Fido Review: Good 4G Services Don't Cut It in 2026

Fido has always been positioned as a budget-friendly alternative to its parent company, Rogers. Over the years, its reputation has bounced between “great value” and “sometimes confusing promos,” depending on where you look. But Fido remains one of Canada’s most popular mid-tier carriers, especially for people who want a clear-cut plan with a decent amount of data at a price that won’t empty your wallet.

Fido’s 50GB Talk & Text BYOP plan is the one I commonly see advertised by the carrier. At $55/month, it offers a healthy chunk of data, unlimited Canada-wide calling and text messaging, nationwide coverage, and no contract as long as you bring your own phone. I took a month to test how the service holds up for work, travel, streaming and my day-to-day needs. Using Fido’s 50GB plan as my primary connection, I committed myself to productivity tasks, commutes, long browsing sessions, and video calls, all powered by Fido's 4G LTE services.

This review breaks down what I found, including the good and the bad, and it offers some insight into who should consider this plan.

Fido plans and pricing

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Fido provides a large offering of plans with varying pools of data to choose from. Its 50GB Talk & Text BYOP provides a perfect balance of data allotment as well as unlimited Canada-wide talk and text to users. Each of Fido's plans come with data overage protection, so if you do happen to go over, you'll have the option to purchase more data to use until the end of your billing cycle. Data allotments increase as the plans get higher in price. 

On top of higher data pools, Fido also increases the number of international texts you can send each month on its pricier plans. For instance, the 50GB Talk & Text BYOP offers 500 international texts to use. The 70GB Talk & Text plan gives you 1,000. 

Users also get other benefits, such as the Call Display with Name Display feature. Plus, travellers get roaming under the Fido Roam banner. For $16 a day, Canadians can use Fido's plans while abroad.

Here are Fido's current mobile plan options:

Fido family plans

Unlike the Big Three, Fido doesn't offer traditional family plans or opportunities to save on your bill by adding lines to your account. While Fido does allow users to add up to seven lines on an account, the carrier doesn't leverage any discounts on the extra lines or incorporate credits, a perk offered by Rogers and Bell.

There are no data-sharing options with Fido either. All plans are designed for individual users, even if they are under the same account. So, although you may be activating a line for yourself and your child, each of you will operate as individual users, taking advantage of your plan perks, no matter the plan chosen.

So, for instance, let's imagine you activate a 50GB, Talk & Text plan for yourself and a 10GB, Talk & Text plan for your child. Both of you will get access to unlimited Canada-wide talk and text, plus your own respective data buckets to use monthly. Here's the cost breakdown:

• 50GB, Talk & Text - $55/month
• 10GB, Talk & Text - $50/month
• Monthly total - $105/month 

How I rated Fido

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Price

One of the clear advantages of having services with Fido is the price difference when compared to the Big Three. As a smaller MVNO, Fido is able to provide cheaper monthly bills for cell services. Although there are quite a few concessions to be made, there's no denying that the price is very budget-friendly. At $55/month, I paid nearly half the amount I have been paying under Rogers, Bell, and Telus this year. Fido also consistently offers promotions and credits to reduce the price even further. For instance, you can activate AutoPay to reduce the monthly cost by $5. Bear in mind that Fido does tack on an $80 activation fee when signing up.

One of the more annoying quirks of Fido's plans is that it doesn't include hotspot access. Many carriers now offer hotspotting support as a core tenet of their plans. I was a little surprised to learn that hotspot support is a $5 add-on with Fido. While it does give customers some flexibility, in the event they don't need to hotspot, it feels antiquated in 2025.

To put it plainly, the annual costs of Fido's 50GB, Talk & Text - BYOP amount to $660. While the carrier does offer cheaper plans, the 50GB, Talk & Text plan is a good mix of a sustainable data bucket and affordability. Though outside of Fido, some flanker brands like Lucky Mobile and Fizz undercut the carrier with cheaper plans and more data. However, network coverage may not be as thorough as Fido's.

Score:  3.5 out of 5

Value

Fido's value proposition is fairly strong in the grand scheme of things. In regards to the 50GB, Talk & Text plan, you get unlimited Canada-wide calling, text, and picture and video messaging. Additionally, you receive access to 500 international texts that can be used each month. Voicemail is also supported for up to three messages at a time before your inbox becomes full. Plus, you get 50GB of 4G LTE data each month. All-in-all, this is a very moderate plan with benefits that should serve many Canadians well. You may not be getting the red carpet rolled out with white-glove service, but for the price, Fido is a great option for many households.

