Canadian iPhone 3G plans lack unlimited data

It will cost you north of the border.

(Credit: Apple)

If you think AT&T's iPhone 3G service plans are expensive, just consider what Rogers is forcing on our Canadian friends.

Friday, the carrier announced its service plans for the iPhone 3G, none of which include unlimited data use. Instead, Rogers will cap data each month at a certain amount, which will range from 400MB for the cheapest service plan ($60 Canadian or $59.23 U.S.) to 2GB for the most expensive plan ($115 Canadian or $113.64 U.S.).

Though 2GB is a lot of data, we're not sure how a customer is supposed to know what 2GB even means in real-world use. True, you can track your data use on the iPhone, but it's not like tracking calling minutes.

In its press release, Rogers does provide a convenient chart to gauge your data usage--apparently, 2G amounts to 16,000 Web pages (who knew?)--but we don't approve of such an arrangement at all. The iPhone's Web browser is one of its top attractions, particularly on a 3G network, and asking users to limit their data certainly isn't putting the "Internet in your pocket." Rogers is offering unlimited Wi-Fi access at all Rogers and Fido hotspots, but that in itself is limiting if you have to be in one place.

What's more, the data restrictions aren't the half of it. While AT&T's cheapest iPhone 3G service plan ($69 per month) includes 450 anytime minutes, the cheapest Rogers plan (the one with 400MB of data) only gets 150 anytime minutes. Ouch. Similarly Rogers' most expensive plan includes only 800 anytime minutes while AT&T's priciest plan ($129 per month) includes unlimited anytime minutes. Double ouch.

Come on, Rogers, you have to give your customers a little more. Especially when your contracts run three years.

[mmntech]

It's not just Rogers. Canada in general has some of the most expensive cell phone rates in the developed world. It's primarily due to lack of competition. There are only three major cell phone providers here covering the entire country. Rogers has no incentive to lower iPhone plan costs given that people have so few alternatives. I doubt the plan costs will stop people from buying the iPhone but it's still a huge ripoff. Then again, we Canadians always get ripped off on tech prices.

[HobbesDoo]

Well, we Canadians always get ripped off because WE Canadians never do anything about the monopolies forced down on us by the government. If our Gas can be bought by an American company, why can't we have American cell carriers competing in Canada as well??

Come on people. Say NO to Rogers and demand a fair price for the iPhone. After all what's the point of having an iPhone if you will be limited in exactly what the iPhone is for, a portable internet device and a phone.

After waiting anxiously a full year to get an iPhone here in Canada, I'm sad to say I'm not getting one. I'm buying an iPod Touch and doing my part in saying NO to Canadian cell prices. It's really frustrating also as a developer as I was hoping to get my hands on the iPhone and start developing some cool applications for it. Not in Canada though.

[see_ping-223307867672110600662]

I use Fido up here in Canada and have wanted to cancel my account due to high charges for everything from voicemail, caller ID, and data, but unfortunately Fido is of course owned by Rogers, which is the only GSM provider in Canada. I recently bought a new GSM phone and wasn't inclined to move over to CDMA just to save money or **** off Rogers, although right now I do really want to boycott them due to the prices on these iPhone plans. Eventually, I did call Fido to cancel my account, but as always they transfer you over to some "Account Cancellation Department" and offer you a better deal. I didn't have the spine to just cancel the account because of my GSM phone. I'd love to get an iPhone too, but the plans are just too much money.

[cuts28]

Rogers is by far the worst service provider in North America. Ted Rogers is a commie because he takes everyones money and regardless of how much we pay for high speed internet or anything else, everyone gets the same terrible service. Boycott.

[Dougnolan]

Guess what.. Rogers is making 66% margin on its data plan. 400MB only costs Rogers $20 or less in order to pay off its data operating cost; therefore, Rogers is making $40 margin on $60 product. Who e\on earth makes 66% margin on any products. Rogers is ripping us off big time. Let's just screw them over. iPhone with 400MB cap. Are you joking with me??? Have you not seen the data usage pattern for iPhone users in the US. 2G iPhone had its usage limit on 2GB. Rogers..we are talking about 3G iPhone which will inevitably spend more data. and you are giving us 20% of the US usage at a much higher monthly fee. Are Canadian all too nice to bear all injustice and ripping off?

