Coverage

Phone plans coverage

Which brands were read on the carrier's own site, which rest on secondary sources, and why.

Phone Plans Capture: Coverage and Gaps

Capture date: 2026-11-15. Method: web search and text fetch only, no live browser, no sign-ins, run as six parallel passes (five carrier families, one negotiation research pass). Discipline: any fetch that returned 429 was recorded as not captured and never retried in the same pass; any search that hit the daily quota was recorded and not repeated.

Deliverables in this folder: plans.json (172 published plan records; 138 from the original text-fetch pass plus 34 added across the two 2026-11-15 browser verification merges below), NEGOTIATION.md (the negotiation playbook), and this file.

What was captured

Every record in plans.json carries its own source_url, capture_date and source_type, so the split in this table is auditable record by record. Secondary sources used, all reputable Canadian publications quoting the carriers' published prices with their own verification dates of 2026-11-02 to 2026-11-14: Topicks, CompareZone, iPhone in Canada, MobileSyrup (snippets), SettleCanada, CashInstinct, HelloRoam, Holafly, PhonesCanada (negotiation file), PlanHub (negotiation file).

Why so much rests on secondary sources: the carriers' own plan pages are JavaScript-rendered, and text fetch returned the plan structure, data amounts, speeds and coverage but not the price cards (Rogers, Fido, Telus), or only the struck-through regular price without the after-credit amount (Bell). Where a carrier page was reachable at all, its structure corroborates the secondary prices. A live-browser pass over the carrier plan pages is the single highest-value follow-up for this dataset: it would convert most of the 130 secondary records into carrier-page captures and resolve the specific gaps listed below.

Browser verification 2026-11-15

A live-browser pass read six carriers' own plan pages on 2026-11-15 (Public Mobile, Freedom Mobile postpaid and prepaid, Videotron, the Fizz plan builder, SaskTel's rate-plan tabs, and Eastlink), and the results were merged into plans.json the same day. Records confirmed or first published by that pass carry source_type "primary" and the carrier page URL as source_url. Merge rules applied: match on brand + data amount + coverage; the carrier's own page wins any disagreement, with the disagreement logged below; browser plans not already in plans.json were added as new primary records; no existing record the browser did not mention was deleted (unmatched records stay secondary).

Brands now primary-verified: 6 of 14. Public Mobile (8 primary records), Freedom Mobile (20), Videotron (6), Fizz (2: the Quebec-default builder configuration at 100GB with Canada coverage, plus the same configuration with Canada + USA coverage, both displayed at $35.00), SaskTel (21), Eastlink (11). Across the whole dataset the split is now 68 primary, 92 secondary, 6 carrier_site (Bell regular prices from the first pass) and 1 carrier_site_structure_only (Rogers).

Remaining secondary-only brands: 8, at the time of that merge. Rogers, Fido, Chatr, Bell, Virgin Plus, Lucky Mobile, Telus and Koodo still rested on secondary sources (Bell's six records carried carrier-page regular prices, but its after-credit net prices were unverified, and one Rogers record was structure-only). The second live-browser pass over those eight brands has since completed and is documented in the next section; it converted seven of the eight, leaving Chatr as the only secondary-only brand in the dataset.

Discount mechanics preserved from the carrier pages. Freedom's postpaid and prepaid-monthly prices include the $5/mo Digital Discount (Auto Pay); the pre-discount price (displayed + $5) is recorded in regular_price_cad. Eastlink's displayed prices include a $10/mo pre-authorized payment discount, except the Starter 250MB, Starter 3GB and Tablet 5GB cards, which show no such note; its $35 Unlimited 80GB card is a bundled-with-internet price and is recorded as its own record labelled as such, never as the standalone price (the standalone card is $65 displayed / $75 regular). Videotron's "From" prices assume both bundle toggles on (internet bundle plus an additional mobile line); the struck-through regular price is recorded beside each on the verified records rather than as duplicate rows, since the pre-existing records already carried those regular prices as their list prices. SaskTel's BYOD price is $20/mo below the standard price on voice-and-data plans, as the pre-existing records already modelled. SaskTel's published device financing examples (iPhone 17 Pro $0 down and $50.00/mo for 24 months; Samsung Galaxy S25 FE 5G $0 down and $26.67/mo for 24 months, each on a 2-year voice and data plan, read on the wireless landing page) are recorded here rather than as plan records, because they are device offers, not plans; the implied totals ($1,200.00 and $640.08) are calculated from the monthly figures, not published totals.