Beyond the staple plan perks, Fido doesn't sweeten the deal all too much. If you have a Rogers Red credit card activated, you can receive 3% cash back value as a Fido customer. Beyond this, Fido customers are left hanging when it comes to additional benefits to their plan.

Score:  3.5 out of 5

Data speeds

A large part of how Fido operates as a cheaper alternative to the Big Three is that it only supports 4G LTE. So, when signing up for Fido's services, expect to receive slower-than-typical speeds in 2025. Many carriers, even smaller MVNOs, have moved beyond 4G LTE to support 5G in many areas of Canada. From this perspective, Fido's data speeds look a bit archaic, especially when we consider how we interact with our devices these days.

Over the course of the month of use, I experienced around 150Mbps speeds in Toronto. During peak hours or in areas of high congestion, I saw speeds drop well below 100Mbps. In more rural areas of Ontario, like Grand Bend and Barrie, Fido's speeds drop to a staggeringly low 1.45Mbps. In metro cities, I found a lot of success using Fido as my source for scrolling and watching TikTok videos while on my commutes.

If you're travelling to some smaller cities in Ontario or Canada, Fido may not support a strong enough signal to power your Netflix binge. Thinking about streaming games remotely from your mobile device? Think again, I was barely able to hold a connection that let me use Xbox Cloud Gaming while on the go. Thankfully, I remained connected, travelling to rural areas in Ontario, able to receive emails and send a social media post nonetheless.

Score:  2 out of 5

Coverage and network reliability

Fido operates as a subsidiary brand under Rogers and therefore uses Rogers' towers for its network. The main difference, however, is that Fido operates entirely on 4G LTE. Unfortunately, there is no 5G option on Fido's service, even if you wanted to pay a higher monthly amount and lived in a 5G supported area of Canada. Fido's services are available coast to coast, with coverage provided to over 97% of Canadians. Major hubs for Fido's service can be found across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

In metro cities, like Toronto, I was able to consistently find full bars while walking down the street. I was able to enter densely populated areas like The Distillery's Christmas Market or Eaton Centre and only see a small drop off in signal. Overall, I've been pretty happy with the network coverage and reliability.

Outside of its 4G LTE network, Fido does support Extended Coverage. If you travel outside of the carrier's network, you'll see Fido-EXT appear on your device. This provides additional coverage when off Fido's network at no extra charge (within the limits of your plan). 

Score:  4 out of 5

Customer service

Fido offers a few different avenues you can take if you have a discrepancy with your bill or if you need to contact them for account changes. On the official website, you can find a support page for updates on service issues, new offers, and a chatbot named Jack, which can help review your bill. If you'd like to speak to a Fido Customer Solutions Specialist, the lines are open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET. 

After contacting Fido's customer service line, I was met with a 10-minute wait time before speaking to someone. Considering it was a Thursday afternoon, I was pretty surprised. I took the time to ask about any upcoming promotions or discounts that could be applied to my account. Unfortunately, at the time, there weren't any notable promotions that could be leveraged to my benefit.

Score:  3.5 out of 5

Signing up with Bell

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It's a pretty paint-by-numbers flow when signing up with Fido. Through the official website, I was able to build my own plan under a BOYD term. I was also advised to check and see if my device was eSIM compatible (it was, as it's the iPhone 17 Pro). I also added on the hotspot access for an additional $5/month prior to checkout. Annoyingly, and not exclusive to Fido, there is a setup fee attached to the activation. In this case, Fido charges $80 to activate a new line.

I was also able to port my number to Fido.  If you are coming from a different carrier, you can have Fido handle the transfer process only if you haven't cancelled your existing services. You must have an active Fido SIM card or eSIM to complete the transfer. It's a routine process that even customers can complete via Fido's website.

Managing my plan

The Fido My Account app is available on both iOS and Android and is a great tool for managing your account—I found it easy to track my monthly usage. Fido also makes it easy to view and pay my bill straight from the app. There's also the option to set up autopay in the app so I can have that peace of mind. Promotions and offers even show up while using the Fido My Account app. 

Overall, it's pretty easy to navigate Fido’s app. There aren't too many surprises or additional features. If all you're looking to do is keep a close eye on your account and manage your bill, you'll get by just fine using the app.

Am I satisfied with the 50GB Talk & Text plan?

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Fido is a great opportunity to break away from the larger carriers in Canada and save some extra money. The company offers stable LTE services with a decent data bucket that'll suit the lifestyle of many Canadians. For me, a heavy data user who enjoys streaming content while on the go, playing games via the cloud, and using my cellular services to power my workflow at a coffee shop, Fido left more to be desired.