[mectron]

@Dougnolan
According to your calculation Rogers Makes 200%+ on the plan and i am pretty sure that their cost is closer to like 2$ or 3$. Rogers as lost the little cridibility it as left. i will never ever buy any rogers product of any kind. ROGERS IS STEALING MONEY FROM CANADIANS PERIOD. Canada as the most expensive dats rate for cel phone in the UNIVERSER and it does not make sense!

I sure hope the iPhone is a total flop in canada. (anyone paying those CRMINAL rates for a cel phone as a IQ in the single digit).

Rogers need to be fined multi-billion $$ for attamps at scaming a whole country.

[ajayduggal]

It is not Rogers to blame as it is just by-product of the system. It is the protectionist regime promoted by various Canadian governments that is promoted at the behest of such corporates such as Rogers which would just not allow competition. That is the very reason, that Canada even though is a developed nation but its policies are still anarchaic in practice. Be it phone plans, internet access plans, insurance etc. when compared to any other G8 nations. Canada needs to open up and become global in true mode and allow completion which benefits its people, fosters development and its own innovations, creates its own economy force and not just benefit 100 odd individuals (owners of these corporates) in Canada. Problem is to figure out as to how to make this happen by forcing the review of strategies of the government and corporates of Canada & achieve desired objectives

[daniel2233--2008]

i live in canada and if you do it right it is cheaper to have verizon service and live in canada roaming on telus than to have telus native service. with verizon i have a one rate N. american plan of 2000 minutes for $119. i call forward my local canadian number to it. costs me under $200 for both services combined and i have a local canadian number. 1600 minutes on N. american plan with canadian carrier is $300 plus. even my data roaming from verizon is cheaper than going over on a canadian plan. do the math. i had enough of the canadian rip off years ago.

[t-why]

Getting an Iphone was a nice idea while it lasted. Of course, it took Rogers' magnanimous wireless plan to inspire me to stick with what i have. Hopefully, and I love my Mac products, the iphone will totally flop because of this travesty and Rogers will get its act together. We as Canadians need to forego the novelty of this fine product and make a statement to Rogers Corporate that we are fed up with the exorbitant prices they have been charging, especially in relation to what is being charged in the USA.

[amuzulo]

This also really sucks for content providers. We're planning to build an iPhone multiplayer gaming platform and now we can pretty much assume we won't have any Canadian customers. Ugh.

[brass2themax]

Yeah, it might seem "unfair", but hell, Rogers can charge whatever the hell they want, you have the freedom to choose not to buy their services and go somewhere else if you don't like their pricing. I'm not a Rogers fan, I'm just stating the obvious.

Personally, I don't even see why you would need to be able to transfer so much data on your mobile device (over the Internet anyway). People these days walk around with their phones and are becoming more oblivious to the world around them, and not only that, are becoming so damned dependent on these gadgets. I'm 22 years old and am pursuing a career in IT (software development more specifically), you'd think I'd have one of these by now. The reason I don't is because I have a phone at home, and don't need to be constantly "connected" to the world 24/7. If someone needs me, they can leave a message at my home and I'll return their call at my leisure.

Maybe this is a good thing, a deterrent of sorts for people to stop using their damn celled phones so much and actually interact with some people in the world around them.

100 minutes is a hell of a lot of time too (to me). But then again, I'm not one of those people who spends hundreds of dollars on a cell phone bill so I can chat about nothing while shopping in a store and then be one of the same people that complains that the price of something else in life is too high. Rediculous.

[Thomas, David]

Hmmmm .. apparently Canadians DO NOT have the freedom to choose. I do believe that is the argument being made here.

[Syndrical.One]

Crave,

You have the plans off by a bit.

iPhone 3G Price Plans at Rogers Wireless
----------------------------------------

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Sent Incoming
Text Text Visual
Price Voice Data Messages messages Voicemail
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$60 / 150 minutes + unlimited 400 MB 75 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
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$75 / 300 minutes + unlimited 750 MB 100 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
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$100 / 600 minutes + unlimited 1 GB 200 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
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$115 / 800 minutes + unlimited 2 GB 300 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

We, its 150 minutes instead of 100 lol yea not much a difference but still

I agree with all the postings.
Rogers is charging waaaaaay too much.
I'm considering going over to Bell because they have cheaper plans.
Unfortunately, they have CDMA
Who really wants to use that?