Discrepancy log (carrier page wins)

• Public Mobile, 5GB 4G Canada plan: secondary figure $24/mo, carrier page $22/mo. Record updated to $22.
• Public Mobile, 10GB 4G Canada plan: secondary figure $28/mo, carrier page $24/mo. Record updated to $24.
• Public Mobile, whole ladder: the secondary ladder (1/5/10/35/50GB Canada; 70/125/175GB Canada-US-Mexico at $22/$24/$28/$30/$35/$40/$45/$50) does not match the carrier page's actual ladder (5/10/25/60/100GB Canada at $22/$24/$28/$30/$35; 40/80/120GB Canada-US-Mexico at $40/$45/$50). The six carrier-page tiers with no existing record (25GB, 60GB, 100GB, 40GB, 80GB, 120GB) were added as primary records. The unmatched secondary records (1GB, 35GB, 50GB, 70GB, 125GB, 175GB) were retained per the merge rules and should be treated as superseded by the primary ladder.
• Fizz, Canada-coverage 100GB builder configuration: secondary figure $45/mo, plan builder $35.00/mo. Record updated to $35. This is consistent with the in-window movement flagged below (secondary checks read $35 on Nov 12 and $44 on Nov 14); the first-hand Nov 15 reading is $35.
• Freedom Mobile, 250GB tier at $60: the secondary ladder assigned 10GB of Roam Beyond data to the postpaid tier. The carrier pages show the postpaid $60 tier carries 1GB Roam Beyond, and the 10GB Roam Beyond tier at $60 is the prepaid monthly plan. The existing record was re-attributed to prepaid monthly, and the postpaid 1GB tier was added as a new primary record.
• Videotron, coverage on four plans: secondary sources recorded the 25GB, 100GB and 150GB plans and the no-data talk and text plan as Canada & U.S. coverage; the carrier page shows Canada coverage for all four. Regular prices were confirmed first-hand ($50, $55, $60 and $30 respectively) and the records' coverage was corrected. The 100GB "Canada & International" record is the carrier's Multi-destination plan (Canada, United States, Mexico, France and other destinations); its regular price $75 and From price $55 were confirmed.
• Eastlink, Starter 250MB included minutes: secondary source said 100 minutes; the carrier page says 250 nationwide minutes. Record updated.
• Eastlink, Starter 3GB included minutes: secondary source said unlimited Canada-wide minutes; the carrier page says 400 nationwide minutes. Record updated.

Everything else the browser read confirmed the existing figures, including Freedom's full postpaid ladder and pre-discount prices, all eleven matched SaskTel plans with their $20 BYOD spread, Eastlink's displayed/regular price pairs on all nine pre-existing records, and Videotron's struck-through regular prices.

Browser verification 2026-11-15, big three and flankers

A second live-browser pass read the remaining big-three and flanker plan pages on 2026-11-15 (Ontario, 1 line, new activations, BYOD pages unless a financed-device page is named): rogers.com/plans (Mobile Only view), the fido.ca BYOD page, bell.ca/Mobility plus its dedicated plans and Basic Rate Plans pages, the virginplus.ca BYOP plans page, luckymobile.ca prepaid plans, the telus.com BYOD plans page and its new-phone plans page, and the koodomobile.com BYOD plans page and its new-phone rate plans page. The same merge rules were applied: match on brand + data amount + coverage; the carrier's own page wins any disagreement, logged below; browser plans not already in plans.json were added as primary records; no existing record the browser did not mention was deleted (unmatched records stay secondary). 39 existing records were converted to primary and 5 records were added (Rogers 5G+ 15GB, Fido 10GB, Fido 2GB Talk & Text, Virgin Plus 10GB, and Bell Basic Talk & Text).

