UPDATED: Rogers Announces iPhone Data Plans; Hopefuls Weep
Posted by Eric March on June 27, 2008 at 11:20 am
It’s the moment of truth, fellow Canucks. Rogers has finally unleashed its tailored iPhone data plans. The verdict? Ted still sucks. I’ll list the details of the plan here, but you’re not going to like them:
| Price | Voice | Data | Sent text messages |
Incoming text messages |
Visual Voicemail |
| $60/month |
150 free minutes |
400MB | 75 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| $75/month | 300 free minutes Unlimited evenings and weekends |
750MB | 100 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| $100/month | 600 free minutes Unlimited evenings and weekends |
1GB | 200 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| $115/month | 800 free minutes Unlimited evenings and weekends |
2GB | 300 | Unlimited |
Unlimited |
Notice any conspicuous absences here? That’s right. No unlimited plan and a 2GB cap on the highest tier. As if it’s any consolation, you do get free WiFi at any Rogers hotspot.
To say that I am disappointed is a weapons-grade understatement. It is abundantly clear that Rogers has absolutely no interest whatsoever in “driving adoption” — either that or they have an incredibly unclear concept of what it takes to do so. These pricing structures will likely drive adoption — to the Blackberry, which has better plans with much higher data caps despite not being a device that engenders over 70% data usage on.
Rogers clearly does not understand the iPhone’s market. If they did, they would understand that plans which have at the very least data caps that are double that of the Blackberry for their current pricing structures would be required to even attempt to “drive adoption” — and ideally, following in AT&T’s footsteps if they were truly serious about getting an iPhone into the hands of as many consumers as possible. But apparently Rogers doesn’t give a damn.
Just par for the still-disgustingly-overpriced Canadian mobile data course.
Full press release here, in case your stomach wasn’t churning hard enough.
UPDATE: Here is Rogers’ official page with all of the details. Here is a comparison of the total cost of the iPhone for the life of the contract between Canada, the US and the UK. Note that while the year-over-year cost is lower than US, they have unlimited data and call display is included, more anytime minutes, more text messages, and shorter contracts. And that’s just for the BASIC 400MB plan.
Here is an online petition you can sign (language warning), though I doubt that will do any good. What might do some good is to give some of the bigwigs a call. Here are a few contacts:
Liz Hamilton, Director of Corporate Communications: elizabeth.hamilton@rci.rogers.com, (416) 935-8710
Ted Rogers, CEO: trogers@rci.rogers.com
J. Innes, VP: jinnes@rci.rogers.com
Jane Haitsma, Customer Relations Executive: jhaitsma@rci.rogers.com
Seriously, keep it civil and well-reasoned. It won’t help the cause if you’re just nasty. There’s also a general “contact us” form for Rogers here. Want lower rates? Contact them and let them know by any and every means necessary. Let them know that this will not stand and that we’ve been abused by Rogers’ GSM monopoly for far too long. If we don’t speak out — and most importantly if we don’t let our dollars do the talking by not buying into their absurd rates — Rogers will never get the message. Let’s make sure they do.
(via Engadget)
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June 27th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Did I not say I expected it to be a full on gouge? I hate it when my boundless cynicism of all things is justified:(
June 27th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Sadly, I predicted the same thing repeatedly over the past couple of months — and I daresay my tier pricing was pretty close, too (though I didn’t anticipate the lowest tiers; mine started at $100 and went up from there.) I was hopeful that Rogers would see perfectly good common sense and at least make the attempt to follow in AT&T’s footsteps — I mean, look at how well it’s worked out for them — but I guess I neglected to factor in Ted’s impermeable granite skull.
*sigh*
Canadians get screwed again.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Captive audience isn’t it. They know the market is there, and will gouge accordingly.
On a completely different note, BOO on the 2.0 update not arriving today:(
June 27th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Problem is, with these rates, I have a strong feeling that Rogers won’t capture the iPhone audience they won’t. There will be plenty who will buy, but I suspect that however many iPhone subscribers they have forecasted will fall short. I certainly hope it will. That, at least, will send them a clear message.
June 27th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Putting my conspiratorial hat on for a minute… Could it be that Rogers WANT the iPhone to fail? I don’t follow along with the industry that much, but isn’t the iPhone largely shifting the balance of power toward Apple and AWAY from the phone companies? Because if that’s so, would it benefit them to bring in the iPhone and then bury it so they can say “The Canadian consumer clearly doesn’t want this” thus retaining the status quo up here? As I said, don’t follow the industry at all, but it just came to mind.
