Simple Share plans, not so simple

[Cubytus]

Hi there,

I'm currently on the market for a so-calles "family" plan where 2 lines would be combined. Current usage would be: 5GB-ish data, used by one line only, unlimited text and minutes, and of course the mandatory stuff (voicemail, caller ID, call waiting). For simplicity, both lines would be BYOD.

I just don't understand how it works. I understand the Simple Share plans would allow for sharing data between all lines, but when I select this plan once, it doesn't let me select how many lines I'd like to have. For some reason, I was under the impression that choosing a family plan would require only two steps:

1- choosing a shareable plan (expectedly, a bit more expensive than individual plans) 2- adding n lines / phones for a nominal fee (say, $10 per additional line).

I asked the "assistant", which was of no help unfortunately, as it told me I have to proceed on selecting a second plan if I want to add a second line, including text & calls only (no data). But what's the point of selecting a second plan if I already chose one, shareable one? Doesn't having to choose a second plan defeats the purpose of a "family" plan?

What happens if I select a text & calls only plan, will that other line be able to access the shareable data in the first plan?

thanks for help

[BillTelusCust]

I think that although the data is shareable, it isn't set up to get one plan with data and another plan with no data.  Probably the minimum you could get online is two 10 gig plans which would be 20 gigs of shareable data.  Many people are using less data than ever while staying home with Covid-19, so it is entirely conceivable that 5 gigs could be adequate for 2 phones.  For example, my account has used 2.37 gigs over two phones and two tablets for the month so I can understand the low data requirements.  Maybe you can call them and see if there are plans which are not shown on the website.

[Favelle75]

This question wasn't really ever answered. The original poster's issue was that when selecting a simply share plan online, there was NO OPTION TO ADD A 2ND DEVICE (ie his wife's phone). Regardless of which phone used how much data, selecting a FAMILY PLAN on the Telus website doesn't allow you to add multiple devices to share in the pooled data which is the entire purpose of a shared data plan. It makes you add a whole other device + plan in your cart. Its bunked.

[NFtoBC · Accepted solution]

You’re thinking of it as a parent-child relationship between the plans, where one plan does the heavy lifting, and the other plans tag along for the ride, so-to-speak. The plans, however are created as a peer-to-peer relationship where both have equal access to the pooled data.

Current cellular plans include quite a bit of data, and if needs of some users are small, looking at pre-paid plans might be an option.