View this article at: http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/06/20/rogers.bberry.plan.update/
Friday, Jun 20, 2008 2:55pm
New Rogers BlackBerry rates...
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]