Brands now primary-verified: 13 of 14. Rogers (5 primary records), Fido (8), Bell (4), Virgin Plus (7), Lucky Mobile (5), Telus (6) and Koodo (9) join Public Mobile, Freedom Mobile, Videotron, Fizz, SaskTel and Eastlink. Across the whole dataset the split is now 112 primary, 57 secondary and 3 carrier_site (three Bell records from the first pass that this pass did not read: a 60GB exclusive partner offer, a 15GB record and a second 60GB record); no record remains structure-only, because the Rogers 5G+ Lite price was captured (see the log).

Chatr is the only secondary-only brand. chatr.com/plans was tried twice and chatr.com once (09:21–09:30 CST); every attempt returned the browser error "This site can't be reached, The connection was reset (ERR_CONNECTION_RESET)". No Chatr price was guessed, its seven records are exactly as the first pass left them, and a later retry of the Chatr browser capture is an open follow-up item.

Discount mechanics preserved from the carrier pages. Rogers' displayed prices are after the Auto-Pay discount, with the pre-discount price recorded in regular_price_cad; the same five plans show $15/mo lower with Rogers internet or TV service, and that bundle price is recorded in each record's notes, never as the headline price. Fido's displayed prices include a $5/mo Automatic Payments bill credit (its three Basic plans show no discount). Bell's first-line standalone prices include the Autopay credit; its dedicated plans page is framed as an add-a-line offer and shows lower prices ($60/$75/$85, plus Select 15GB at $45), which are recorded in the tier records' notes labelled as add-a-line prices and are never recorded as first-line standalone prices. Virgin Plus prices include a $10/mo Autopay credit (its two Basic plans show no credit line). Lucky Mobile prices are the with-Auto Top-Up prices, and its data amounts include the Auto Top-Up bonus; each record's data_notes now show the base amount plus the bonus. Telus BYOD prices include total discounts of $10/mo including the pre-authorized bank payments discount, and its financed-device plan prices, read on its new-phone page, run $15/mo above BYOD on the four 5G+ plans (the Voice plan is unchanged, and 5G+ for Families is not offered with a new phone); they are recorded in financed_price_cad on the BYOD records, the same convention the SaskTel merge used. Koodo BYOD prices include total discounts of $10/mo including the auto-pay by bank account discount, and its financed plan prices run $10/mo above BYOD on the 60GB, 60GB Canada-US-Mexico and 100GB plans (pay-per-use data is unchanged), likewise recorded in financed_price_cad.

Completions, not disagreements. This pass also captured figures the first pass never held, without contradicting anything: pre-discount regular prices for the Virgin Plus data and talk-and-text tiers, all six matched Telus BYOD plans and the six discounted Koodo BYOD plans, and the Telus and Koodo financed plan prices described above. Quebec-variant records, newcomer (Welcome) and Mobility for Good records, Koodo's per-30-day 4G base plans and 365-day plans, and Rogers' talk-and-text and Quebec records were not read in this Ontario pass and remain secondary.

Discrepancy log, big three and flankers (carrier page wins)

