How is Videotron mobile in Ottawa???

[silence000]

I have had it with Bell mobile. Lately I noticed their customer service (or lack there of) has been declining quickly. The only reason why I stayed this long with them was because I had an awesome plan that was grandfathered in and I had 2 other lines (mom and her sister) that I would have had to move over too. In the past two week I had a lot of BS that made me want to take a look at competitors and see what I can get.

Videotron has a great deal if I bring my own phone and is only $5 more a month but I'm not sure how their reception or services is in Ontario since its a Quebec company. They also give an additional discount if I have 3 lines which is even better!

Does anyone have any insights on how Videotron is overall?

[Anonyme]

I dint have a great experience with videotron in Ottawa... but when I got there (I’m from Montreal), it works fine.
Technically Videotron and Rogers have the same network for Quebec and Ottawa region... so coverage should be good.

I’ve here some stories here saying that where signal is not good, your device might stick to Freedom network even though videotron doesn’t have roaming agreement with freedom... which will make tour device looks like it’s connected without being really connected. Apparently this is happening mainly with android devices that were not bought from videotron. I never experienced that with my iPhone bought at videotron or directly at the Apple store.

[gmd]

We've seen the "Freedom" issue on an iPhone from Videotron.

Overall, the network works great in Ottawa (should I says networks, as there are multiple network ID?). The main differences between Rogers and Videotron when in Ottawa are

- access to Rogers' band 7 is limited to certain areas (e.g. in malls)

- if you set your phone to 3G, you may end up on Videotron's limited AWS 3G coverage until the phone gives and jumps back to the shared network with Rogers

Although Rogers has added more towers in the last year within the city, the Bell/Telus network have the upper hand, specially when going East of Ottawa (Prescott-Russell) where the tower density is very different between the two of them.

Back on the topic of 3G, in most areas, Bell/Telus' 3G will have faster data.

[gmd]

I have experienced the Freedom issue yet on another phone (Adding a OnePlus phone to a Pixel and an iPhone).

Ended up locking the phone on Partner 1 (which for some reason had a better signal than when piggybacking as Videotron). Going back to Auto later made it switch to Telus.

Videotron, stop marking 302-490 as a partner! I'm guessing someone took the easy way out by making Rogers/Fido to be Partner 1 and making all other 302-* as Partner 2.

Is 302-370 (Fido) still used?