Rogers forgets to bring value to smartphone users in Q4
Listen up, Rogers. We know that you have a business to run and that you need to please your shareholders, but it seems like your latest smartphone plans are a bit of step backwards. Sure, the prices are pretty attractive for the Canadian market, but Bells smartphone plans for Q4 are way better. What’s that? Oh, you can tether with all Rogers data plans? Big deal because your network has been so congested lately that it’s not even worth the effort. So why don’t you play nice and offer customers the choice of choosing unlimited data with no tethering or capped data with tethering? It’d make life so much more fun. The addition of Special Choice and My5 to some plans is great, but it’s not enough to make up for the negatives. Hit the jump for the full break down of Roger’s plans!
Smartphone & Blackberry Data Plan
$45
200 anytime minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends from 9pm, 500MB data
Special Choice Options:
(Client chooses one of four options and receives free with plan)
1. My5 Canada-Wide
2. Unlimited Incoming Calls
3. Unlimited Network Calling (local)
4. 5pm Early Evenings
Blackberry Messaging Plan
$45
200 anytime minutes, evenings and weekends from 9pm
Unlimited Personal Email
Unlimited BB Messenger
10,000 SMS
10,000 MMS
Special Choice Options:
(Client chooses one of four options and receives free with plan)
1. My5 Canada-Wide
2. Unlimited Incoming Calls
3. Unlimited Network Calling (local)
4. 5pm Early Evenings
Smartphone Family Plan (up to 5 people)
(Only device to qualify for discounted pricing is the Pearl series)
$80 for 2 lines*
400 shared anytime minutes, unlimited evenings and weekend from 9pm
500MB data per user
Special Choice Options:
(Client chooses one of four options and receives free with plan)
1. My5 Canada-Wide
2. Unlimited Incoming Calls
3. Unlimited Network Calling (local)
4. 5pm Early Evenings
*Additional members cost $35 per line.
iPhone Plans
$60
250 anytime minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends at 9pm, My5, 75 SMS, 1GB data, unlimited access to Rogers/Fido WiFi hotspots, and visual voicemail.
$75
400 anytime minutes, unlimited evenins and weekends at 9pm, My5 Canada-wide, 100 SMS, 2GB data, unlimited access to Rogers/Fido WiFi hotspots, and visual voicemail.
Thanks, Dan!
Tags: BlackBerry, data, iphone 3g, my5, Plans, pricing, q4, Rogers, Smartphone, Special Choice
Who cares? It’s Canada. End of discussion.
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damn robbers im amazed the canians ar rtill putting up qith what next hit job on ted rogers would probaly be the only thing thwt would shock rogers enogh that or an angruy mob of customers or bell going GSM
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I know right I am addicted to unlimited plan for the longest time know, I wonder what I would do without it? After all its not hard to hop over the border . .
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@Black93300ZX
Sentence fragments. Make you look dumb.
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nice one
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We’re paying to keep Ted alive…
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@Galvatron,
Can you learn how to write without 4 errors in the first line of your BS??? Thanks
@Michael Bettiol
It doesn’t make him look dumb… he is..
I guess most of the readers and writers don’t understand the economics and infrastructure challenges up here. I sure would like to pay the same rates for Voice and Data plans as they are offered through AT&T or VZW.
Just the fast facts, Canada has ~32 million people living up here, the state of Califorina has ~36 million. All of USA has ~300 million.
80% of the population here in Canada lives within about 200 Miles of the Boarder, All the infrastructure being put up in the north costs extra on Travel, transport etc.
There is not as much competition as in the USA.
There are only 3 national carriers.
The country is bigger than the USA. In order to get the same coverage it cost much more to put Tower etc. in place. I am sure not making excuses for the RCI’s pricing matrix. I am just trying to see it more objective. So should you.
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To j.p michaels;
Well…. for once someone intelligent takes the time to post… I am Canadian too… And I hate the fact that we pay so much more the our US friends… But that is a reality we have to deal with. Well said.
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where u from?
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@Black93300ZX —
You’re a complete moron. Keep your mouth shut if you have nothing good to say. End of discussion.