• Rogers 5G+ Essentials (national): secondary figure $70/mo with a $90 regular price; rogers.com shows $75/mo displayed after the Auto-Pay discount, $85 pre-discount. Record updated.
• Rogers 5G+ Popular (national): secondary figure $85/mo, regular $105; carrier page $90/mo displayed, $100 pre-discount. Record updated. The secondary sources also recorded a 175 GB high-speed allowance; the plans page presents the tier as Unlimited with no finite allowance stated, and the record now follows the page.
• Rogers 5G+ Ultimate (national): the $100/mo price was confirmed, but the regular price was $120 in the secondary record against $115 pre-discount on rogers.com. Record updated, and the data field follows the page's Unlimited presentation rather than the secondary ~250 GB allowance figure.
• Rogers 5G+ Lite: the price gap flagged in the first pass is closed. The record sat at monthly_price_cad null (structure only); the browser read $70/mo displayed after the Auto-Pay discount, $80 pre-discount, 60 GB, Canada only. Record filled and converted to primary.
• Bell Select 100GB Canada-US: the first pass recorded $85, which was the struck-through regular price, because the after-credit net price did not render. The first-line standalone price on bell.ca/Mobility is $75/mo including the Autopay credit, $85 pre-discount. Record updated to $75 with $85 as the regular price.
• Bell Ultra Unlimited US/Mexico (recorded as the Max tier family): first-pass figure $100 (again the regular price); first-line standalone is $90/mo including the Autopay credit, $100 pre-discount. Record updated.
• Bell Ultra Unlimited International (recorded as the Ultra tier family): first-pass figure $110 (the regular price); first-line standalone is $100/mo including the Autopay credit, $110 pre-discount. Record updated, and its coverage is corrected from Canada+US+Mexico to Canada + 83 countries, as bell.ca presents it.
• Bell Select 15GB: this plan appears only on Bell's add-a-line-framed plans page, at $45/mo ($70 pre-discount). The pre-existing 15GB record ($70, carrier_site) was therefore not converted: $70 is that add-a-line offer's pre-discount figure, not a first-line standalone price, and no first-line standalone 15GB price is published on the pages read.
• Virgin Plus Talk & Text (no data): the conflict flagged in the first pass is settled. Topicks' November listing said $25 (was $35); an October report said it had risen to $30. virginplus.ca shows $25/mo including the $10 Autopay credit ($35 pre-discount), confirming the $25 figure.
• Telus Talk & Text / Voice: the dataset recorded $40, which was the pre-discount list figure. The BYOD price on telus.com is $30/mo including the $10 discounts, $40 pre-discount. Record updated to $30 with $40 as the regular price.
• Koodo 2GB Starter 4G: secondary figure $38/mo; koodomobile.com shows $37.50/mo. Record updated.

Everything else the browser read confirmed the existing figures, including the full Fido ladder and its struck-through prices, Virgin Plus's Basic plans at $19 and $39, all five Lucky Mobile tiers, Telus's four other BYOD tiers, and Koodo's Starter plans and Kids plan.

Gaps by carrier, with reasons

Rogers family (22 captured)

• Rogers 5G+ Lite (60GB, Canada only) is confirmed to exist on rogers.com/plans but its price was captured nowhere in this pass: it did not render on the carrier page and no fetched secondary source listed it. The record sat in plans.json with monthly_price_cad null and the reason in its price_note. Status 2026-11-15: RESOLVED by the second browser pass, which read the price ($70/mo displayed, $80 pre-discount); see the big-three discrepancy log above.
• Chatr's own site could not be read in the second browser pass either: chatr.com/plans (twice) and chatr.com (once) all returned a connection reset (ERR_CONNECTION_RESET) on 2026-11-15, so Chatr remains the dataset's only secondary-only brand pending a retry.
• Four fetches returned 429 and were not retried: Fido's shop plans page, iPhone in Canada's November 2026 Fido roundup, Holafly's Fido guide, and a WhistleOut Rogers page. Their search snippets still corroborated the Fido and Rogers prices used.
• Three searches hit the search daily quota, including the search that would have priced Rogers 5G+ Lite.
• BYOD versus financed: no source published both figures for any tier, because Rogers and Fido headline prices are already BYOD-after-autopay and device financing is a separate charge on top. Both fields are null throughout the family, with the BYOD nature noted per record.
• Lower-confidence records, flagged in plans.json: Fido Talk & Text at $25 (snippet-sourced; an older listing showed $30), Fido 3GB Basic at $39 (single source), Chatr $40 for 50GB (one source, September check, absent from the November Chatr lineup and possibly withdrawn), and the Chatr $22 tier's data (described as a 500MB auto-pay bonus by one source and a 0.5GB headline by another).

