Bell’s Virgin Plus once again increased the cost of some plans, removing a 20GB option and a cheaper talk and text plan.
As of this morning, Virgin’s website no longer lists either the $34/20GB or $25 talk and text plans. However, there are new options in their place. First is a $40/mo plan with 10GB of 4G data. Virgin caps its 4G data plans at speeds of up to 150Mbps and also locks streaming video quality to 480p.
Aside from the price and data amount, nothing has really changed. The plan still includes unlimited Canada-wide calling and texting as well as international texting sent from Canada. In other words, Virgin upped the price while giving customers less data and no other benefits to justify the new, higher price.
Likewise, Virgin’s talk and text plan hasn’t changed in any meaningful way other than now costing $5/mo more than before.
The plan includes unlimited Canada-wide calling and texting along with pay-per-use 4G data. However, as before, Virgin’s pay-per-use rates are an absurdly expensive $20 per gigabyte up to 8GB, then drops to $0.02 per megabyte.
Humorously, both plans are listed as ‘new activations only.’
It’s worth noting that both Koodo and Fido also charge $30/mo for talk and text plans, but there are cheaper alternatives. Public Mobile, for example, has a $25/mo plan with unlimited Canada-wide talk and text, international texting and 1GB of 3G data, as well as a $15/mo plan with 250MB of 3G data and 100 Canada-wide minutes plus unlimited texting. Freedom has a $19/mo plan with 1GB 4G data and unlimited talk and text.
Needless to say, if you just need a basic plan with talk and text and little to no data, there are better options out there.
You can view Virgin’s plans here.
