I was flipping through tomorrow's Future Shop and Best Buy flyers, and there are ads for Solo Mobile cell phones. At first I thought this might be an electronics manufacturer, but the ones in FutureShop are made by Sanyo.

I tried the web ID and came up with nothing. I did a google search and also came up empty. Has anybody heard of this company before?

http://www.solomobile.ca/ :)

Thanks Andrew. I swear that wasn't on Google an hour ago. :D

Isn't this just Bell? They used to have a cellular product called "Solo". In the small print they list Bell World store . . .

yeah, it's still Bell, it's their prepaid move out west, iirc

You get:

Free text messaging (I asked about it by email in solo mobile's customer service and they sait you can text anyone regardless of carrier. They just have to have a digital phone which most people do.)
Free mobile browser, Call Display(nice feature) Call waiting and call forwarding. (for those you use airtime if you use them).
$1/day 10-4 calling
which is instant unlimited walkie talkie calling for the day from 3 am til' 3am. You only pay for it if you use it.
No long distance charges on 10-4 calls accross canada.
No activation fees. (not sure about this).
No contracts.
Either Prepaid or monthly.

Prepaid: You pay for airtime in either $20 or $30 airtime cards available at futueshop, bestbuy, Bell World, and 1500 other stores accross canada. then you use it to call or download ringtones or games. to call local its 35cents a minute in the daytime, and 3cents a minute evenings (8pm-7am) and weekends. with prepaid you get $10 starter credit bonus. To get voicemail you have to pay $5 a month on prepaid and monthly.

Monthly:

$30 All in one plan

You get:
100 min. daytime
1000 local evening/weekend mins.

I'm not sure how long your minutes last on prepaid.
The service is supposed to br geared for 13-24 year olds. I'm 13 so It definately appeels to me. I really like the free text messaging. There phones are preety cool too. They only have one but It comes in different colours; silver (my fav), pink, blue, and black. All the phones have a colours screen and are flip phones. check solomobile.ca for more info. NO I don'tworl for Solo or Bell. I am just interested in their service.

TORONTO, July 25 /CNW/ - Bell Canada announced today the launch of Solo Mobile, a new wireless service designed exclusively for young Canadians between the ages of 13 and 24. Solo Mobile will be the first Canadian wireless offering for youth with "10-4" nationwide walkie-talkie, free text messaging, attractive rates for voice minutes, and the choice of monthly or prepaid payment.

"The launch of Solo Mobile underscores Bell's strategy to increase wireless penetration in Canada," said Jim Jaques, Senior Vice President, Bell Mobility. "Bell will continue to grow the market with the introduction of new and innovative services which specifically target underserved consumer segments, such as youth."

http://press.arrivenet.com/assets/img/spcr.gif Solo Mobile, along with the launch of Virgin Mobile Canada, is part of Bell's effort to address the country's fastest growing segment. Across Canada, the penetration of wireless in the youth market is a little over 50 per cent, compared to 65 per cent in the United States and 98 per cent in Italy.

Solo Mobile will run on Bell Mobility's wireless network, Canada's most advanced, while offering a distinct youth-friendly experience through exclusive handsets, rate plans, special features and customer service. The service will be launched through a comprehensive youth-oriented marketing and promotions campaign.

"Solo Mobile is all about meeting the communication needs of Canada's youth," said Stewart Ellis, Marketing Director, Solo Mobile. "We have asked thousands of Canadian youth what they want from their mobile phone provider and have built a unique experience that fits their lifestyle."

Solo Mobile will be sold on a no contract basis and will have no activation fees. Customers can choose between two simple payment options: A $30 monthly plan -- which includes 100 daytime and 1000 night time minutes -- or prepaid with rates at 3 cents per minute for nights/weekends and 35 cents for daytime. In addition, unlimited 10-4 walkie-talkie will be available for just $1 per day on all Solo Mobile handsets.

