Dosboy's Bits and Bytes

Will wonders never cease. I wrote that last post, then today I was hanging out having a smoke and I saw an Amp'd Mobile poster. Normally I wouldn't think much of it, but what caught my eye was the mention of a Slingbox. So I read further... seems they're giving a free Slingbox and a Moto Q with a contract. So I got curious... they claim in the poster that you can stream all kinds of shit including TV from your own Slingbox, obviously bypassing their "channels" (of which they have 21 or so - kinda cool, but nothing that would make me a convert). I phone the # on the poster and started asking questions.

• Contract duration is 3 years
• Yes you get the Q
• Yes you get the Slingbox
• 250 mins, unlimited incoming, unlimited evenings/weekends
• blah blah blah

Standard shit. So I asked "Well, how do you handle data? What's the cap? If I'm streaming all this goodness it's gonna chew through data faster than a fat kid through a pie" (ok, I didn't really say that last bit, but I should've). And do you know what he told me? He told me that it's $3/mb for overages, above and beyond 250mb. BUT.... the max overage charge is $24. I paused, caught my breath, then started grilling him. Every answer he gave seemed legit. So what does this mean? It means $149/month for UNLIMITED DATA!!!! The holy grail!

Now, this seems too good to be true, given that I live in the Great White North and our cell market is less competitive than Rwanda. So I went into the Amp'd store. Talked to someone else, but he was also quite knowledgeable. What it comes down to is that this offer is only good until Sunday, and that it's only available through the downtown Toronto Amp'd Mobile store. Further investigation revealed that they do not include this "maximum overage charge" in your contract. The first two bits don't bother me, but this last bit is concerning somewhat. However, I'm still pretty pumped about this. I am going to go back tomorrow and have another conversation, and push VERY hard to get this written into the contract. If they bite, I'm sold. Did some rough calculations against Rogers, and it'll end up being cheaper AND give me unlimited data. And a Moto Q and a Slingbox. All in all a pretty damn good deal.

If anyone outside of the GTA is interested in this and reads this before Sunday, feel free to give me your email address in the comments and I'll provide whatever details (including phone #s and contact names) I can. Note that Amp'd in the US is not related to Amp'd in Canada except by name, so there's no bankruptcy stuff going on up here.