Rogers updated their iPhone 3G voice and data plan page.
Data Usage - Your iPhone will be enabled for data usage. If you subscribe to a plan with no data included, data charges at a pay-per-use rate of 5¢/KB for data sent and/or received over the Rogers network will apply, unless you subscribe to a data plan, which we highly recommend. Roaming charges apply while using your iPhone outside Canada. U.S. data roaming on iPhone Packages is $3/MB. The standard international data roaming rate applies. Visit rogers.com/roaming for our roaming rates and destinations. Data usage is measured in KB rounded to the next full KB.
Basically everyone is taking this to mean you can continue to use your current voice and data plans with the iPhone 3G…the ‘value pack bundles’ are optional (and of course highly recommended) as long as you commit to a 3 year term. This seems to be a very soft form of back peddling to counter the negative press they have been receiving due to the confusion that you had to choose one of the bundles in order to get an iPhone. Some people have been told by CSRs that the plans there were announced are not final until July 11th and could change….I suspect these are the final plans but we may see some different offerings in the future but not for launch. I’d like to see a reasonable amount of data (at least a gig) and visual voicemail bundled.
I also liked this passage from the popup linked from that page (red text link popup):
Unauthorized modification to iPhone
Your iPhone is restricted to use on the Rogers network, unless you are roaming. If you attempt to unlock your iPhone and use it on another network, it may become permanently unusable. Making unauthorized modifications to the software on your iPhone violates the iPhone software license agreement, and any resulting inability to use your iPhone is not covered under your iPhone’s warranty.
Yeah, good luck with that.
I’m home now after being in various parts of the Pacific Northwest for the past five days. Here’s the tally of my iPhone usage during that time:
A grand total of 82.2mb over 5 days. Multiplied out to a full 30 days (x 6) equals 493.2mb ….I could see using something in the neighbourhood of 500mb plus or minus a hundred megs or so. Keep in mind this is strictly Edge data speeds with a first generation iPhone. I would expect the iPhone 3G to be used a fair bit more simply with the built in apps (Google Maps + GPS for example) and Mobile Me….let alone the impacts of the Apps store as I’ve mentioned previously.
As before, the 82.2mb of usage was a combination of surfing a couple hours per day, email, Google Maps and a few other apps. I used a little YouTube at the end of my last day (while waiting in the border lineup to come home). I’m the first to admit that YouTube via Edge is stunningly slow…almost to the point of being unusable…3G may be a different story. Although me personally, I rarely used YouTube on my iPhone via wifi…I’m sure there are lots of other people that would use it a ton more than me.
What does this mean for me and the iPhone 3G? I’m still not sure and here’s why:
A friend forwarded me a copy of an email he received from a Rogers PR person in response to his inquiry about the plans* that seemed to imply that the iPhone 3G data packages (’bundles’) that were posted are optional… which means that as long as you currently have a data plan (or add one of them - even the $30 for 300mb plan) and have a voice plan of at least $30/month, you can get an iPhone if you commit to the three year term.
This *could* dramatically change the opinions of many people as to if they will get an iPhone or not. My biggest concern has been the shitty voice options bundled with the data package…as well as the ‘value packs’ which are way over priced.
That doesn’t mean I think the data plans are good and it’s just the voice side that sucks. The biggest thing I don’t want to be doing while using a legitimate iPhone in Canada is worry about my data usage. I’ve gotten along for the past year on 5mb/month combined with plentiful wifi hotspots. I can’t say that will hold true with all the new features of the 3G model.
So my options are either:
- keep my 1st gen iPhone, add on a $30/300mb data plan, cut back on the unnecessary add ons I have and wait for the unlock for the 2.0 firmware to take advantage of the new features
- get the iPhone 3G from Rogers and pay the ‘bundle’ ransom
- get the iPhone 3G and live with a reduced amount of data but preserve my current voice plan which I like
- do nothing and wait and see if the petitions get anywhere with making Rogers offer better plans - which I don’t think will do anything - Rogers doesn’t care about petitions or bad press, they care about making money
I’m probably going to call up retentions and see what, if anything, I can get out of them before I make my final decision. I figure if I can preserve some of my voice plan features (I’m on a couples plan so free calling to my wife and unlimited incoming, among others are must haves) but get the $75/750mb data plan with some retention credits added to knock the price down a bit, I’ll sign for 3 years. I don’t tend to use a lot of daytime minutes and haven’t gone over my allotment ever so we’ll see what they can offer.
