, for a better price.
Please note this is my personal opinion, and I am just writing about it because I like to give credit where credit is due (both to Fizz, and $100 credit to you by using my referral link https://fizz.ca/en?ref=53I4V ). And Fizz deserves a good word, since I’ve been enjoying their service so much. And besides, competition is a great thing (especially in Canada), and Fizz genuinely does good competition against other oligopolistic telecoms, albeit only in Quebec and Ottawa regions.
If you’d like to read my other post about Fizz Internet, see this.
I hope I used `albeit` correctly, never really figured out how to use this properly 🙂