The long-anticipated announcement regarding data plan rates for the iPhone in Canada where unveiled by Rogers today, as the company made public their "flexible" price packages.
The announcement came with four different price points: $60, $75, $100 and $115. However, none of these plans include unlimited data. The cheapest offering comes with 400MB of data usage and the highest-priced plan runs at $115.
Rogers has always priced their data plan services well above those in other countries (as do most other Canadian wireless companies). In the U.S. for example, AT&T will be providing 3G data services for only $30 which includes unlimited data.
Rogers has been heavily criticized for the pricing, even compared to plans the company has offered in the past.
The new data plan pricing is better than the norm, especially considering the plans include voice. However, the data cap at 2GB may hurt those who are heavy mobile Internet users. In the event you go above the cap on your plan, Rogers will likely charge for each additional MB, as they have done with other data plans.
Rogers has also indicated a 3-year contract will be required in order to purchase the iPhone 3G at the $199 maximum price that Apple CEO Steve Jobs promised last month at the
WWDC '08.
Overall, this means Canadians will not be getting the affordable pricing they were hoping for, and they are getting a much worse deal compared to plans U.S. iPhone customers enjoy.
Below are the specifics on the iPhone 3G plans that Rogers will be providing:
iPhone 3G Price Plans at Rogers Wireless
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Sent Incoming
Text Text Visual
Price Voice Data Messages Messages Voicemail
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$60 / 150 minutes + unlimited 400 MB 75 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
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$75 / 300 minutes + unlimited 750 MB 100 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
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$100 / 600 minutes + unlimited 1 GB 200 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
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$115 / 800 minutes + unlimited 2 GB 300 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
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Data Usage - What You Get
Monthly
Data Usage Online Applications
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400 MB up to 200,000 text emails or 3,100 web pages or 1,360 photo
attachments
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750 MB up to 380,000 text emails or 5,900 web pages or 2,560 photo
attachments
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1 GB up to 524,000 text emails or 8,000 web pages or 3,500 photo
attachments
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2 GB up to 1,048,000 text emails or 16,000 web pages or 7,000
photo attachments
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Update by Chris Hogg, DigitalJournal.com Editor: Liz Hamilton, Communications Director for Rogers Wireless, has responded to questions from us about why pricing is so high and there are no unlimited data plans. Ms. Hamilton writes:
"With respect to our iPhone 3G pricing, we believe that the customer that wants this device wants to fully appreciate all that iPhone 3G has to offer so there's a wide selection of high value price packages to meet the needs of Canadians.
"Every carrier will undoubtedly have a different approach and we can only speak to ours, however I should note the majority of carriers offering iPhone worldwide did not have unlimited iPhone plans. Some of them (Orange France is one example) implemented a 'soft cap' making the plan not truly unlimited (theirs is 500MB - if you compare that to ours we have a plan that offers 4x that usage included in your package).
"We believe that unlimited plans could end up costing customers more for what they don't use. Rogers' iPhone 3G plans will more than accommodate the vast majority of customers.
"Something else to note: if you look at previous media reports, the average usage for iPhone was less than 100MB per month, so Rogers has quadrupled the data bucket for the entry level plan at $60 for 400 MB and is offering our customers 20 times the data on our most comprehensive plan."