T-minus 10 days until we see how many people bite the bullet and get the iPhone…I’m betting that more people than you’d expect will still signup…especially after they’ve viewed the iPhone 3G guided tour of new features.
* It appears a number of people are starting to get responses from Rogers now. Head over to Peter’s site to see what they told him about the plans.
Here’s a thought:
Now that Rogers will be bringing the iPhone to Canada, I wonder what will happen when the 2.0 firmware is released (most likely July 11th)? Let’s say you have a first generation iPhone, connected to the presumably newly released version of iTunes (on July 11th) and update the firmware and you’re logged into your Canadian iTunes account. Upgrading to a new firmware version has always locked the phone back to the original state - but would it now be locked to Rogers or AT&T?
I would be shocked if the above scenario ended up with a Rogers locked first generation iPhone but you never know…I might take a legitimately locked 1st gen iPhone with a plan of my choosing with access to the Apps store, Mobile Me, etc right out of the gate than the abomination that are their plans that lock you in for 3 years.
Or maybe not since I travel enough that I like having an unlocked iPhone.
It doesn’t really matter either way since the new firmware will be hacked a lot quicker than previously as a lot more is known this time around than last year.
Anyways, just something I’ve been thinking about.
In light of today’s news, I’ve had some time to think about the plans that Rogers/Fido are offering for the iPhone.
I happened to be heading down to Seattle/Portland for a little vacation and decided to ’splurge’ and buy the $19.99 unlimited (edge) data addon for my AT&T Pay-as-you-go sim card that I use in my iPhone when I’m in the US. It’s a fairly recent feature that is available to PAYG users. You simply call up the GoPhone number (611) and have it added to your account. It expires 30 days after you add it assuming you have money left in your account. So for my 5 day trip, I have unlimited data on my iPhone for about $4/day. The cost will go further down if I travel again down here within the next 25 days after my return.
I figured this would be a good way to see what my actual usage will be and may help to decide if I actually signup for the iPhone 3G or simply add the newly added $30 for 300mb plan that Rogers has to my existing iPhone.
Here’s how my first day went:
I reset the data counter before I put my AT&T sim into the iPhone and turned off wifi so this is just today’s usage. This is a couple hours of web surfing, checking three email accounts every 15 minutes, a bunch of google maps lookups and sending a few photos to Flickr. No Youtube.
Basically about 15mb of usage for what I would call a slightly above average day…probably more consistent with a weekend day. Let’s say that I do 30mb on an average weekend and multiply that by 4 weekends a month = 120mb.
So let’s say I do 10mb on a weekday. 10mb x 20 days = 200mb for an average month of weekday usage. If we total this usage for an average month we get about 320mb. Keep in mind I haven’t done any audio or video streaming and only basic email and web surfing. Who knows what kind of usage things like the Apps Store are going to incur.
I’m trying to be realistic in my usage. I’ve had my iPhone for almost a year now so the ‘oooh shiny new toy’ feeling has long worn off. Let’s say just for fun, that my monthly usage is rounded up to 400mb/month…conveniently the same as Rogers least expensive iPhone plan.
The biggest problem I have with the plans probably isn’t the amount of data (of course I would have preferred something similar to what AT&T offers), it’s everything else. A paltry 150 weekday minutes and 75 text messages just isn’t servicable. Evenings/weekends that start at 9pm? COME ON!
Maybe this works with a crappy Motorola phone but not with the iPhone. Of course you can pay more to add on more….but why does it jump from 75 to 10,000 texts if you spend an additional $20?
There just is no middle ground.
This doesn’t even take into account (or at least speak to) what about people on family/couples plans? I currently have unlimited incoming voice. It would appear that I would lose that unless I can ‘buy’ it back.
