Thanks again for your comments regarding areas that need improved coverage – our network team is working hard and they have adjusted sites based on your feedback. As well, the network team is continually review the network performance. We will update you when we have confirmation of these adjustments.
There are new sites going live in the next week, which will improve coverage in the following areas:
- Côte-Vertu
- Ahunstic
- Rivière-des-Prairies
Additionally, we are extending the remorse return period until July 13th for those customers that activated their phone prior to July 6th. This means that if you are unhappy with our service, you can return the phone with the original invoice and packaging and we’ll provide you with a full refund.
We are aware that some customers haven’t had ideal experience to date, and we apologize for that and thank you for your patience.
Tags: Ahunstic, Côte-Vertu, montreal, network, Rivière-des-Prairies | Posted in Our coverage
Hi David..I’m glad that these areas are working fine..and i appreciate your effort into making a better network..but I live in the west island area and i would like to just know when I’ll have network coverage at home…
Now i know it’ll take a while..and I’m prepared to wait..but it’ll be much easier if there was a date that i can look forward to….. thanks
Well there places on Van Horne from Wilderton to Outremont Merto station the signal is weak and I mean no bars.
Côtes-des-Neiges will be improved , June 28th but still reception is weak in building like Maxi&cie on Bedford, and the Côtes-des-Neiges plaza. I was with fido from the beginning and they wasn’t so bad.
May they should have planed better and test network first before going live!
Anyone from Toronto who read this, let us know how the reception is out there. Thanks
network is the pits… but credit for actually turning it on the day they said they would… i can walk across the street and get 5 bars, then cross to the next corner and get 0 reception.. flakey?!
The plan offered is rock solid, just need someway to actually use the phone now. zte is total garbage sadly bleh…
To Mike,
The network in Toronto is awesome, with some minor issues such as retry your call again other than that its pretty much 99.99% reliable.
Thanks Dill
I get no coverage in any commercial building in LaSalle.
East end is more than bad, i’m lucky if i get 1 little bar.
Anjou, and further east is totally dead.
I WANT TO GET ONE,
ANY NETWORK IN H1G 5N3
THANKS
QUESTION: is the lower part of the east end going to be included in your “Riviere-des-Prairies” network improvement?
Mainly along the Notre-Dame street running along the south border of Montreal on the east end.
CURRENTLY:
EAST END still no reception. Anything from Highway 25 and Eastward has either no reception or 0 bar reception, meaning that the phone sees the network but can’t make or receive calls.
Steven
So I got a call from Public Mobile regarding my blog posts and complaints about the Montreal netwrok. They were very accomodating and worked out an arrangement which they were supposed to email me a confirmation of. They never did. I will give it a few days to see if they do.
However, I went to Toronoto this weekend and the phone worked EVERYWHERE! I also have a Rogers Blackberry and my C-78 worked in places that the Blackberry wouldn’t. There network in Toronot is fantastic. I made calls home using the bundled lomng distance for life. I felt like I was really getting great value, finally from a cellular company.
So what did I conclude? This company tries hard, and cares. They do have the technology to create an effective network and the financing in place to do it quickly. They semm to care about their customers, and they value our feedback and opinions.
That said Public Mobile is not for everybody, and being an early adopter isn’y for everybody either. Hey, but Rogers is not for everybody, neither is Bell. I am impressed with Public Mobile. Impressed enough to tough it out. Impressed enough to encourage others as well. And, I am impressed enough to keep leaving messages on their blog and take my valuable time to let them know, and prospective users know how they are doing.
I cannot wait to move my blackberry over in time.
Thanks Sheldon for this update, to hear that Toronto network is doing well gives me hope, with all the negative comments in both the french and english blog including myself that this city or street corner or area has no signal or very little cutting calls and the negative press that i am starting to see or hear i am worried , will i be able to call from my home or work on July 20th ? I have to have faith that if it works in Toronto it will work in Montreal, as i wrote in a email to a customer service manager Public Mobile should post more updates, nothing since July 1st, for us who are desperate to use our phones it would be nice to read frequent updates, what is the progress, what was done today…
Hi everyone, I had a talk with a tec who put up the antenna for pm and he did say good things.
1: Used antenna.
2: Can’t put the antenna in the say place as other company’s making harder to fix coverage.
3: Some of the antenna need to be fix before putting up because it is used. (old for Asia)
I won’t say anymore but it all up to you people what you want to do just don’t be fooled by unlimited !
@Mike – thanks for your comments. We’d like to expand on a couple of points that you mention;
1. ‘Used antennas’ – We purchase all our network equipment new from ZTE. It is possible that we put an antenna up on a site and then changed it to a different model for network design reasons (different antennas perform differently and we sometimes exchange them to improve coverage). In that case the original antenna would then be installed on the next site built using that antenna type. This is normal industry practice.