Bell family (17 captured)

• Bell's after-credit net prices were not captured in this pass: bell.ca loaded, but text fetch rendered only the regular prices ($55 to $110) beside a footnote saying the price includes autopay and promotional credits, without the net amount. plans.json recorded the regular prices with that stated in each price_note, and no net price was inferred. Status 2026-11-15: RESOLVED by the second browser pass for the three main tiers and the Basic plan (first-line standalone $75/$90/$100 and $30, all including the Autopay credit); see the big-three discrepancy log above. Three Bell records from this pass were not read in the browser pass and keep their carrier_site status.
• Bell's exact Lite, Select, Max and Ultra tier-name mapping and Bell SmartPay financed plan prices did not render in text fetch.
• luckymobile.ca returned 429 (via the bell.ca outlink) and was not retried; Lucky prices rest on iPhone in Canada (2026-11-03) corroborated by Topicks and CompareZone.
• virginplus.ca was never returned as a full URL by search in this pass, so no direct fetch was attempted and no URL was guessed; all Virgin Plus prices are secondary.
• One conflict was flagged in plans.json: Virgin Plus talk and text is $25 (was $35) in Topicks' November 2026 listing, but iPhone in Canada reported on 2026-10-08 that it had risen to $30. Status 2026-11-15: SETTLED by the second browser pass; virginplus.ca shows $25 including the $10 Autopay credit, confirming the $25 figure.

Telus family (44 captured)

• koodomobile.com and publicmobile.ca both returned 429 on the fetch attempt and were not retried. Koodo and Public Mobile prices rest on Topicks, CashInstinct (checked 2026-11-12 on the carriers' own Quebec pages) and SettleCanada (checked 2026-11-05 against carrier sites). Public Mobile's eight-plan list agrees across three independent sources dated November 5, 12 and 14.
• telus.com loaded, but its plan cards are JavaScript-rendered and absent from the text fetch; its search snippet showed list presentations $25 higher than the BYOD prices the secondary sources quote, a presentation difference recorded in the notes rather than treated as a financed price.
• Search quota was exhausted after the first three searches in this pass.
• financed_price_cad was null throughout the family in this pass: Telus Easy Payment and Koodo Tab separate the device charge from the plan price, and no source in this pass published a distinct financed plan price. The "regular" prices in the notes are the no-autopay-discount prices, not financed prices. Status 2026-11-15: SUPERSEDED in part by the second browser pass, which read distinct financed plan prices on telus.com's new-phone page ($15/mo above BYOD on the four 5G+ plans) and koodomobile.com's new-phone rate plans page ($10/mo above BYOD on three plans); those are now recorded in financed_price_cad on the matched BYOD records.
• Quebec and national prices differ by $5 on several Koodo and Telus tiers between the November 5 and November 12 checks; both sets are recorded and labelled rather than merged, and whether the gap is regional pricing or a price change inside the week is unresolved.

Freedom Mobile (10 captured)

• Freedom's main plans page was not directly fetched: search quota was reached before a verbatim URL for it was returned. The nine-tier ladder ($35 to $100) rests on Holafly (stated accurate 2026-11-03) and iPhone in Canada (2026-11-02), which agree tier for tier, with the first three tiers and the $25 promo confirmed on freedommobile.ca's own special-offers page.
• Prepaid monthly and annual prepaid plans were not captured: the Topicks yearly-prepaid page returned 429 and was not retried. Its search snippet named annual prepaid at $129 a year for 20GB and $159 a year for 40GB; those figures are unverified by fetch and are deliberately absent from plans.json.
• The PlanHub Fizz-versus-Freedom page also returned 429.
• Throttle speeds (256 Kbps on Freedom's network, 128 Kbps on partner networks after the full-speed allowance) come from Holafly's summary of Freedom's terms, not from a Freedom terms page fetched in this pass.
• An older Freedom ladder ($29 for 5GB up to $79 for 250GB) still circulates on aggregator pages; both November 2026 sources and Freedom's own offers page show it superseded by the current ladder, so it was excluded rather than recorded as current.
• financed_price_cad is null throughout: MyTab and TradeUp are per-device charges on top of the same plan price, so no single financed plan price is published.

