Hello Koodo

Our family was on the Rogers Share Everything Plan. We paid $85 for the primary line and $35 for four additional lines. This is a total of $225 for 6GB of shared data per month.

As our boys use their phones more and more both during the weekend and at school, the 6GB data cap is being surpassed more and more frequently. I wanted to shop for a plan that has more data, preferably staying with Rogers. Rogers has a promotion for 14GB (6GB original) plan for $105, but each supplemental line costs $45 each resulting in a total of $285.

This is an effective increase of $60 per month. Surely with modern advances in data throughput and capacity other carriers can do better. I decided to shop elsewhere.

I first looked at Chatr and Public Mobile. Both give you nice bargain data rates but are limited to 3G speed, something I did not want to entertain.

From Public Mobile’s web site I discovered the possibility of Koodo and found that their $50 per month plan was perfect for us. This will increase our data capacity to 4GB per line. This is 20GB in total although not shareable, which I think we can live with. Another pleasant surprise is that when we activated our new plan in the store, we got a $10 per month discount for each line for the first 12 months! So instead of $250 per month, we are now looking at just $200. For $25 less we enjoy more data per individual!

I am quite happy with this transition. I’ve included a QR code of my referral code as a banner of this post, so that if you decide Koodo is right for you, then use my referral code. This way we can mutually benefit. Make sure you use the referral code before activating your new line. Unfortunately they spelt my name wrong, but the code should still work. Enjoy!

 

Google Adopts Apple Combine Hardware and Software Philosophy

Google held an event earlier today and introduced a suite of new hardware:

  • A phone called Pixel that works with Daydream their new VR headset;
  • Google WiFi router;
  • And an Amazon Echo like device called Google Home, that will work seamlessly with existing Chromecast devices

Google Assistant is the culmination of Google’s software strength in the area of search and machine learning. The event is peppered with a plethora of examples on how your daily life will be improved and facilitated by the Google Assistant through the use of Google’s new hardware. The hardware and software combination makes for a compelling and attractive offering to join the Google ecosystem.

I think Google is finally seeing the light of Apple’s philosophy of building solutions with full control of both hardware and software design. Apple still has two other areas where Google is still lacking:

  • A retail presence with a second to none personable support experience;
  • And its devotion and practice in personal privacy

It will be interesting to see if a future Google will make ways to close the remaining gaps. Of course, I’m also worried about how Google will serve you ads through these devices once they’ve trapped you into their ecosystem.