Fido Adds Contract Plans With Subsidized Phones

By Alex Angove

Last updated 27 January 2016

Fido is no longer a BYO-only carrier; you can now pick up a subsidized phone on a 2-year contract. Good phones, too, like the iPhone 6s, Samsung Galaxy S6, and LG G4, to name a few. Being a Rogers subsidiary means Fido users will get comparable or identical cell service to folks on the parent carrier, thanks to them both operating over the same network.

At launch, there are 21 phones in total, each for a varying up-front cost on a 24 month plan.

Compared to Rogers

Fido customers will be used to plans that are cheaper than their Rogers BYO counterparts, even more so since Rogers effectively removed BYO plan pricing from its lineup. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Fido's new contract plans; they're generally the same price as Rogers Canada-Wide plans, which means you can go cheaper if you're willing to accept local minutes from Rogers.

Default plan pricing

Here's how Fido keeps its reputation as a cheap provider, but gets to eat a big cake of profits, too.

Take a standard 1GB plan with no phone attached from each carrier and compare them. The closest Rogers match is a local calls-only option, whereas Fido's plan has unlimited Canada-wide minutes and is still much cheaper.

#1	Fido	Fido $39 Data, Talk & Text Plan with 20GB 20GB data at download speeds up to 150Mbps Contract (24 mths) $39/mth Go	$39/mth	Go
#2	Rogers	Rogers Infinite 50GB Non-shared Student Plan 50GB full speed data at download speeds up to 250Mbps Contract (24 mths) $44/mth Go	$44/mth	Go

At first glance this looks great, but you need to add a phone to the Fido plans before you can really see what's going on.

Stick an iPhone 6s on it

Let's take a look at the iPhone 6s on the same 1GB plan. This time Rogers actually comes out on top, but only if you're happy with local calling. If you want to add Canada-wide minutes for $5 per month, you're pretty much paying the same no matter which of the two you go with.

Fido plans may be cheaper at first glance, but the expensive iPhone adds significantly to the monthly price of the plan in order to off-set the cheaper up-front cost.

Fido phones not only cost up-front, but they add to the price of the plan, once they've been attached to it.

Now let's take a look at a cheaper handset: LG G4.

The LG G4 is a great phone; pretty much the equivalent of hte Galaxy S6 in every way that matters, but thanks to its lesser popularity it's dropped in price significantly since release. Despite the lower up-front price, Fido's plan still jumps up from $70 to $90, thanks to the attached device.

Once again it's the same story: almost-identical pricing for Canada-wide calls, but Rogers wins out if you're happy to restrict yourself to local.

Much of a muchness

If you want Canada-wide calls, they're both pretty much the same.

This theme of identical Canada-wide pricing, with Rogers winning out if you want local plans, runs through the whole range of plans from both carriers. Considering that both operate over the same network, and are owned by the same company, there's not much to differentiate between the two aside from phone range, or the occasional promotional deal.

If you're set on either, you may as well pop over to the other's website and see if there are any special deals going. Otherwise, you're going to end up paying pretty close to the same amount over 2 years for the same device + plan combo on either carrier.