Solo Mobile customers will also enjoy:
- $1 a day 10-4 walkie-talkie for 24 hours starting and ending at 3 a.m.
that connects up to five Solo Mobile users anywhere in Canada with no
long distance charges
- Free text messaging, mobile browser, call display and one caller ring
tune a month
- Exclusive Sanyo 2300 flip phone in pink, blue, silver or graphite


Yep its bell

Something I'm curious about with the $1 per day 10-4 plan............... Let's say it's 9pm, I haven't used it, and then Hugh decides to 10-4 me and just say "wazzup!" Do I now pay the $1 charge?

Then do I decide to 10-4 somebody else, because I'm already paying for the day's usage, and then he gets billed, and then he does the same thing, and so on and so on.............

Eventually 100 people could get billed, and it would all be because Hugh thought it would be funny to say "wazzup!"

I'm not saying the 10-4 technology isn't a good idea, I would just be concerned with the billing part of it.

I would never wazzup!! wassup maybe but never wazzup!

I was flipping through tomorrow's Future Shop and Best Buy flyers, and there are ads for Solo Mobile cell phones. At first I thought this might be an electronics manufacturer, but the ones in FutureShop are made by Sanyo.

I tried the web ID and came up with nothing. I did a google search and also came up empty. Has anybody heard of this company before?

Hi there,I saw the forum in when i did a search for Solo Mobile forums and I signed up to say that if u were to go with Solo Mobile then no offence,you will do the best thing you ever done because I have a Solo Mobile 10-4 phone and I never been so happy in my life with this one.I admit I am a cell phone addict in having tried all the phones that other companies have but not one of them comes close to the Solo Mobile.If you ever end up getting one then let me know and we can talk on the 10-4 :eek: and now you see why my nick name is soloBOY

Good to hear from a happy customer.

Or is it a case of an egar Solo employee. ;)

I just got a Solo Mobile phone a few days ago, and I'm really happy with it.
It's a flip top, but the top kind of clicks, so it doesn't just fall open on it's own. I just downloaded msn messenger on it tonight, it's a free download, you don't even have to pay for airtime to access the web.
Ringtones are fairly priced, but if you consider that you're not paying for airtime, it's about 50% cheaper than downloading them from any other phone, and they've got quite a good selection. You just can't access their page properly with firefox.

Text messaging was made easy for this phone. Once you get the hang of it, it's awesome! You can add new words easily, and they also have a list of smilys that you can add into conversations.

There's so much more, and for only $30/month, i'm thrilled and i'm a little out of their 'capture age' at 28, but I'm a text message whore, so it works for me!
hehe

Interesting thread, if you're thinking about Solomobile. (http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30237)

I know this thread is old, but the Solo prices and packages have changed a bit (no more free text msgs); go here for details:

http://www.solomobile.ca/Plans-Rates/Prepaid-Plan-Options.aspx

Has anyone heard of Solo Mobile? I think they are running off of bell. Well anyways, the plan they have which i like is the Urban plan. It's $30 a month without the other fee's, but 400 minutes a month for anytime, unlimited incoming calls. I have never used them but they sound good.

Has anyone got any feedback or heard about them?

Who do you think would be the best for London, Ontario?, because my Telus account is up in 2 months.

Solo is part of bells network.They are alright geared mostly at the younger crowd.

I am looking to buy a cellphone and I am looking for some good input on what/who I should buy or go with. The last time I had a cell phone was 2002.
My wife has one so i do know a little about what to get but i thought i would go to the pros and the masses for some quality insight!

First, let me give you some criteria that I am looking for;

*I don't want a 2 or 3 yr plan

*I want to buy a decent flip phone (no mp3 or camera or that kinda stuff)

*free weekends and nights would be cool (don't plan on using it too much)

Any and all insight is greatly appreciated

Cheers

please feel free to email jonnym(at)sympatico.ca

My interpretation of your "wants" suggests you should go with a pay-as-you-go plan and phone. The choice is huge: Rogers, Bell, Telus, Virgin, Fido, AMPD, Solo, President's Choice, Sears and many more are available. You need to surf around the provider's websites to see what models of phones are on special offer for pay-as-you-go new customers. While any phone offered by a company should work as pay-as-you-go, lower-end and older models are often offered at reduced prices because the companies know this is a price sensitive market sector.

