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.

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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:

1. 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
2. get the iPhone 3G from Rogers and pay the ‘bundle’ ransom
3. get the iPhone 3G and live with a reduced amount of data but preserve my current voice plan which I like
4. 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Just got my $100 ‘Climate Action Dividend‘ cheque in the mail today. 

What are you planning on doing with yours? Me personally, I’m depositing into my home fund. I already do a lot to help the environment so I figure it should just go into the account I have for household related expenses. This will undoubtably go towards buying more CFL’s, more energy efficient appliances or something similar for my house.

It’s not really going to make too much of a dent in my gas expenses since I commute a fair distance to work (it equals about two weeks worth of gas for my car) and it’s purpose is to partially offset the forthcoming carbon tax that will be added to gasoline in BC starting July 1st.

I’m not sure this dividend is the best way to deal with carbon offsets but I’ll take the money anyways.

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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.

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I recently stumbled across Matt Darey’s podcast (iTunes link) which is basically a rebroadcast of his show on the XM satellite radio station BPM.

It’s completely free and from what I’ve heard so far, it is fantastic. The first half is his own stuff/mixes followed by an exclusive set by a guest ’superstar’ dj. If you’re a fan of electronic music, I encourage you to check out his podcast and the rest of his site which has a media player.

Did I mention it’s free, high quality electronic music? Hours and hours of it (over 200 hours worth)!

Even if you don’t like Matt’s style, chances are you’ll like one of his guests.

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This is too funny…

via @justinkeller

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If you take a look at ebay or craigslist right now, you’ll see that people are selling off their ‘old’ iPhones left and right. The prices are dropping through the floor as the ‘new’ iPhone 3G gets closer to release.

But I say hold on a minute.

Many sites are reporting that you will no longer be able to walk into an Apple or AT&T store (in the US) and leave with an unactivated iPhone. They are changing their previously open policy of letting you activate it at home. Unfortunately for them, a lot of people were unlocking and using them in other countries as Steve Jobs implied during the keynote on Monday.

What this means is that currently, aside from craigslist or ebay (and similar places) selling the 1st gen iPhone, there won’t be any place to get an unlocked iPhone without some kind of contract (string) attached. Even after the 2.0 firmware has been unlocked, most, if not all, 3G iPhones out there will be part of a contract. The 1st gen iPhones will also be getting the new firmware (and many features aside from 3G and GPS support, of course) so that will inevitably be unlocked as well.

To me, it seems likely that the value of an unlocked iPhone will start rising very soon. Even with 1.x version firmware, these iPhones will be a hot commodity to people that don’t want to lock into a long contract, users that live in countries that have multiple GSM providers or those that do not yet have the iPhone.

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