The IT Nerd

About an hour ago, I got this text from Freedom Mobile about their Apple Watch support. Something that my wife and I use:

So there’s some explanation that’s required to allow you to understand why this is a big deal. Let’s start with the fact that Apple Watch support is now available on their Nationwide network. Freedom Mobile’s Apple Watch support only worked on their own network. If you were outside of their network, as in you connected to a Rogers or Bell cell tower for example, your Apple Watch won’t get data. This is something that I admit that I never tested as that wasn’t top of mind for me when I did my testing of Freedom Mobile’s network a few months ago. That changes today as clearly Freedom Mobile have worked out some sort of an agreement with presumably Rogers and/or Bell and/or TELUS to allow Apple Watches belonging to Freedom Mobile customers to work on their networks.

That brings me to the second piece of news. Freedom Mobile has jacked Apple Watch users data buckets to 5GB up from 1GB at no extra charge. Now my wife and I are paying $10 a month each so that is a win for us. And to give you some points of comparison:

• Bell wants $15 a month for 1GB of data
• Rogers wants $15 a month for 1GB of data
• I wasn’t able to find what TELUS charges. But they’re likely $15 a month for 1GB of data as well as all of the “big 3” tend to copy each other. Any who can point me towards a definitive price on their website can leave a link in the comments below.

Now to be clear, the most that I have ever used with my Apple Watch during one billing cycle is about 500 MB. So 5 GB is overkill. But it’s still welcome as it is not costing my wife and I anything. I’ll be interested to see how it performs and once the weather warms up a bit more, I’ll be sure to do some testing and report back to you.

In the meantime, you have to wonder what if anything the “big 3” will do to respond to Freedom Mobile and how they have priced their Apple Watch support. This is a pretty big gauntlet that they’ve thrown down, and you have to think that they will respond to it at some point.

This entry was posted on April 18, 2024 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Freedom Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.