Regional carriers (45 captured)

• No regional carrier's own site yielded a price in this pass. Two site-scoped searches (videotron.com, fizz.ca) hit the search daily quota before returning a verbatim carrier URL, and URLs are never guessed; three further fetches (CashInstinct's full page, Topicks' Videotron page, CompareZone's Nova Scotia page) returned 429 and were not retried. All 45 regional records are secondary-sourced and marked as such. The Nova Scotia 429 cost no data: Eastlink's Nova Scotia prices were already established as identical to the captured New Brunswick page.
• Fizz is a plan builder, not a fixed plan list: its price varies by coverage zone, talk and text inclusion and voicemail. plans.json records two explicit published configurations (Quebec-only coverage and Canada coverage, both with unlimited talk, text and voicemail) rather than pretending Fizz sells fixed plans. Per-GB marginal pricing is not published as a rate card anywhere found.
• Fizz and Videotron prices moved inside the capture window itself: Fizz's 100GB Quebec tier read $35, then $44, across the November 12 to 14 checks. Regional figures should be treated as a November 12 to 14 snapshot wearing a November 15 capture date.
• Videotron advertises "from" prices that require both an internet bundle discount and a multi-line discount at once; plans.json records the list price and puts the discounted figures in the price conditions, so the headline never overstates what a single-line customer pays.
• Eastlink financed (easyTab) prices are published by postal code and device and appeared in no captured source; financed_price_cad is null for Eastlink, Videotron and Fizz. SaskTel is the one regional carrier where both figures were published (list price on a term, $20 a month less for BYOD on new activations).

Negotiation research gaps

NEGOTIATION.md documents what the research pass could source. Its known holes, all flagged inside the document where they occur:

• RedFlagDeals was reached through the publications that report its threads (MobileSyrup, iPhone in Canada, PlanHub), not by opening RFD threads directly. Thread-level receipts would be stronger.
• Six searches failed on the search daily quota and were not retried: Rogers retention specifics, Telus winback specifics, Bell and Telus loyalty offers, Rogers executive-office escalation, Fido loyalty offers, and EPP plan prices. Those six failures map exactly onto the playbook's thin sections: Telus and Bell pure retention, Telus winback beyond one second-hand receipt, Bell-only winback, EPP plan grids, and executive-office procedures.
• Two documented-in-lore tactics have no sourced receipt in this pass and are excluded from the playbook as steps: scheduling a future-dated cancellation as leverage, and Office of the President escalation procedures.
• One source (a Tom Harris Telus EPP article) returned a verification interstitial on open, so its figures are used at search-snippet level only and labelled as such wherever cited.

Recommended follow-ups, in order

1. A live-browser pass over the carrier plan pages to convert secondary records into carrier-page captures, pick up Bell's net after-credit prices, price Rogers 5G+ Lite, and settle the Virgin Plus talk-and-text conflict. Status 2026-11-15: DONE for publicmobile.ca, freedommobile.ca, videotron.com, fizz.ca, sasktel.com and eastlink.ca (see "Browser verification 2026-11-15" above) and for rogers.com, fido.ca, bell.ca, virginplus.ca, luckymobile.ca, telus.com and koodomobile.com (see "Browser verification 2026-11-15, big three and flankers" above). One retry remains open: chatr.com could not be loaded in the browser pass (connection reset on every attempt), so Chatr's seven records are still secondary.
2. A second negotiation pass aimed directly at the RedFlagDeals retention and winback megathreads, with fresh search quota, covering the six quota-blocked searches listed above.
3. Freedom prepaid capture (monthly and annual), which the 429 blocked this time. Status 2026-11-15: DONE in the browser verification pass (prepaid monthly, 6-month and yearly tiers are now primary records).