This week the news is full of stories about the Canadian spectrum auction, and how a handful of new cel phone companies will surely bring great service and prices to Canadians through the miracle of the Free Market.

At least until the big three Telcos buy up the new upstarts and return us to where we are now.

A while back it became time for me to do the cel phone tango.  That’s the point when you have become so fed up with your cel provider that you try desperately to find another one that, you hope, won’t screw you quite as badly.

I had been a long time Bell Mobility customer, and had watched their customer service decline and their prices climb over ten years.  If nothing else it frustrated me that their phone drones were all people with a really tenous grasp of the English language.  I’m a fan and supporter of official bilingualism, but I swear that Bell Mobility goes to great lengths to hire people who are insanely fluent in French, but who learned English during a three day course after they were hired.

Primus? Well, regular readers know what I think of Primus… no-one deserves that fate!

Telus? Their labour problems alone would tend to keep me away, and I have heard way too many horror stories about Rogers to ever go near them – like businesses left without phone service for a weeks at a time.  I have yet to hear of anyone who switched to Rogers home phone without the change getting screwed up.

At the same time I was feeling that cel charges were out of control. Somehow no matter what I did I wound up spending eighty to a hundred dollars each month.  Some of that was all the endless surcharges for 911, “System Access” fees, and whatever else they hit you with – charges for voice mail, Caller ID, and everything else.

Some of it though was because it was almost impossible to know exactly what I was paying for and how best to use it.

I decided that for the interim at least I’d go for a pay as you go phone, and just see what happened.  Voice service, occasional text messages, and no three year contract.

I went shopping.  I spent several hours over a few days looking at Telus, Rogers, their subsidiary companies, and even Bell, trying to figure out who had the best deal on a cheap phone and basic pay as you go service.

Should be easy, right?

I gave up. It proved impossible to compare plans and phones.  At least with Bell and Telus  I could figure out a dollar figure that I would need to spend.  That proved impossible on the Rogers web site.  Try as I might I could  not figure out what all charges I would face on an average month.

Finally I went and looked at Virgin Mobile.  At first glance they look expensive.  At second glance I began to suspect that they probably didn’t cost that much more than the other guys.  After a few months I’m convinced that I’m paying less.

It may seem that Virgin costs more per minute that Bell or Rogers,  but you don’t pay an extra charge for Activation fees, System Access fees, 911 fees,Voicemail, Call Display, Call Waiting, Three-way Calling, Call Forwarding….

In other words, when they quote you $30 a month, you pay $30 a month!

Best of all, there’s no fine print, no asterix explaining that your bargain plan will include another eight dollars in extra charges.  In fact everything that yould ever need to know can be found on one page!

And because there’s no contract I can drop them at any time without some godawful early cancellation fee.

On top of this, their customer service people speak English, are friendly and cool, and always default to fixing your problem.  I’ve changed my phone number three times in four months, and it has never taken more than a pleasant minute or two – and no extra charge.

I’ve become very used to hearing “Sure, no problem!”

Does Virgin have the absolute coolest or most feature packed phones? No.  But then I tend to use it for a phone and text only.

Does Virgin have all of those incredible Blackberry/iPhone things like push e-mail and super fast web surfing? No, but I don’t really need those either.

What I’ve got is a good enough phone, reliable voice service, fantasic customer service, and bills that are roughly half what I was paying Bell.

What’s amazing though is that Virgin is actually using Bell’s CDMA network, so it’s like I have Bell cel phone service without having to deal with Bell.

Yup, I like Virgin.

Fine print? You won’t see this at Virgin… (more…)

I don’t know what’s more disturbing – that it’s still possible to buy a “lucky” rabbit’s foot* keychain, or that I succumbed to my most base urges and did so.

It was a gift for a 21 year old friend with a long history of losing car and house keys.  I didn’t know whether he (or his mother) would find it hilarious, or just plain offensive.  As it turned out he had never seen an honest to God rabbit’s foot keychain, and was amazed when he realized that it was the real thing.

Now, whether it will help him to not lose his keys remains to be seen.

Then again, it sure wasn’t lucky for the rabbit…

* It is a common belief that a rabbit’s foot is lucky. This belief is said to have its roots in Afro-American folklore. The rabbit’s foot, and especially the left hind foot, is believed by many people to surround its owner with protective magic against evil. Holding or rubbing the rabbit foot is believed to activate the foot and bring good fortune.