And yeah, that petition is pathetic. I can understand being angry, but swearing like that just makes you look immature and stupid.
June 27th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
That might have been a possibility for the first generation iPhone’s tenure, while Apple still maintained a revenue sharing model with carriers. But since they have reverted to the traditional subsidized model, Apple really doesn’t enter into the picture anymore. Rogers can’t possibly want the iPhone to fail. Had it been priced and planned reasonably, the iPhone would be a cash cow for them even with AT&T-like data rates
The iPhone out-consumes every other phone on the market (smartphone or otherwise) in terms of data consumption by a factor of at least 3:1. What carrier wouldn’t look at those figures and immediately start working on a three foot strand of drool? Certainly Ted Rogers did — but evidently his drool came from a tragic inability to stop breathing through his mouth.
At the current data rates, I’m sure there will be plenty of early adopters for the iPhone, but I have to think that it is still far out of reach of the average consumer. If they priced it far more reasonably, they could at least double their adoption rates, and even if they offered unlimited data at $40/month they’d still make out like bandits — far more than they will with these rates. But Ted just doesn’t get it. Because he’s a f*cking moron.
June 27th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
“Certainly Ted Rogers did — but evidently his drool came from a tragic inability to stop breathing through his mouth.”
HAHAHA! That’s funny.
Whenever I see the name Ted Rogers, I think of this guy.
http://www.ukgameshows.com/page/images/thumb/e/e6/321_ted_with_bin.jpg/200px-321_ted_with_bin.jpg
He was the host of a gameshow in the UK in the early 80’s called 3-2-1. He shares the same name. The character next to him was called Dusty Bin. So I have visions of the dear old Ted you’re talking about having a radio controlled garbage can as an advisor, which may explain the rates they’ve announced I guess…
June 27th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
That just looks like complete rubbish! … I’m from Australia and it now gives me next to no hope for decent rates here …. I was feeling good after O2 released their rates, but now, knowing AU’s general approach to adoptation of new tech, my heart is in my pants again.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:24 am
@Uncle - Well, Canada’s iPhone rates are indeed rubbish, so maybe Ted’s got some inspiration from across the pond after all.
@Matt - You have my condolences. I do hope you guys get a better deal than we did. It wouldn’t be that hard; Rogers has always charged some of the highest data rates in the world and that hasn’t changed this time around either. I hope Aussie carriers are smarter than Rogers.
June 28th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Given the gouging that takes place on everything else in Australia from what I’ve heard, they may be in the running for “worst rate plan”.
June 28th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Just to compare… These are the rates of T-Mobile Germany (€ converted to USD):
- Complete S
Price/month: 45 $
Free Minutes: 50
Data: 0 MB
Free SMS: 0
iPhone 3G 8GB: 265 $
iPhone 3G 16GB: 390 $
- Complete M
Price/month: 76 $
Free Minutes: 100
Data: 300 MB
Free SMS: 40
iPhone 3G 8GB: 94 $
iPhone 3G 16GB: 234 $
- Complete L
Price/month: 108 $
Free Minutes: 200
Data: 1 GB
Free SMS: 150
iPhone 3G 8GB: 2 $
iPhone 3G 16GB: 62 $
- Complete XL
Price/month: 139 $
Free Minutes: 1.000
Data: 5 GB
Free SMS: 300
iPhone 3G 8GB: 2 $
iPhone 3G 16GB: 31 $
Data: UMTS & T-Mobile HotSpots
Price/Minute after free minutes: 0,45 USD
Price/SMS after free SMS: 0,30 USD
http://www.t-mobile.de/iphone/showTariffs.do
:-(
Greetings from Germany,
Ben
June 29th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Wow. That’s even worse than Rogers — and I didn’t think that was possible. You guys really have it rough. Are there any other GSM carriers in Germany, and do T-Mobile have an exclusivity contract with Apple?
June 29th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Yeah, we do have four carriers here: T-Mobile, vodafone, E-Plus and O2. The others tried to sue T-Mobile throughout the year without any success. T-Mobile/T-Com/T-Online is and always was the most expensive proivder in Germany.
I pre-ordered my iPhone 3G with “Complete M” though I’m not really happy about the price. I just didn’t want to carry around an iPod Touch and an extra mobile phone anymore.
Although I have to admit that the fact that having an iPhone is that expensive will mean that not each and everyone can afford one. After Steve’s announcement I was “afraid” it’d be the other way round :-P