Bell Joins Rogers Offering Unlimited Mobile Data Plans

By Stephen Clark

Last updated 14 June 2019

Article Summary

While Rogers made the announcement yesterday that they would be launching unlimited data plans today, Bell took that as their cue to launch their own unlimited data plans. On first glance they appear the same as Rogers Infinite plans, but the devil is in the details.

Surprising many in the industry, two of the three major mobile networks in Canada have launched unlimited data plans. This has been in high demand by consumers for years, and previously only offered by regional carriers or on prepaid plans with reduced speeds.

Rogers Infinite Unlimited Data Details

Today, Rogers announced their Rogers Infinite wireless plans. Going forward, all new cell phone plans signed up with Rogers will never incur data overage charges in Canada. Instead, when you hit your monthly data cap then upload and download speeds are throttled to 256 kbps. That's fast enough to continue browsing and streaming music, but even low-resolution video from YouTube or Netflix will not work without buffering.

To promote the new move to overage-free unlimited data, Rogers is offering three promo plans:

Rogers Infinite +10 with 10GB of full speed data for $75/month
Rogers Infinite +20 with 20GB of full speed data for $95/month
Rogers Infinite +50 with 50GB of full speed data for $125/month

All three plans are $10/month less in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Previous Share plans have been replaced with the three Rogers Infinite unlimited data and the promo plans can use the full speed data allotment to share across other smartphone, smartwatch and tablet plans.

Although Infinite unlimited data is now a feature on all smartphone plans, the Smart Tab pricing tier has been removed. Previously, this allowed new customers to buy a cheap or mid-range smartphone for about $5-10/month. Rogers continues to offer Premium (+$20/month), Premium+ (+$30/month) and Ultra (+$40/month) 2-year plan contracts to help reduce the upfront cost of cell phones.

Rogers states that they plan to offer a new financing system later this summer that allows customers to buy any phone they sell for as little as $0 down.

Bell Unlimited Data Plans

In response, Bell has launched their own unlimited plans. They may have had this in the works for a while since their web site is already accepting new subscriptions.

Bell appears to be matching the Rogers Infinite promotional plans, but also offer 2-year Premium, Premium Plus and Ultra pricing if you plan to get a new smartphone when you sign up.

Unlimited 10 with 10GB full speed data
- $75/month Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
- $95/month Premium
- $105/month Premium Plus
- $115/month Premium Ultra
Unlimited 20 with 20GB full speed data
- $95/month BYOD
- $115/month Premium
- $125/month Premium Plus
- $135/month Premium Ultra
Unlimited 50 with 50GB full speed data
- $125/month BYOD
- $145/month Premium
- $155/month Premium Plus
- $165/month Premium Ultra

There's no clear word on whether Bell will follow Rogers in lifting data overages from all plans, but like Rogers they followed in removing the cheapest $5/month Smartphone plan that allowed customers to get a cheap phone on a two year plan for little additional cost.

Rogers Infinite vs. Bell Unlimited

So which is better? Right now it appears easier to get a new phone on these promotional plans with Bell, and Bell has a larger coverage zone with faster LTE speeds. However, Rogers is making this change permanent while the Bell Unlimited deals are planned to expire after June 30, 2019. The absence of Smart Tab and Smartphone pricing tiers will be missed, but these changes show a big shift in the Canadian mobile market.

WhistleOut has taken a deeper look at Rogers Infinite and compared it to other unlimited data plans in Canada. We've also looked to see if it's better than unlimited data plans in the US (hint: it's not).