[marvel21]

I've just moved into Canada from Italy and I must say that I was shocked when I realized how much you pay for certain things that in Italy(and in general in Europe) we take now for granted. Come on, here we still pay for airtime ?! Absolutely crazy :-(( You know, in Italy only the caller pays and there are even some contracts where when you are called your account is automatically recharged by a few cents per min !! This of course depends mainly on competition, in Italy there are 60 millions inhabitants and about 70 millions mobile phones, the mobile phone coverage is 99.99% of the population and 99.98% of the land, while here these numbers are much lower.
So, this iphone thing is just another aspect of the same matter and Rogers is just part of the mechanism, take for example ADSL/internet/TV connections, again here prices are higher but why ? Once more lack of competition...
But do not despair, rents are lower, hosues are cheaper, petrol is cheaper(about half price), electricity is cheaper(about 1/3) the air is cleaner and Canada is a beautiful country :-)))
W Canada !

[jerrymacGP]

Stay tuned, fellow Canadians. We may see more competition later this year or sometime in 2009. The Government is auctioning off portions of the EM spectrum in order to open up the Canadian cellphone market to increased competition from other carriers. If this works out, the market may drive prices down over time as more players enter the it.

[turoa76]

You wait till you see the New Zealand prices when they come out. Then you'll feel good about yours!

[yore]

HI,
just to make you feel a bit better here is the comparison prices for the Finnish customers:
You can pay 50 dollars monthly for 100 minutes of phone time, 100 SMS and 100 MB of data download. You must pay 251 dollars for the 8GB model and 386 dollars for the 16 MB model.
The largest plan includes 1000 minutes of phone time, 1000 SMS and 1000 MB of data. You pay 1 dollar for the 8 GB model and 134 dollars for the 16 GB model. If you should use say 2 GB of data then all the data above the 1 Gb will cost 2,24 dollars per MB !! so should you use that 2 GB you would pay a whopping 2384 dollars for that one month !!! Otherwise the model used in Finland is a bit different to at least USA because we don't pay for receiving phone calls. Also the calls are flat rate no matter what time they were made.

[sysopgrace]

i guess my plans to buy one are over for now, until a better company starts offering it in Canada

[philcassell]

The issue here is that the iPhone will not be able to be used at its full potential, which is something I still dont see being addressed. Let me break down the 3 biggest factors that contribute to data usage and comes standard with the iPhone
1 - GPS
2 - YouTube
3 - iTunes

Each song from iTunes is roughly 3mb and that doesn't include browsing for the song and sampling the 30secs. YouTube has videos that run upwards of 10mins; once again heavy data usage. Lastly, the GPS; I guess we can't rely on using the iPhone as our main GPS while traveling.

I ran the Facebook test on an unlocked iPhone and Main Page + 1 Profile page = 1.7mb and that is with custom iPhone Facebook page. Other then being angry, it is frustrating as a consumer that one of the greatest releases of personal technology in Canada is overshadowed by greed.

[Cdn_cell_sufferer]

3 points:

1) The Cdn cell phone industry is the worst, most price-fixed, least competitive industry I have ever seen. I routinely pay >$400 on a monthly cell phone bill for 1 phone only (roaming is +expensive+). It doesn't matter which provider I use, they all are basically identical. The cell phone plans are bafflingly complex to navigate; and i just don't have the time nor the PhD to figure out which is the right plan.

2) WE NEED AN ECONOMICAL, UNLIMITED VOICE AND DATA PLAN. This is basic, simple, and about 10 years overdue.

3) If the Canadian companies can't do it (i.e. they are milking their customers' $ for all they can, and are too complacent to compete with each other) then PLEASE BRING IN A US cell phone carrier to bring some capitalism into this equation. Incidentally, many years ago one Cdn company did offer a somewhat unlimited plan (FIDO), but this was viewed as too much competition by Rogers, who instead of COMPETING with them on price or service, simply BOUGHT Fido and discontinued the offering. SO infuriating for consumers; this is monopolistic practice at its ugliest.
(amusingly, there's a thriving black market for these surviving contracts!)

[mackentack]

Fortunately there is no need to feel trapped by Rogers corporate rule, new cellular carriers are to launch late 2009 early 2010 in Canada which have cheaper, and unlimited data plans much like the rest of the world. There will be more competition, but Rogers and friends will try to get as much profit out of the people as possible, every inch of the way so don't expect them to lower their prices any sooner. I feel bad for the people who got themselves into the 3 years contracts, it's obvious Rogers was planning ahead.
New cellphone carriers: http://www.itworldcanada.com/a/Daily-News/e9eabfa8-84b5-4163-bd49-4687b711773d.html