Avoid WIND like the plague.

[syuzh]

I was skeptical at first when everyone says their reception sucks, thinking "it can't be THAT bad." Wrong.
So I went to try it, told the guy selling me the phone & plan "I need to see if I can get reception, otherwise I'll be refunding it."
Guy says "OK OK OK."
Take it home, try to call someone, cuts out almost immediately after he picks up.
Go back and try to get a refund, guy says "We can only refund the phone, but can't refund your plan charges."
So I lose $30 to try a phone for <1 minute.
Thanks wind.

Found out my relative uses Wind. His feedback:
Stayed in the house in the same place, the reception randomly cuts in and out.
Into a basement and it's completely gone.
Into a large building (ex. superstore/home depot) and it cuts out.
You have to be outside at all times if you want good reception.

***** wind.

[george__]

Sorry to hear this. But I have another horror story to add!

Friend uses WIND and the sending and receiving of text messages is horrible. I send to my friend and it's hit and miss if friend will get it or not. If friend sends to me same thing hit or miss. Or friend ultimately gets the text message minutes later or I get the text message minutes later. It is reaally bad in busy areas like Mall and Universities.

[ditachan]

I was skeptical at first when everyone says their reception sucks, thinking "it can't be THAT bad." Wrong.
So I went to try it, told the guy selling me the phone & plan "I need to see if I can get reception, otherwise I'll be refunding it."
Guy says "OK OK OK."
Take it home, try to call someone, cuts out almost immediately after he picks up.
Go back and try to get a refund, guy says "We can only refund the phone, but can't refund your plan charges."
So I lose $30 to try a phone for <1 minute.
Thanks wind.

Found out my relative uses Wind. His feedback:
Stayed in the house in the same place, the reception randomly cuts in and out.
Into a basement and it's completely gone.
Into a large building (ex. superstore/home depot) and it cuts out.
You have to be outside at all times if you want good reception.

***** wind.

Sorry to hear... Wind works great here in Edmonton.

[freerider_4life]

Wind works fine here in Hamilton, I don't know what your issue is, could have been the phone.

It's right on the receipt that Wind doesn't refund time cards. Many providers won't refund time cards because of the abuse that went on in the past of people getting a phone, using it for a week and then returning it.

Try geting a hold of customer service about your time card. It's not worth trashing their name completely when their policy is written in many places.

[ShadowVlican]

my friend (with the same phone on wind) consistently gets better reception than me (on mobilicity) here in markham

go figure....

[Dina_E]

my friend (with the same phone on wind) consistently gets better reception than me (on mobilicity) here in markham

go figure....
comparing wind and mobilicity
thats like winning the special olympics.

congrats

[killer007]

hahahah that is why you need to test it out...
its hit or miss
if you get good receptions, you are a lucky person in the world cuz you can save money...

[george__]

I don't think WIND does contract sooo yeah try and see. I personally just stuck with Bell even though I pay a bit more

[t1mbit]

There is nothing wrong with WIND! We have the most megga hurts and the best plans! Our service is the best and we care about our customers. So the real reason that there is no signal sometimes is rogers is blocking out megga hurts! Tony said just today while in Paris that we should do 2 things. 1 stop the blocking from Rogers and 2 call Rogers from an outside line and get him a roaming add on!

WIND!

[IamToronto]

i see youre in BC
its not that bad in toronto anymore
it was as you described at one point... (1-2 years ago)
it has improved greatly but of course it cannot compete to the likes of rogers wireless

its coming, though. im guessing thats why thier plans are becoming more corporate-goon-style

[IamToronto]

There is nothing wrong with WIND! We have the most megga hurts and the best plans! Our service is the best and we care about our customers. So the real reason that there is no signal sometimes is rogers is blocking out megga hurts! Tony said just today while in Paris that we should do 2 things. 1 stop the blocking from Rogers and 2 call Rogers from an outside line and get him a roaming add on!

WIND!

LOLOL dude makes an account to defend a company hahahaha wowww

[t1mbit]

LOLOL dude makes an account to defend a company hahahaha wowww

Wind is the best. No need to defend the best. We have the most megga hurts. Can Rogers say that NO!, Can Bell NO! Can Telus NO! 750,000 subs and growing!

WIND!

[Dina_E]

higher the frequency, the less penetration through walls and floors you troll.

[george__]

higher the frequency, the less penetration through walls and floors you troll.

lol

[sexyj]

Wind = win !

[george__]

So many WIND lovers on RFD :|

[t1mbit]

So many WIND lovers on RFD :|

I speak only wind. They are the best! The most megga hurts and the best plans, customer service, and company!

WIND!

[bas00m]

Wind is the best. No need to defend the best. We have the most megga hurts. Can Rogers say that NO!, Can Bell NO! Can Telus NO! 750,000 subs and growing!

WIND!

dude??? 750,000 subs ... are you kidding yourself???!!! the last official number was 430,000 stop the BS dude ... you obviously some high school kid who works for a WIND store! and WTF is megga hurts??!!!

stupid troll

[dlseeker]

I was skeptical at first when everyone says their reception sucks, thinking "it can't be THAT bad." Wrong.
So I went to try it, told the guy selling me the phone & plan "I need to see if I can get reception, otherwise I'll be refunding it."
Guy says "OK OK OK."
Take it home, try to call someone, cuts out almost immediately after he picks up.
Go back and try to get a refund, guy says "We can only refund the phone, but can't refund your plan charges."
So I lose $30 to try a phone for <1 minute.
Thanks wind.

Found out my relative uses Wind. His feedback:
Stayed in the house in the same place, the reception randomly cuts in and out.
Into a basement and it's completely gone.
Into a large building (ex. superstore/home depot) and it cuts out.
You have to be outside at all times if you want good reception.