I’m just curious who Rogers is expecting to spend upwards of $100 a month for a basic plan? I know a lot of people already pay this or more for their plans, but it’s usually either business users, people with shitty plans to begin with or people with huge overages. I’m talking about the base plan. The fact is these plans are bundles of shit that can’t be decoupled or mix’n'matched.
We’ll see how my data usage experiment plays out of the coming days. I just may be sticking with my 1st gen phone.
Stogats, over on HowardForums has posted some contact email addresses for all the people you might want to let know how you feel about these plans.
Also, check out Tod’s post with a lot more info about the iPhone rollout.
This morning I woke up to discover that Rogers (and Fido) had released their pricing for the iPhone data/voice plans.
Sent Incoming
Text Text Visual
Price Voice Data Messages messages Voicemail
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
$60 / 150 minutes + unlimited 400 MB 75 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
$75 / 300 minutes + unlimited 750 MB 100 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
$100 / 600 minutes + unlimited 1 GB 200 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
$115 / 800 minutes + unlimited 2 GB 300 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
I guess my previous optimism was blinded by the thought of a new device and that Apple was going to be able to influence change in Canada.
I’m going to have to think this over a bit before I decide if I’m going to upgrade or stick with my 1st generation iPhone. In the scheme of things, these aren’t horrible rates….they’re just not good ones…kinda like that sandwich in the vending machine - you don’t want to eat it but it’s the only option you have.
These plans don’t even include caller id or a reasonable amount of text messages. Of course, they’ve created additional ‘value packs’ for those things. It’s unknown if these plans automatically roll over to the next tier if you go over your minutes/data/txts in a given month or if you’re subject to high per minute/kb overages.
Get the whole sad picture here or directly for Rogers or Fido.
Update: They have finally updated the website with the plan details.
Almost a month ago, I posted my predictions for the next version of the iPhone. Let’s see how I did:
Prediction #1: Details about the iPhone release in Canada will be announced on June 9th
Steve Jobs himself will announce them during the WWDC Keynote as he reveals the next iteration of the iPhone (version 2.0/3G/whatever) and details the rollout of the iPhone to a number of other countries/carriers that also had similarly worded (brief) press releases regarding the iPhone coming out “later this year”.
1 for 5 - although this one was pretty easy if you follow Stevenotes - Mr. Jobs like to make the big announcements.
Prediction #2: Rogers will offer the 3G iPhone to Canadians.
2 for 5 - No surprise here…as I mentioned before, what better way to purge the network of the first gen iPhones?
Prediction #3: there will be a decent iPhone data plan for Canadians.
Still 2 for 5 but this part hasn’t been officially announced yet - hence my delay in commenting on my predictions. There are some pretty solid rumours floating around that seem to confirm something in the range of $30/month for unlimited data for consumers and $45/month for business users. Whether you think $30 is a decent price for unlimited data or not, it’s exactly what folks in the US will be paying on AT&T (up from $20) plus now they have to pay ($5 more) for SMS messages whereas before they were included. This is unprecedented pricing in Canada on a handset as capable as the iPhone. I’ll update this post when it’s official which is rumoured to be Friday, June 20th.
Prediction #4: the Canadian iPhone will sell for no more than $399 with a two year contract and be available before the end of the summer, if not immediately.
Not sure how to score this one….of three scorable points, I’d say I got 2/3 - The phone will be $199 with a 3 year data plan and available on July 11 - well before the end of summer…possibly even before summer if you live in the Vancouver area.
Prediction #5: I could be completely wrong about all of this.
I think I did pretty good overall….we may have to wait until July 11th (or later) to really get an idea of what Rogers/Fido are offering to Canadians. There are still a lot of unanswered questions with the rollout of the new iPhone. Here’s some of my outstanding ones:
- what is the handset price for people that recently did a hardware upgrade?
- can 1st gen iPhone get hooked up with the $30 unlimited plan (if it’s true)?
- how are the handsets going to be distributed? Instore, online or both?
- will getting an iPhone cause me to break out of my family plan?
- (assuming it’s real) are there any limits (hard/soft caps) with the unlimited data?
