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.
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
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.
There has been a lot of talk and speculation about the rumoured 3G iPhone as well as when it will launch in Canada since the ‘if’ part has been established (’later this year’) and how much the data plan might cost to Canadians. I figured I’d throw my thoughts out there and see how close I get it later.
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”.
It’s interesting to note that a number of ’soon-to-be-carrying-iPhone’ countries have been mentioned previously in various places like Apple’s shareholder meetings well in advance of their official rollout - except for Canada.
Prediction #2: Rogers will offer the 3G iPhone to Canadians.
It makes sense that Rogers would want to negate the thousands of unlocked iPhones already in Canada by selling the latest version. This would mean that all current iPhones (mine included) would still work but would potentially be locked out of any sweet data deal (more on that in a second) since the 1st gen iPhone wasn’t offered by Rogers.
Prediction #3: there will be a decent iPhone data plan for Canadians.
There has been a lot of talk about IMEI tracking, user agent string logging and other forms of identifying users on the Rogers network in order to charge them for using data via 3rd party applications and non-sanctioned websites. I have a hard time believing Apple would allow Rogers to sell the iPhone without some kind of decent data plan….perhaps not quite as generous as the AT&T plan ($20/month all you can eat data) but even that could change down south with the release of the SDK built 3rd party apps via the iTunes App Store that will also be unveiled at WWDC. The bottomline is that Rogers will have to offer a compelling data plan, targeted at consumers, not businessmen, if they hope to sell a decent number of these phones. Canada is a relatively small market for high(er) end phones in the first place, so it has to be decent to get any kind of penetration with the Facebook generation. Just look at how many non-businessman currently have Blackberry Pearls - mostly for email and Facebook.
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.
They will make the iPhone available very quickly in order to not slow down sales. Dragging out the release would only cause people to hold off on new activations or give competitors a chance to steal potentials away from Rogers with sweet deals. Despite it being Rogers modus operandi to do everything with a 3 year contract these days, because of the way Apple will require them to sell the iPhones, there won’t be a requirement for a 3 year deal, a 2 year deal will be required. There has been a lot of rumours that AT&T will be offering the iPhone for $199 with a 2 year contract once the 3G version comes out so I could see Rogers doing something similar but with a higher markup than AT&T. It just really depends on what the 3G version looks like from a specs standpoint and what it offers above and beyond the 1st gen model.
I’m still not convinced that 3G is all that great having used Edge in a lot of places, it’s not that bad for many things you’d want to do on the iPhone and would rather have slower internet speeds than a battery-killing 3G speed any day. I still don’t believe that videophone capabilities will really matter that much to most people. I personally don’t know anybody that either has a video capable phone or would even use that feature if they did. Streaming video is another story completely and could be a more compelling reason for 3G.
Prediction #5: I could be completely wrong about all of this.
One of the fun things about Apple announcements is that more often than not, they find a way to make people that predict what they are going to announce look foolish. They do it again and again.
So I’m not putting any money on my predictions. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens on June 9th.
Beginning tomorrow, Rogers will begin offering the Nokia N95 8gb smartphone to Canadians.
This is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s the first time in North America that this model phone is offered - previously only available unlocked directly from Nokia. As I mentioned previously in my post about the iPhone coming to Canada, Rogers isn’t known (to me at least) for being the first on the block to offer new mobile tech so this is a positive step in the right direction for them.
If I didn’t already have an iPhone, the N95 is probably the phone I’d be using right now. It has a really nice 5 megapixel camera (with flash!) and can also shoot video which can be streamed via Qik.com. GPS is integrated as is Wifi and features a very hackable S60 operating system.
The only caveats I’ve heard of with the device is the short battery life and some clunky software. I’m not sure how it would perform using it the way I use my iPhone so I tend to discount battery issues until I get my hands on one - I get 2-3 days per charge with my iPhone with wifi and bluetooth enabled all the time but I’m not streaming video or powering a flash.
The press release also mentions the unlimited browsing with the Vision mobile plan (and a 3 year contract). I wonder if this means that software like Qik are included? My guess is that only using the built in browser is supported and third party apps aren’t included. I guess we’ll see once people start pushing the limits of the data plan with an ‘official’ phone and not an unlocked one being used on the network.
Things are definitely getting interesting in the Canadian mobile market.
Thanks to BlueFur for the reminder.
It’s about time.
Unfortunately no details other than it’s coming ‘before the end of the year’.
The big questions to me are:
- How much for the phone itself in Canada?
- what does the data and voice plans look like? They better resemble the US pricing
- How long do we have to lock in? Rogers seems to like 3 year terms
- Will it be the rumoured new 3G model or as Rogers tends to be behind in releasing phones, will it be last year’s model
I’m sure there are many more questions that will come once more information is made available. This announcement seems to fly in the face of the previous (rumoured) reasons no announcements were made from Rogers concerning upcoming releases would harm current unit sales….I would think if you’re on the fence/want an iPhone/want a new phone period, you’re going to wait for more information, effectively hurting sales now.
I guess this is progress so I should be happy….so why am I expecting the worst?
UPDATE: Watch Boris Mann talk about the iPhone announcement on CTV Newsnet from earlier today.
In a shocking move that is both good and bad at the same time, Rogers has apparently changed their data plans. Bad because it’s still woefully overpriced compared to the rest of the planet but good because now instead of raping you in overages if you go beyond your data allotment, they now just bump you up to the next tier which actually seem relatively fair.
They’ve got a long way to go before they can expect anyone other than corporate users to start using mobile data in any significant way on their network. I guess rollover data is also a pipe dream at this point.
via Engadget Mobile
Rob over at TechVibes has a post about the recently announced wireless spectrum that the Canadian government with be auctioning off next year. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal but this time around, it might actually matter. They are reserving a portion of the available spectrum for newcomers to the marketplace - so the big 3 can’t simply buy up the available spectrum and hold it hostage to the Canadian consumers.
The government must have finally heard all the cries of the wireless customers that are getting ripped off by ‘the big 3′ wireless carriers in this country…where we pay more than most every other country in the world for wireless data (and probably voice too).
It’ll be interesting to see how this all pans out and who the newcomers will be - Google? Apple? Maybe some independent pro-consumer groups will emerge to grab that spectrum.
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