Like Mobilicity, Chatr is a prepaid option and does not require its customers to sign term contracts. Rogers will also convert a "large number" of its Mobilicity dealers to Chatr branded stores and kiosks, which will have "1, points of presence," the company says. Wireless technology website Mobile Syrup reported on Rogers's plans to retire the brand on Tuesday and the company posted an FAQ page with information on the transition for its Mobilicity customers. The details of new plans and devices are not finalized yet, but Rogers spokesman Andrew Garas said Mobilicity subscribers should keep using their plans as they have been and added that the company will open an online portal in the summer to explain customers' options, which will include similar features.
We are working through the details of device compatibility and will reach out to customers if they need a new device," the company said on the FAQ page. Rogers acquired Mobilicity and its , customers in June, , and said last summer it was keeping the startup's management team but had no immediate plans for the brand.
Its first step was moving Mobilicity subscribers on to the Rogers network and customer-care systems and, during a press conference following the company's annual general meeting on April 19, Rogers CEO Guy Laurence said that work was done. My view is at some stage we'll migrate them on to one of the other brands. The main thing was to improve their experience [by moving them on to the Rogers network]," he said at the time.
Laurence said Rogers did not need the Mobilicity brand to compete with Wind Mobile's less expensive offerings as it already competes with its other brands. But if they do nothing, they will be moved over to become Chatr customers soon. But much like other wireless upstarts, Mobilicity's network ran on inferior, sometimes spotty spectrum packets that gave customers slower, less reliable wireless coverage. But the price was right for more than , users, since Mobilicity offered prepaid unlimited plans for a fraction of the cost offered by the so-called Big Three.
Because of this, their phone selection was sub-par, along with coverage for customers. Fast forward a few years, and both of those companies have been acquired. Wind Mobile was acquired by Shaw , but the company remained pretty much unchanged.
With Mobilicity, a deal was struck between them and Rogers which put Mobilicity under Rogers, along with Fido and Chatr, Rogers' other subsidiaries.
This deal was a bit different, though. Rogers announced that it would pretty much be absorbing the Mobilicity name and customers into their Chatr brand. The advantage to this for customers was that Mobilicity customers were no longer forced to use the AWS network that they previously had to. Perhaps the greatest advantage to come with this change is that you can now use pretty much any iPhone with Mobilicity.
Since all iPhones that have been released are compatible with Rogers' network, that means they will be compatible with Mobilicity as well, up to and until the moment that Mobilicity subscribers are forced to switch over to Chatr, which is Rogers' end goal with the deal. Previously, you could only use an iPhone as long as it was at least an iPhone 5s with Mobilicity, along with some units of the iPhone 5.
This has now changed - everything is compatible. You are now able to get a used iPhone 4s and use it on Mobilicity's network, as long as it's unlocked. This is because you would be taking advantage of the new Rogers deal. If you're planning on jumping on a device that's older than an iPhone 5, you'll be using just Rogers' network. However, if you're jumping onto a 5s or newer, you'll have compatibility with Mobilicity's current network, along with the new Rogers one that you'll now have access to, which maximizes your coverage.
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