- what about 3rd party applications….Apple has this Apps store, perhaps you’ve heard of it?
- will the iPhone 3G be Rogers branded/feature disabled in any way? My guess is no.
Counting down the days til July 11th.
One thing I didn’t touch on in my earlier posts about the WWDC Keynote today was the App Store and the addition of the Enterprise features to the iPhone.
First the App Store.
This is something that’s been in the works for awhile and is shaping up to be a very important part of Apple’s strategy. The App Store will allow developers to offer software applications to iPhone/Touch users with installation as simple as buying a song from iTunes. Judging from the demos of a few games and apps today, there are some pretty polished products waiting in the wings to be unleashed. Games from companies like Sega, with Super Monkey Ball (watch the demo linked in the middle of this page) prove that the iPhone could be a worthy contender against other handheld devices like the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP.
Dedicated apps like the auction browsing one demoed from Ebay and the music making app, Band were impressive as well….although these kinds of apps have been available on Installer for jailbroken iPhones for months, albeit not necessarily from the source company as in the Ebay case. A location based social networking app, Loopt was also demoed but reminds me of Twinkle that I covered previously which is arguably better since it’s using Twitter as the base social network. I’ll reserve judgement until I play with it myself though.
It’ll be interesting to see how stable and reliable these will become when they are legitimately available via Apple although some will be at a cost, like Monkey Ball which will be $9.99. I guess that price is okay considering a DS game would be triple that but it makes impulse purchases less likely than if it was priced in the $5 range. It’s unknown if demos will be available to download before purchase which may clinch the sale.
A very welcome feature of the App Store, unlike the iTunes Wifi Store is that as long as the app is under 10mb, you’ll be able to download it over Edge (or 3G) instead of having to use the desktop iTunes/sync method or Wifi. So if you’re on the go and want to check out that new app that came out, most likely you’ll be able to do it no matter where you are. The update notification will be nice too.
Okay. On to the Enterprise stuff.
One of the biggest things that needs to be done in order to help the iPhone penetrate the corporate world is offering integration with Microsoft Exchange Activesync servers which Apple will soon be offering. Corporate (push!) email on the iPhone will be a dream for many Blackberry toting people although I can understand the reluctance to give up the tactile keyboard for some of the people. When I had my Treo I thought there is nothing that could replace a physical keyboard for me but I’ve adapted to the touch keyboard quite well so they shouldn’t fear it. I wouldn’t hold my breath either for a bluetooth keyboard add-on. Apple doesn’t roll that way and neither should you.
Another interesting item as part of the Enterprise rollout is that the supported email attachments has expanded to include Keynote presentations. This means you can email your presentation to the phone (would be nice if you could sync or retrieve via browser) and then plug in the av cable to the iPhone and then plug that into a projector to display your presentation. Will be interested to see how that functions and if you lose anything in the process like transitions or video playback if they are included in the presentation.
Good for the Enterprise but sad for the employee will also be the ability to lock down the apps on a company deployed iPhone. I understand that this is a necessary evil but still don’t like it. I guess a locked down iPhone is still better than a Blackberry. Custom application downloads will also be available to the Enterprise via their intranet.
I wonder how Rogers will try to entice companies away from their competition using the iPhone now that it can compete against the Blackberry.
Today, during Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, Steve Jobs announced the new 3G iPhone. It’s going to be available in Canada from Rogers and Fido on July 11th.
It’s interesting to note that Fido will be selling the iPhone in Canada as well as Rogers as you can see from the screenshot below:
Unfortunately, at this time, nobody at Rogers or Fido seems to know this. Calls to both Rogers and Fido sales and customer service resulted in transfers to the clueless department. Great way to promote something this big - not tell any of your frontline staff anything. Meanwhile both the Apple Canada website and Rogers website are getting hammered with interested buyers looking for more information. I’d expect a proper press release to come out soon where they detail the pricing of their data plans so keep an eye (or subscribe) to Rogers news release page.
The phone itself will cost no more than $199US for the 8gb version so I’d expect it to be $199 Canadian. Subsidies haven’t been announced at this time but Apple said they wanted to make the phone available to more people and have reduced the cost to facilitate this.
