Rogers iPhone 3G Pricing: Lube Not Included
Rogers has unveiled its pricing structure for the iPhone 3G in Canada, and it can be summarized in one syllable. Unfortunately, this is a family-oriented website, so I’ll have to use a different syllable:
Ouch.
First off: there’s absolutely no unlimited data plan. Rogers may claim they have tried to make the plans slightly less ridiculous, but they failed bigtime – it’s business as usual, continuing the time-honoured tradition of having Canadians pay through the nose for meager amounts of mobile data. The cost of data plans range from $60 for 400MB of data transfer to $115 for 2GB of data transfer. This stands in stark contrast to the simple, affordable AT&T iPhone plans in the US, which feature unlimited data, Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll-over minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling for every plan – and the cheapest plan is $59.99.
The differences are staggering. The cheapest Rogers plan only include 75 text messages, versus 200 for the AT&T plan. To match the capabilities of the AT&T plan, you’d have to spring for the $100 a month plan with Rogers. For $60 with Rogers, you get 150 minutes of talk time, versus the 450 minutes you get with AT&T for $59.99. That’s right – 3 times the talk time, and it’s 1 cent cheaper.
But wait! There’s less!
Rogers “Value Packs” are required for things like Caller Display, additional text messages, and Call Forwarding (which appears to be billed on a per minute basis, which strikes me is really odd). All of these “Value Packs” are noted with “Wireless Essentials Included” – really? I have no idea what that means, but if they’re included, why the hell are they an extra charge on top of the main plans?
By all appearances, the Rogers iPhone 3G plans are optimized for complexity and designed to milk the consumer dry. Way to go Rogers, you’ve exceeded my expectations, but not in a good way.
I am still kicking myself for blithely abandoning my $50 unlimited data plan from Fido years ago.
But let’s acknowledge who’s to blame here… us! We elect weak, knuckle-dragging politicians who are either too ignorant to understand the implications of the telecommunications industry they have fostered, or parasitically aligned with said robber barons purely for political gain.
The best part of all is the language we tolerate from these fools. I’ve noticed that in Rogers video stores they’re proudly promoting the convenience and consumer-friendliness of their “pay per day” option, which is simply late fees by another name. Only in Canada do we so easily tolerate this kind of nonsense.
Comments on John Beihler’s post are tracking the outrage quite nicely.
Oh, and one more thing… Don’t forget that our friends in the US get 450 minutes anywhere — no wireless long distance — while us poor suckers pay up to $0.35 / minute just for the privilege of, say, calling Calgary from Edmonton.
You now know why carrier competition, on the same platform, is a good thing.
This news is making it easy to decide whether to upgrade to the iPhone- the hard part is when I realize that Rogers is already taking us for a ride with our Blackberries, and thus can I barely contain my seething rage.
Pretty sure the ‘wireless essentials’ is referring to the unlimited Rogers WiFi hotspot access. Honestly, that’s going to save me a ton of transfer anyway (besides the fact that I have wireless everywhere I go anyway).
I’ll point out that this isn’t the US. Grade 11 economics would point out that the markets are very different and so doing a straight comparison is basically worthless. Canada is a much larger country physically, while having a much smaller population. Rogers’ coverage area is larger than all of California, but Cali has way more potential wireless customers.
Ergo the prices are always going to be higher in Canada.
Of course it’s the internet and we all need something to be mad about.
You always make me laugh.
http://www.fuckyourogers.com/
@Jeffery Simpson: Yes and no. While Canada is larger geographically, the actual populated land area is smaller.
The majority of the population lives within 100km of the US border – so Canada is actually more like Chile tipped on its side. There are, from the perspective of population, only really a handful of significantly populated Canada metropolitan areas (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec).
It is folly to argue that it’s more expensive for Rogers because they have to service all of Canada, which has a smaller population. Nobody said they needed to service middle-of-nowhere-ville, did they?
That said, sure, there is reason to believe it will be somewhat more expensive; however, the extent of the expense seems out of line. That’s not limited to the iPhone cell phone plan – everything seems to be unjustifiably more expensive here, and everyone just accepts it.
“Value Packs” == “Profit Packs”
they’re designed not for the convenience of the customer, but for the benefit of Rogers to charge you for 1 or 2 “essentials” you really need. but individually they’re so outrageously priced (for something that should be standard) that you feel inclined to buy the bundle with 3 or 4 other useless features. (Caller RingTrax, anyone?)
actually, you can buy Caller Display separately, without the Profit Pack. That’s a “wireless essential” aka a feature that should be standard. others would be voicemail, extra text messaging, etc.
by itself, Caller Display is $7 (they do the same for all other plans). Rogers has recently confirmed you don’t have to buy one of the 2 mentioned Profit Packs with the iPhone 3G, you can buy the essentials a la carte. How generous of them!
it reminds me in a way of how Air Canada tries to put a positive spin on the fact that you have to buy snacks and meals on some flights – “look at the great selection and convenience we’re offering you, see our Popular and Innovative Menu!”. I can’t wait to see how they decide to tell us they’re doing us a favour by charging for checked baggage…
rogers is stewing canadians for there money chase we have a smaller population): ):