May 24, 2003, 12:05am

I hadn't paid attention to Smelus' phone offerings or rate plans as of late.

(sidenote - I've been Smelus/BCHell free since 1999)

I checked it out tonight just to see if the company had gotten with the times and gotten more realistic with their prices and offerings. They haven't, at least in their home ground (I note they have much better prices and services back east - a real disparity - makes you feel all warm and gushy being in Smelus' home are of British Columbia, where you pay more cuz they love you).

One thing in particular caught my eye - what they charge you for "high speed" Internet service. They use 1xrt (they call it 1X or Velocity, delivering the same speeds my Class 10 GPRS does on Fido).

Let me just say this - everytime I think the $50 a month I pay for unlimited* service on Fido's GPRS network is a lot of dough, I should go to the Smelus site and refresh my memory.

They charge an unbelievable $30 a month for 5mb of traffic, and an extra $10mb a month per meg after that. They have a 'promo' thing (read: suck you in) where it's unlimited******* for $50 a month but the catch is, it's only for the first three months, then you're locked into that rate for only 10mb of traffic, and $6 a meg after that.

They also have their own little unlimited******* plan at $100 a pop, but now it's time to mention what the asterixies are for:

*Fido's unlimited truly is that - no limits on the amount of mb you use a month, or where you use it, North America wide - you pays you 50 bills, and thats all you pays

*******Smelus' "unlimited" is actually limited to 100mb (read the fine print), and doesn't work outside of Canada. It does, but you pay extra for it.

Oh, and there's one tiny, miniscule, itty bitty little extra - Smelus, on top of charging obscene amounts for extra MB, charges you $60 a year for a "network support charge". Imagine if you only use their 1X service for a month and decide it's too much? Guess what - you still gotta pay that $60 fee.

And don't even get me started on their obscene roaming charges.

Wait, I will start - I recently went to Boston for 7 days. I used about 60mb of GPRS connectivity and talked for about 350 mins on my phone while there. My Fido bill for the entire month of April was $262 - the whole month, including taxes.

Calculating Smelus' rates, if I was on the Velocity 30 plan and Talk 50 plan, I would have paid $30 + $550 (1X overcharge) +$5 (1/12th the network charge) plus $50 (Talk 50) plus  $332 ($0.95 per minute US roaming charge x 350) + $175 ($0.50 LD charge per min x 350) + about $7.50 in access fee charges.

That's $1,316 (including taxes). And it doesn't include any other charges they may have thrust upon me for the rest of the month.

Scary....

0 comments | reply

Mixelania

Photos from Algonquin Park
Photos from my trip to Algonquin Park this fall with my Mom and two brothers.

War Stories

Making Snow for the Fortress
One of the worst jobs I ever had... till I got out.

Webiffied

Tools I Use
The tools I use to build websites and lead a tech life.

iPod and iTunes Offline

iMark's iTunes and iPod isn't iPlaying anything right iNow.

Most Recent Songs

Fiddlers Green by The Tragically Hip

Around The Bend by Pearl Jam

Here With Me (Rollo's Chillin' With the Family Mix) by Dido

With arms open wide by Creed

truffle pigs by Matthew Good Band

In the News

Burundi and Beyond - NY Times
Great article by Peter Meehan - provided some background.

St. Petersburg Times
Side mention in an article about good machines

AP Story on Espresso
Background and information provided

NY Times - Grinders Article
Especially proud of this one - got the reporter to focus on grinders

Globe and Mail
LOL - showing bad reporting, dude says I'm an American-based site!

The Olympian, WA
Talks about my love for the El Sal Siberia Pacamara

Seattle Times - Clover
Interviewed for comments on the Clover brewer

NY Times - How it Works
Background and information for various espresso machines

Time Mag Article
Just a brief mention, article about roasting beans.

NY Times
Front page article about consumers getting into specialty coffee.

Washington Monthly
Quoted reference to what I wrote in an article at CoffeeGeek.

USA Today - Barista Jam
Intereviewed for my thoughts on what the epitome of espresso is.

WSJ Article
The Wall Street Journal has interviewed me 3 times. This is the first time my name got in a story.

Reuters Interview
Interview with Reuters, Jan 2 - this is the USA Today version.

My Other Stuff

CoffeeGeek
Launched Dec 22, 2001, this is THE online community for espresso and coffee fanatics.

CoffeeKid Website
It's all new, as of March, 2002. My personal coffee obsession site.

WebMotif Services
My company's site - needs an update!

Amazon WishList
Hey, if you feel the need to buy me something, check here!

Daily Visits

enGadget
Great gadget site run by the guy who used to do Gizmodo.

Google News
This is how I get my daily news fix.

DPReview Forums`
The most active forums for digital photography online today.

Daily Zen
Need my Daily Zen fix!

Jalopnik
A blog about car stuff. Vroom Vroom.

MoCo Loco
An industrial design blog. Very cool stuff.

Friends and Family Plan

Beata Blog
Beata's got her own blog! She updates it most days.

Riddla on Flickr
Matt Riddle's flickr account, updated regularly

Irdy Photos
Irdy, my friend from Jakharta, on Flickr

Recent Acquisitions

Canon EF 24-105 f4 L Lens
The best lens I've ever owned. Super sharp and quick.

Canon 5D
A full frame dSLR, with luscious colour reproduction.

Alzo Digital Lights
Some amazing florescent cold lights for product photography

Canon Xsi dSLR
Amazing technology and image quality in a tiny package.

Canon 40D
Latest prosumer camera from Canon - a much better upgrade than the 30D

Fujitsu P1610
Great 2.2lb computer that does most of my travel / writing needs

28mm f1.8 Lens
A great lens for closeup work and full picture photography

Foodsaver Advanced
Finally got the right tools for freezing green coffee.

Canon 50mm 1.4
Most amazing lens I've ever owned. Produces stellar photos.

Canon 10-22mm
Super wide angle (full frame fisheye) zoom for my Canon 20D