It’s not often that you talk about a great deal in the Canadian cell phone market. Really, one normally mentions how much he or she got ripped off by one of the three incumbents (Robellus as it’s so unflatteringly referred to) but Mobilicity’s Friends and Family Event takes “unlimited” and “savings” to a completely different place than one would normally experience a Canadian mobile carrier to take you.

I recently got wind (no pun intended) of the formerly $65, now $35 plan, you see above, and jumped at the opportunity to test out Mobilicity’s network on my very own AWS-enabled Nexus One. We covered Mobilicity’s launch of the venerable Android unit a couple weeks ago, but coming off a stint with WIND Mobile, I was curious to see how Mobilicity’s network would compare to its zone-based competitor where I lived, worked and played (that’s Markham, Scarborough and downtown Toronto, respectively). I have had nothing but good experiences with WIND’s network, except for a few places in my home in which I experience dead zones, but I wanted to try with Mobilicity to see if I got the same coverage.

In a word, no. I haven’t done equivalent testing yet (wait a couple weeks for an in-depth review of the WIND Motorola XT720 for that) but anecdotally, WIND’s coverage is a little better than Mobilicity’s, especially indoors. Outside, in Markham, they’re pretty much equivalent, though I did notice there were some areas where WIND has four or five bars while Mobilicity had one or two. Speed-wise, however, both are pretty quick, averaging around 2Mbps depending on location and coverage.

In terms of what you get in the package, though, Mobilicity wins hands-down. For $35, as seen above, you get unlimited in-zone North American calling, global texting, data, BIS data, call display, voicemail, etc. For $50 on WIND, you can currently (with promotions included) get 100 in-zone minute, unlimited global texting (promotion-based, otherwise it’s 50 outgoing texts, unlimited incoming), unlimited data, call display. No voice mail, limited voice minutes.

Granted, Mobilicity’s promotion is not available to everyone (you have to be a friend or family member of a staff member) and it ends on November 7th, but the fact that they’re willing to shine a light on how much you can get for $35 is quite admirable.

Mobilicity and WIND both have some work to do. Their service areas, especially Mobicility’s, are extremely limited; their in-zone service is still quite spotty. But they are both admirably offering 3G+ networks in major Canadian cities with no infrastructure help from any of the incumbents, and are able to charge less than them while, for the most part, offering more. They will grow and so too will their networks (we hope).

So hit up mobilicity.ca or windmobile.ca for more details, and make every effort to keep these guys in business. I have had a decent experience with Rogers and Bell through the years, and their networks rarely let me down, but Canada needs more competition, and I like shining the spotlight on the hard-working underdogs that are trying to penetrate a very, very saturated market.

To sign up for the Friends and Family plan, hit up Mobilicity Insider.