2. ‘Other companies networks making it hard to fix coverage’ – it’s normal to work around other companies installations, and our network equipment is built so this is possible.
3. ‘Repairing equipment before it is installed on a site’ – we check all the network equipment as it is being installed. We’ve had very few bad antennas in our Montreal and Toronto network builds, but sometimes it happens, and we’ll repair or replace the antenna before it becomes part of our network.
Sorry I made one error (did to DIDN’T)
Hi everyone, I had a talk with a tec who put up the antenna for pm and he DIDN”T say good things.
1: Used antenna.
2: Can’t put the antenna in the say place as other company’s making harder to fix coverage.
3: Some of the antenna need to be fix before putting up because it is used. (old for Asia)
I won’t say anymore but it all up to you people what you want to do just don’t be fooled by unlimited !
Public Mobile says:
July 7, 2010 at 11:07 am
@Mike – thanks for your comments. We’d like to expand on a couple of points that you mention;
1. ‘Used antennas’ – We purchase all our network equipment new from ZTE. It is possible that we put an antenna up on a site and then changed it to a different model for network design reasons (different antennas perform differently and we sometimes exchange them to improve coverage). In that case the original antenna would then be installed on the next site built using that antenna type. This is normal industry practice.
2. ‘Other companies networks making it hard to fix coverage’ – it’s normal to work around other companies installations, and our network equipment is built so this is possible.
3. ‘Repairing equipment before it is installed on a site’ – we check all the network equipment as it is being installed. We’ve had very few bad antennas in our Montreal and Toronto network builds, but sometimes it happens, and we’ll repair or replace the antenna before it becomes part of our network.
I’m wondering how long a customer should hang on here- is it going to get better? In other words, how much of a die hard customer does one have to be before it makes sense to just give up and move to a more reliable carrier than Public Mobile?
Here’s my experience so far with Public Mobile:
Terrible call quality
The call quality on my ZTE phone (the cheapest one) is abominable. The call quality on every Public Mobile call I have made and received in Montreal around Mont Royal metro is REALLY bad. there has never been a good sounding call, even with 5 bars of signal strength.
It sounds like there’s a waterfall in the background. Think of the walkie-talkie you got as a kid- my Public Mobile phone sounds about half as good as that. It reminds me of making overseas calls in 1979. (If the Public Mobile network technicians are reading this, the S/N ratio is terrible! And-bandwidth is cheap! Please give me more than 1Khz. )
The call quality on Skype is about five times the quality of my Public Mobile Phone. Skype, a free fixed-line service, is terrific; Public Mobile, a paid wireless network service with millions of capital and millions invested in a network, is horrendous. Any explanations?
Dropped Calls
My phone has started dropping calls received my living room, 2 metres from the street. Today it dropped one and I could not get in back in touch with the caller over the course of a half hour. A few times their call connected, but there no voice on the other end, just the lovely hissssssssssssssssssss of the Public Mobile background waterfall.
Porting my Number
i went to the store three times to port my number. Over the course of several days, and three corrections to the information, it didn’t work. Then I posted on this blog, and voila: my number gets ported in an hour!
Maybe you could do the same with the quality of the phone calls?
Signed:
A customer who wants to remain a customer, but who is really wondering why I should bother.
I exchanged my ZTE phone for the Samsung one and the call quality is MUCH better.
not a word from Public Mobile…
Rebekah,did they exchange your phone for free?
Well it’s great we are getting feed back from PM on the coverage issues. Yet, it seems that there was more glitches then intended at launch. This responsiblity squarely falls with PM and while a free month of serivce is great, it doesn’t mean much if you can’t use your phone.
My initial experience with PM has been less then ideal from before the actual launch. Having purchased my phone and 1 month service at about 180$, the website was updated showing the coverage on the west of the island of Montreal would be partial. In my case it meant there would be none. To add insult to injury the areas of Montreal that I do visit have no coverage either.
Where does this leave things with PM? One friend already returned his phone for a full refund. Myself, figured i’d stick it out one more month and see what transpires. At this point I am not really expecting much just taking a Gamble on PM. If they pull it off I will be quite happy, if not at least they are creating competition in the market place for me to find another provider.
Cheers!
go back to tin cans and strings – at least theres always a signal, no bills, and no power needed ….
Wasted the day with Telus too … F@CK EM ALL !!! FREEEDOMMM !!! I chucked my cell phone on the stoor’s floor, so if you want a 514 TELUS # with 120dollars hardware credit , let me know …
MAX
no phone !!!