I wrote Rogers about this and got a response back. Their general attitude is that most people don’t use much data so they’re doing us a favour by providing such “value priced” packages. I do not agree with this statement. While it may be true right now that people are not using much data on their 1st gen iPhones I feel that is directly related to the fact that 2-way apps are not yet readily available. Oh, and related to the fact that EDGE is basically too crappy to be useful with anything, nevermind data-hungry apps. When the App Store is announced along with 3G, as John says, things will no doubt change.

I have considered the fact that this is protection for Rogers, pure and simple. It’s entirely possible their network can’t handle the potential load from opening the pipe and they would be faced with a customer support backlash. It’s happened in the past, so I’m sure they are covering their asses this time around. That’s somewhat acceptable, but don’t tie in a 3-year commitment around what might just be bad infrastructure.

And if a la carte and/or other plans will be available, why shoot yourself in the foot by announcing such contentious plans in the first place? As this was a press release it has to be taken as their intentions. With no other announcements, they have drawn their line in the sand and show no other options or flexibility.

Plus we all know how geeks love to have companies tell them they know better and know what’s good for them. It tends to initiate a rebellious response, not to mention most of the time “they” are incorrect anyway.

I didn’t watch the full keynote, so I missed that about the apps store. Thanks for the info. Again it seems like Apple’s trying to keep the 3G data usage down with the limit, but it could impact it.

Again Rogers has not really be that public about these plans. Rogers reps aren’t even allowed to mention them in store to customers yet. I actually would not be surprised if you can actually use your current voice plan and the $30 data plan on the new iPhone 3G. Having read over the new plans, and with nearly ten years experiance working with Rogers, I’m not seeing anything to suggest that as with every other phone they sell you wouldn’t be able to build your own plan. I’d be surprised if these weren’t just bundles that they’re offering to save people the time of building their own.

Again with Rogers being so cagey I can’t say for sure. It’s just based on experiance and what little they’re saying now I can’t see why you wouldn’t be able to do that.

While video recording is not officially offered by Apple, there are already apps available for jailbroken iPhones that can do this….and do it quite well at least as a camcorder (record then upload - no realtime streaming that I’ve come across). Qik and Shozu have publically stated they have versions of their apps running already via the SDK.

I didn’t even address things like how Mobile Me will impact users from a data perspective….pushing out email/calendar/contact updates on a daily basis could potentially eat a nice chunk of that 400mb plan on the low end.

I’m currently leaning toward the $75/month plan from a ‘what I would feel comfortable with perspective’….I just have to justify the cost of it. $75 $20 value pack SAF taxes means a significant jump in my monthly bill. It’s one thing if that was unlimited but since it’s not, it’s a tough pill to swallow.

At the moment though, I’m seriously considering just adding the $30/300mb plan to my exisiting iPhone…I’ve gotten along just fine with my 5mb allotment lots of wifi access for the past year.

You mentioned the apps store. We’re not sure how this will run yet, unless it’s been said somewhere that this will work on 3G I’d actually imagine that it’ll run like the iTunes store and only through Wi-Fi. Thus downloading applications won’t be an issue, in regards to the data plan.

Though as pointed out by Roland some of the apps may start eating a lot of data, especially ones that do things like stream video (though with no video recording the iPhone won’t be upstreaming video with this rev.).

1) You’re right in usage. 300 -> 500 MB a month is probably realistic. I used the same as you, about 10MB a day not counting Wi-Fi. Let’s say we’re going to use more on 3G, and round it up to about 400. That still puts us at the second tier of plan pricing, on the basis of data.

2) These prices are not nessicarily the only prices and plans you’ll be able to do with the iPhone. Rogers has bundled pricing plans with the BlackBerries too, though most people opt to select a voice and data plan seperate. Rogers is still being cagey about what the options with the iPhone will be, we’re not even allowed to talk about these plans in the store even though they’re released online, but it’s very likely that you’ll be able to do a regular data plan and any voice plan you want. I can’t promise it, but it’s the way every other phone they offer works.

3) I already did the math on one of the reason data rates in Canada are higher in than in the states in your post yesterday. Again smaller potential market and higher network costs per customer do drive it upwards. A better comparison than between Rogers and AT&T would be Rogers and Telus or Rogers and Bell. At least they’re selling (almost) the same thing in the same market.

With 3G and ShoZu and Qik on the iPhone, I bet I’d do over 800MB to 1GB just because Qik on 3G is actually usable for 20 minute live video streaming uploads. Unfortunately I can’t afford $100 plus system access fee plus tax for 1GB. I’m guessing that Rogers doesn’t think live video streaming via Qik or Flixwagon et al is a mass market app. Mark my words it will be (maybe not now but definitely within 5 years)