A slip to BGR today hints that Canadian phone carrier Rogers is about to alter its smartphone plans with an emphasis on lowering the entry price. The company is poised to upgrade its core Smartphone Plans with a new $45 monthly plan that includes 250 minutes of call time per month, unlimited calling on evenings and weekends, and 500MB of data; the plan is both a better deal than the existing $50 plan's 150 minutes and potentially improved for starter iPhone owners that don't require Visual Voicemail or text messages.

Unusually, higher tiers are said only to increase the amount of calling time, giving 400 minutes for $50 per month and 650 minutes on a $75 plan. All of the plans allow tethering the phone to a computer for use as a modem and don't disrupt either the iPhone plans or existing generic plans, which let users combine separate voice and data packages if they need more bandwidth.

When the plans will be unveiled isn't mentioned, though Rogers is poised to launch a wave of new smartphones from the spring onwards that will include new 3G BlackBerries and other devices that are more likely to rely on data.