How much do you pay for your phone plan, what do you get in return and in which country? - eviltoast

Slovakia, 300GB for 13 EUR/month, no texts and calls included. Those are 5 cents I think.
The carrier has an agreement with another one for coverage extension, but with official FUP of 20GB in that network.
This carrier however disregards that and instead allows up to 80GB, but for a few months after enabling 4G from that other carrier the FUP wasn’t applied at all.

But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

It operates on that other network like MVNO, and if your phone decides to stick there, which people report happens a lot, say hello to far lower FUP instead. The carrier’s own network is also generally far slower.
I also found a little network issue (tested with 2 phones) where receiving calls are broken in a fairly specific scenario, but I don’t know how to report that. To keep it short, if VoLTE isn’t available, when switching from 2 of the 4G bands to one of the 2G bands, the call fails to connect after several long seconds of silence on caller end, and no notification of failed call attempt is sent.

I can work around both issues by selecting specific bands as needed manually, but that generally requires root and use of app like Network Signal Guru (inconvenient).
This allows me to decide whether I want more data amount, faster network speed, better outgoing call coverage, or higher chance of receiving a call. Yeah… their network sucks.

I also believe they break the EU roam like at home regulation:

Most plans only have half the data amount it seems they should have, but maybe I just calculated that wrong.
But this plan I have has… ZERO data for EU roaming.

2 x (price of mobile bundle excluding VAT / regulated maximum wholesale cap per GB) = data limit (in GB) when roaming

Hmmm… how does that give a zero.

  • Monster@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    I feel like I’m missing out on something. I’m in Canada, unlimited texts, calls, etc. 225GB for two lines, $300 something/month. I feel like you are all in on some joke that I’m missing.

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      27 days ago

      Canadian phone plans are insane. I’m on Roger’s and they graciously allow me to “Roam like Home” for only 15/day in Europe… or I could buy a SIM card for five Euros that’ll last me a fucking month.

    • sbv@sh.itjust.works
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      27 days ago

      That seems really high, even for Canada.

      Have you looked at any of the flanker brands, like Koodo, Fizz, Public Mobile?

    • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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      27 days ago

      Geez were not much better in the US with telecoms but I’m only paying $110 for three lines ‘unlimited’ Simple Choice through TMobile. It used to be 6GB data but they upgraded it in the last few years. Even still I’m thinking about switching to Mint for $15/mo per line but I’m lazy as well…

      My parents are through Verizon and pay the same for 2 lines even though they barely use their phones. One of them just upgraded from a flip phone this year.

    • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      27 days ago

      That’s even more expensive than Czech republic.

      Which is what got me to ask this. I can’t find anything near what I have there. The closest seems to be Kaktus at similar price, with 10GB (rather than my current 300GB for that price), then 2Mb/s Unlimited. Also 100 minutes or SMS, but still…
      Then there’s O2 which for similar price offers 3GB if you’re up to 26… How generous.
      13 EUR is around 19CAD or 330Kč.

      Unlimited data with O2 for 1 line would be around 80 CAD checking T-Mobile and O2.

      Quickly checking my carrier’s site, similar to what you have (2 lines, unlimited data, SMS and calls) would cost 34 EUR per month. That’s around 50 CAD…

    • Monster@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      Just to add some context I guess. From what they’re telling me, the cost of my phone along with the other phone is attached onto the monthly cost. Since I have a Fold 5 and the other is a S24 FE which can ONLY use premium plans, according to Bell, the monthly cost is that absurd price.