New Rogers BlackBerry rates clue to iPhone plan?
updated 02:55 pm EDT, Fri June 20, 2008
Rogers BBerry Plan Update
Rogers Wireless today instituted new BlackBerry service plans that customers are concerned may reflect the price plans for the iPhone 3G when it arrives in Canada next month. While offering more bandwidth than previous plans, the pricing again includes metered bandwidth with different tiers: a new $30 monthly plan offers 300MB of data with 50 cents per megabyte and overage protection to prevent excessive fees; new extra tiers increase the bandwidth allotment to 1GB ($60), 3GB ($80), and 6GB ($100) with the same protection rates.
Pricing for Windows Mobile devices has yet to be updated.
The plans draw concern as they potentially line up with pricing changes alluded to by Rogers Wireless' president at a recent summit, when he suggested that both the BlackBerry Bold and the iPhone 3G would help increase the average revenue per user by $30 per month on the back of improved data plans. While the plans primarily address e-mail and won't necessarily translate to the iPhone's more general use, a 300MB limit for the iPhone would see Rogers enacting much stricter data limits than AT&T, which allows unlimited access for all non-enterprise purposes for a similar price.
Canadian cellular data rates are commonly believed to be some of the most restrictive among first-world countries and have only been nearing parity with the US and other areas in the past year. As late as summer 2007, Rogers was charging as much as $295 per month for 500MB of data and voice offerings that roughly matched the basic $60 iPhone plan at the time. [via BGR]
canadian reality
06/20, 03:31pm reply
what can I say, corporate b******* are able to s**** up any good idea. i ain't signing up only to be limited to 10M/day for surfing. here goes your Canadian appstore, Stevie.
maxk
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2008
time to wait
06/20, 03:35pm reply
i suppose there is going to be no iphone for me then - this is exactly what i was afraid of - rogers will s**** up the iphone experience for canadians...
where is the CRTC?
Tofino
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2005
Yay Rogers!
06/20, 04:12pm reply
How did we know that Rogers would uphold it's redefinition of "unlimited"? No iPhone for me either...
EmmEff
Dedicated MacNNer
Joined: Jul 2004
Smartphone data plans
06/21, 11:05am reply
The Blackberry data plans have nothing to do with either the Windows Mobile data plans or the iPhone which is running OS X as each target different markets. Anyway if we're comparing as the author of the article would like AT&T and Rogers Blackberry data plan rates the plans are basically the same. Why do I say this? Well consider that AT&T states for personal use (meaning no access to Blackberry Exchange Server) a user can get either a $30.00 MSF unlimited Blackberry data plan or a $60.00 5 GB data plan that allows tethering. Then read their service agreement which basically states AT&T reservers the right to charge for excessive usage on their so called "unlimited" data plans. Then with Rogers for a similar plan there's either the $30.00 MSF for 300 MB of BIS (Personal Email ie: Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo) or for heavy data users the $50.00 MSF Flex Rate that goes from 500 MB to 5 GB. Now also take into consideration that a Blackberry compresses data better than either a Windows Mobile smartphone (ie: Motorola Q9H) or even an iPhone and you'll find you don't need unlimited data. I've used several different data devices and found the max I reached going crazy with using Blackberry Maps, browsing the net and email was 18 MB in a month. That's unlike the iPhone where I use nearly double the data in the same 30 day period.
imagine engine
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2007
Rogers=no iPhone
06/22, 02:40am reply
No iPhone here.
Thats bloody insane.
Ucluelet
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2008