I was at the local Apple Store to ‘watch’ the keynote coverage live with some friends (a larger crowd formed around us) and play WWDC Bingo (close but no cigar this year). Unfortunately it wasn’t broadcast via video but there was someone streaming audio via Ustream as well as a number of tech blogs had coverage. I was with a few friends and we used a 30″ Cinema Display and a fully loaded MacPro to watch the action. The store staff were pretty accommodating and kept checking in to see what was being announced. Apparently they had a computer in the back some staff was watching the updates as well but they didn’t have anything like a live feed. We were asked to turn it down a couple of times as the 3G iPhone details were spelled out by Steve….the applause was deafening on the Ustream feed.
See you in line on July 11th! Anyone want to buy a 2G iPhone?
Update: Here’s a link to Apple’s release regarding the iPhone in Canada. Still waiting for Rogers to release theirs. Thanks to Buzz for the link.
Update 2: Rogers has finally posted their news release regarding the iPhone:
Rogers and Apple to Bring iPhone 3G to Canada on July 11
WWDC SAN FRANCISCO and TORONTO, June 9 /CNW/ - Rogers Communications and Apple(R) today announced that the highly anticipated iPhone(TM) 3G will be available in Canada on July 11. iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast(*) as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.
“Rogers has a long history of bringing Canadians the very best in wireless services, networks and handset innovations,” said Rob Bruce, president, Rogers Wireless. “With iPhone 3G, we will provide our customers with an amazing mobile experience over Canada’s fastest wireless network.”
“We’re excited to be working with Rogers to bring iPhone 3G to Canada,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s COO. “We can’t wait to get this revolutionary phone in the hands of even more people around the world.” iPhone 3G will operate on Rogers’ High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) wireless network, the fastest mobile network in Canada. HSPA is nationally available in the top Canadian urban centers from Vancouver to Halifax, covering more than 60 percent of the population. iPhone 3G will also operate on Roger’s coast-to-coast GSM/EDGE network, proven to be the country’s most reliable wireless network. Starting July 11, iPhone 3G will sell for $199 for the 8Gb model and $299 for the 16Gb model, on a three-year plan. More details on price plans and retail availability will be available soon.
Note that it will be $199/$299 (8gb/16gb models) on a 3 year term with Rogers or Fido.
Update 3: Tod Maffin has some more info from an inside source - if true, could mean that current 1st gen iPhones may be usable on Rogers if you lock in to their data plan(s) which still hasn’t been outlined
Head over to Michael Gist’s site for information about a new bill that could be introduced as soon as tomorrow that will have huge impacts on peer to peer file sharing in Canada. The main bullet point is that file sharers would be fined $500 PER copyrighted file they shared.
I have a hard time believing something like this, at least in it’s current state, would get passed in Canada without any controversy.
Today is the beginning of the “Auction of Spectrum Licences for Advanced Wireless Services and Other Spectrum in the 2 GHz Range“.
Huh?
What this means is that Industry Canada is basically paving the way for some fresh blood to enter the Canadian Wireless (cellular) space. This should translate into some competition for the ‘big 3′ (Rogers, Bell & Telus) in this country as 40% of the available spectrum is earmarked for new players to start offering wireless services possibly as soon as early next year.
It’s unclear how long the auction will last and who all the bidders are but it seems to be a number of communications companies across the country, including Shaw Communications. Hopefully there are rules preventing someone from Shaw winning the auction only to be bought up by Rogers or Bell in a few years time, effectively killing off the competition. This has happened in the past when Rogers bought Fido, Telus bought Clearnet, etc.
Possibly not so coincidentially, today Bell began offering ‘unlimited data’ for $30/month on all of their smartphones - previously it was only available on specific models or non-smartphones (wap only).
Could this be the beginning of the decline of high data prices in Canada? My money is still on June 9th as the main turning point when Apple is expected to outline the iPhone rollout in Canada among many other countries.
UPDATE: Wirelessnorth.ca has a lot more details about the auction with daily play by plays of the bids.
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