***** wind.

You tried it for less than a minute and your able to come to these conclusions???

The fact is than the Wind reliability may not be as high as the big 3 but have you tried Rogers/Fido in downtown Toronto at peak times? Data is unusable and voice calls are often poor.

A lot has to do with how good the reception is on your phone. When I first signed up with Wind I got a cheap Samsung flip phone and reception was not very good. I then switched to a Nokia and all of a sudden reception\call quality improved very significantly. Blackberries are also supposed to be good.

[Ascott]

The coverage is spotty. Whether or not WIND will work for you is entirely dependant on geographical location. Where I live and work it's pretty great. A few places I've been to it's pretty awful. I've heard data speeds in the GTA are completely abysmal, but I wouldn't know from first hand experience. AWS just has poor penetration, so you need to take that into account too - it's not for you if you live in a basement or work in a department store or something.

To be fair, when you're building your network infrastructure from the ground up there are going to be issues. Anyone else remember Fido's first few years?

As for the OP, You're kinda' on the hook for not asking about the air time specifically. Or asking about a loaner phone/sim (I can't guarantee they still do this, but they used to give out a cheap active phone in-store if you left a valid CC as collateral).

[madman604]

Megahertz.

the higher the #, the worse the penetration and signal strength.

a good phone also make a difference.

[Nucks]

Are half of you really that dull to not spot a jokeposter right away?

Anyways, here in Vancouver I've heard so many varying opinions on both the wind and mobilicity. Those that insist their service is better than when they were with the big 3 and then those that can't even make a phone call.

[nuclearbroccoli]

T1mbit is just a troll. He's doing three same thing on Wind's Facebook page as well. Ignore him.
Wind's service quality unfortunately depends on where you live. Some areas are great, others not so good.
I always suggest to people to just try it out with a cheap plan first and find out. If it works, great - you get to save a pile of money. If it doesn't work for you, then return everything with no huge loss.

[Nucks]

You can't just return Wind or Mobiclity's phones can you?

[Ascott]

WIND will accept refunds on phones under 14 days and 30 minutes of talk time, just like everyone else.

[tt01tt]

I live in BC (Lower Mainland). I am thinking about going to WIND. Does anyone know how the reception is. Also on the their website they show that the WIND network does not cover many areas east and south of surrey. Does this mean that I will not be able to make phone calls from these areas?

[Ascott]

It means that you'll be roaming. You'll be paying $0.25/minute for calls, $0.25 for outgoing text, and $0.10 for 25kB of data when in those areas. If you're going to spend extended time out of or on the edge of the coverage area, WIND likely isn't the best option for you.

[nyder74]

It means that you'll be roaming. You'll be paying $0.25/minute for calls, $0.25 for outgoing text, and $0.10 for 25kB of data when in those areas. If you're going to spend extended time out of or on the edge of the coverage area, WIND likely isn't the best option for you.

Wind and Mobiclity are hit and miss in regards to reception, why bother gambling just go to koodo, its no contract and cheap.

Nyd

[Ascott]

Because competition is a good thing? Because WIND and Mobi are still less expensive and work without issue for a lot of people? Because Telus/Bell don't have perfect coverage either? There are perfectly valid reasons.

Like a broken record in here.

[rf134a]

I speak only wind. They are the best! The most megga hurts and the best plans, customer service, and company!

WIND!

I like the bigger geebees.

[Redmask]

Hard to believe so many people fail sarcasm/troll detection here.

Anyway, AScott is right, Wind is all about where you are. I get 4-5 bars everywhere in my area and most places I frequent so paying $40 a month instead of $100 for the equivalent Rogers plan was an incredible deal. My girlfriend gets 4-5 bars everywhere but her house which is in a spot where Wind gets crappy reception. So anyone thinking about it should definitely take a phone home and test it out for a day or two while doing their usual routines. Universities and colleges are notoriously difficult spots for most carriers by the way, not just Wind. They should do what the others were forced to do and install repeaters on campus or nearby.

The thing to remember is that Wind is a new network. Rogers and the other companies were terrible once upon a time too, it took a long time to get where they are now. Wind has made many network expansions recently, it's a lot better than it was a year ago. I hope they start to concentrate on nailing down dead zones and working on improving existing coverage areas.

[LostInTruth]

Wind works fine here in Hamilton, I don't know what your issue is, could have been the phone.

It's right on the receipt that Wind doesn't refund time cards. Many providers won't refund time cards because of the abuse that went on in the past of people getting a phone, using it for a week and then returning it.

Try geting a hold of customer service about your time card. It's not worth trashing their name completely when their policy is written in many places.
Yet, WIND and others bash the Big 3 on a daily basis... WIND needs to change its advertisement/marketing team.

[nodyarg]

Yet, WIND and others bash the Big 3 on a daily basis... WIND needs to change its advertisement/marketing team.

And rogers/bell/telus don't? Everyone knows wind/mobi have the best plans for the best prices. If robellus offered a fully unlimited plan wind/mobi would be out of business almost overnight, but they are too greedy and make most of their money in overages and surcharges so it will never happen.

Instead, they tell their store employees to spread falsified negative propaghanda about unlimited companies, and pay internet bloggers to do the same. They open subsidiary companies under different names. Why? To offer people almost-unlimited plans, but under a different company name so the subsidiaries can be dissasociated from their bad reputations, with the intention of disbanding the subsidiaries as soon as the "unlimited" competition has been eliminated, only to return to their price gouging ways.

They had an illegal monopoly on the telecommunications industry in Canada for years, but for some reason always triumphed in resulting anti-trust lawsuits. They also price gouged customers, resulting in Canada having the highest cellular rates in the world!!

The truth? Avoid robellus like the plague. Start that thread and we will see how many horror stories robellus has. Fido are still trying to chase me for that one $500 phone bill. lol.