All the companies offer national coverage across Canada. You don't seem to be concerned with long distance or roaming in the USA or outside North America but that would make the choice a lot more complex.

There are two mobile phone technologies on offer. Rogers and Fido (the same company but with different marketing strategies) use GSM which is the predominant technology in the world. For this reason, more telephones are available at lower prices. Rogers advertising states they have the clearest network in Canada and fewest dropped calls. I don't know who/how this is assessed.

Bell Mobility, Telus use CDMA, a technology offered only in North America. It works equally well for most needs (if you get in to data transfer rather than just voice, the assessment may change) but the USA companies using CDMA are beginning to switch to GSM so as to be on the world standard. There are rumours that Bell and Telus will announce plans to begin the switchover soon. I expect that within five years, no one will be making CDMA phones as the market will be too small.

Virgin, AMPD, Solo, PC etc. all run on the Bell and Telus networks. These companies are resellers and sometimes partnerships with Bell and Telus to cater to the market segment that does not want to deal with the "big bad phone company". The coverage and network quality are the same. Outside of major urban centres, Bell and Telus share their networks to avoid building duplicate systems. This has led to an interesting lawsuit in BC where Bell is advertising it has the clearest network in areas where it is using Telus's network; Telus is suing Bell for misleading advertising.

You won't go wrong, whichever system you choose, but for my money, I'd go with GSM and you'll have a telephone you could easily take to Europe if you wanted someday.

Why pay-as-you-go over a pre-paid monthly plan? First, the cost starts as low as $10 a month and there usually are no sign-up, activation or monthly "network fees". To my mind all the advertisements for a low monthly fee are misleading since there is also a "network fee" of about $7.00 charged on top of that. While the per-minute fees of 12 to 30 cents a minute may sound high, pay-as-you-go plans avoid the network fee and the 25 cents a month mandatory charge for 9-1-1 service comes out of your paid minutes; it's not an add-on to the monthly rate. Virgin, Rogers, Fido, AMPD, and probably the others, include voice mail, caller ID, call waiting [check each one to be sure you get what you need] while, again, these are add-ons to monthly plans. Fido includes call forwarding, which Rogers does not - even though they're the same company. Fido's famous by-the-second billing does not apply to its pay-as-you-go service. The rate you pay per minute will go down if you buy time in larger blocks and/or if you sign-up for automatic renewal, e.g. you can get it down to 12 cents a minute at Rogers. Going for unlimited evenings/weekends is possible ut will put you back in monthly plan territory - $30 a month and more and is not worth it IMHO.

With pay-as-you-go, the negative is that paid minutes disappear after "x" days unless you top up the account, but if you do have a low-use month you can carry that time forward with a regular top-up payment. On a monthly plan, there is no way to carry forward time from a low-use month.

Virgin Mobile seems to have the best offering in pay-as-you-go with regards to the expiry of paid time. But the others all offer options, like automatic renewal charged to a credit card, that should reduce the per-minute cost and eliminate worries about expiring time.

I haven't compared fees for text messaging but I don't think that is a priority for you at this time. If you get in to heavy use and texting, you may want to switch to a monthly plan and there should be no problem taking your phone over, as long as you stick with the same company.

My recommendation at the moment would be a Motorola V190 from Rogers for $90 (after rebates) - a quality flip phone - and a $20 a month auto-saver plan giving you the 12 cent a minute rate on days when you exceed 5 minutes use (otherwise, 20 cents a minute). If the phone isn't available at a local Rogers store or dealer, you can order it on-line from Rogers.

Good luck - let' see what other have to say.

I have been a solo customer for a couple of years. I got one of the best deals going. Per second billing 30c min but after 6 its 5c all features included free which includes voice mail. No monthly admin fee just the 911 fee. Plus If I use the 10-4 feature it is unlimited calls all day for $1.

Sweat! I only buy $30 cards every 75 days. Most of the time I still have a balance at the end of the 75 days. Beats the monthly plans and they are always trying to get me to join a plan ;)

Does anyone know the website for Solo Mobile where they provide their online job applications.....It's not solomobila.ca