Data allotment

Unless you live in a rural part of Canada, there's a high probability you've transitioned to 5G services at this point. I, for one, have been accustomed to being on a 5G network for many years, so going back to 4G LTE has been a bit of a struggle. Using Fido's LTE network to stream music on Spotify and using navigation services in Toronto worked just fine. Demanding more from Fido's data pool and network is where the cracks began to show.

50GB is a pretty decent pool of data for the average Canadian to use. With this, you'll have enough data to doomscroll on X and Reddit as well as answer emails. Where you might feel a bottleneck is when it comes to video content. Depending on your habits, 50GB of data can go quickly if flipping through TikTok or Instagram Reels solely on Fido's network. You'll also go through a lot of your data if streaming content in higher resolutions.

As mentioned earlier, Fido's hotspot support is a $5/month add-on for customers. As someone who enjoys freeing myself from my home office, I've relied on hotspotting to help power my workflow at a coffee shop or airport when I want reliable internet access. While I've been able to hotspot to my laptop and answer emails just fine, uploading larger files to Google Drive has proved to be a pain with long wait times.

Gaming and streaming

This is the first time I've been able to test services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and Amazon Luna entirely on a 4G LTE connection. Right off the bat, I would not recommend using a 4G LTE network to reliably stream games. I attempted to play Powerwash Simulator 2 on Xbox Cloud Gaming using Fido's network. The latency was pretty unstable. Ultimately, I gave up after 5 minutes or so due to poor bitrates and screen tearing. 

Typically, you need download speeds of around 10Mbps to have an adequate experience. With this in mind, though, having a strong connection plays a part too. The infrastructure of cloud gaming isn't made to reliably be supported on 4G LTE connections. This doesn't ultimately fall on the shoulders of Fido, but its 4G LTE speeds do impact the performance when playing games on the cloud. So, keep this in mind if you're eyeing a gaming session during your commute.

I did find success streaming video content on Fido's network. Keeping in mind top speeds at 150Mbps, much of the content I streamed was in SD or in 480p. As far as market standards are concerned, streaming in 480p is archaic. Most carriers support 720p at a bare minimum, even when throttled. While the differences may not be glaring on a smartphone, some shows and movies show the rough edges more than others. Rewatching Stranger Things, the darker scenes don't hold up as much as I'd like them to on Fido's network.

Fido versus the competition

Fido is one of the more recognizable MVNOs in Canada, under the Rogers umbrella. However, there are plenty of other flanker brands available that give Fido a run for its money. When we start looking at Fido and placing it against the competition, there's a narrative that shows the carrier being expensive within its respective lane.

Fido's $55/month pricing looks fairly attractive when compared to the Big Three. However, as we start comparing Fido against smaller carriers like Lucky Mobile, Fizz, and Koodo, that price begins to look far more premium than what's on the market. For instance, Lucky Mobile offers a comparable data pool with Canada-wide call and texting for $39, significantly less. 

Koodo, on the other hand, supports 5G speeds at 250Mbps, which is notably better than Fido's 4G speeds at 150Mbps. Koodo is also able to offer this plan at only $50/month while including a free perk. This allows customers to include premium voicemail, 5G speed boosts, or 3-day Easy Roam to their plan. Without a doubt, this plan perk outshines the middling benefit of getting 3% cash back value when using a Rogers Red credit card. 

When we compare Fido against Fizz, we're once again shown an example of how another carrier can undercut Fido's pricing. At $40/month, Fizz provides faster 300Mbps speeds on its 4G LTE-Advanced network. Fizz also cuts out any activation fees, which, frustratingly, Fido includes when signing up.

Recap: Would I recommend Bell?

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Following my month with Fido, I can see some of the benefits the MVNO brings to the table, but I can't recommend it to Canadians. The carrier is able to provide stable 4G LTE speeds under its network, support Canada-wide calls and texting and other standard plan inclusions. It does all of this under one of the largest networks of MVNOs in Canada, thanks to being a subsidiary of Rogers. 

With this in mind, though, it's hard to recommend Fido when other flanker brands are available. Assuming that you either can't get 5G services where you live or are looking for reliable coverage on a budget, you're likely looking at an alternative to the Big Three. In the sea of flanker brands in Canada, Fido is one of the more premium-priced carriers, capped at 4G LTE speeds with no meaningful plan perks and an activation fee inclusion. Many other MVNOs in Canada provide much more value, faster speeds, or larger data buckets for a similar price as Fido.

You might be tempted to sign up with Fido if you want to save a bit of cash on your mobile services and get reliable networking. Though you're probably best to shop around at its main competitors for a better value.