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@jp I understand your points but they are bullshit. If Bell and Telus can offer an unlimited option why cant Rogers
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Let me make clear to build the Infrastructure, the situation is the same for all 3 of the national carriers. It is not a Rogers only scenario.
Read the fineprint on Telus and Bell’s website and you see unlimited has its limitations.
One example is Bell has a Dataplan for Ontario Quebec and Atlantic Canada, which is 2GB Data for 50 Bucks the same deal with Bell for Alberta and B.C is 100 bucks for 250MB Data.
Follow the Link below. BTW Telus and Bell share their Towers in most of the places.
http://www.businessonthego.ca/english/rp_email_plans.asp
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Thank you J.P. for writing something intelligent on these boards. They were logical, precise, and informative.
I’m with Rogers and we do pay too damn much for our plans. I would switch to Bell or Telus but I don’t believe switching to an outdated technology will make it any better. Besides, I like the convenience of taking out my SIM card and dumping it into another phone on a whim rather than to call my carrier to switch phones. What if I don’t wanna take my phone out for a night on the town (knowing I’m going to get shit-faced and might lose it?). So I could just switch to my old phone and go my way.
I don’t usually do that, but I’m just saying.
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Those who jumped on the promotional $30/6GB data plan should feel lucky. That’s 6GB of real data which can be tethered. In comparison, AT&T in the USA charges $60 for only 5GB of tethered data. That’s twice the price for less data than Rogers.
So, once in a while we actually get better deals. And hang tight for the new Fido plans being launched tomorrow!
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Rogers’s network is so congested that I frequently get “connection error” or “network busy” on my phone. Unbelievable. What’s the point of paying for service when you can’t even use it?
Rogers might as well make their HomeZone/TalkSpot/UMA service dirt cheap to unload people off their network at least.
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As a Canadian wireless user, I understand that Rogers “has” to charge extra compared to the American carries due to many factors that someone has already pointed few posts above, more land to cover, more towers to install, etc…. but there is a fine line between need and greed and Rogers is slowing crossing that line from its “need” to over charge for coverage to just “greed” besides a cell tower lasts years, these guys over price their plans by more and more each quarter. I guess im just wasting my own time by saying all this…. they just need some good old competition which wont happen for another few months to a year so let Rogers greed for now and well see what happens…
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ok im not here to argue about rogers’ ethics…
are these plans coming soon in the future? already existing?
i for one love the $45 smartphone data plan….
anyone find a link?
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I’m also with Rogers. However, as the only GSM provider (Rogers owns Fido), there really wasn’t a choice…and Rogers knows this.
Thankfully, Rogers recently bowed to Apple and public pressure and released a few data packages. Let’s be honest, they’re still not great. And for the record, what the hell am I going to do with 6GB’s of data?! Must be for the Video streaming that’s sure to be coming soon, right?! Don’t hold your breath until 4G hits people. Until then, wish Telus and Bell god speed while updating their network to 4G. Then and only then will we really see fair market competition. And as for Yak (the recent spectrum winner), I’ve been told they’re only going to roll out a Quebec launch. So, again we wait and muster up all of our patience while dealing with Rogers. God speed Telus, God speed.
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I work at a Fido dealer and if you guys have read the Q4 for Fido, you guys would know what Rogers is doing. Basically it’s the same thing that Telus did with Kudoo.
There is never any “unlimited” for any data plan. If you read the fine print in AT&T’s iPhone “Unlimited” data throughput, there is a limit of 5GB’s. Although any normal person that is using the iPhone won’t pass 1GB, the “unlimited” option provided by AT&T is cheaper than what is provided up here.
I think Bell was planning to move to GSM alltogether sometime during 2011. For Bell to last that long isn’t a problem. The problem is gaining back the customer base that they had as of now, which is already thin.
Rogers always had horrible customer service and yet, people would always join up with them. Mainly because of their ad’s and because most people are followers. She has Rogers so I’m going to get it too. Fido on the other hand, always had decent to good customer service which is one of the main reasons why I’m working in a Fido store. I actually spend time with the customer rather than just brush them off like their just some window shopper. Now since Fido changed their company image and also their market aim, we’ll see what happens. Shows that Rogers finally woke up when Virgin and Kudoo showed them what they can do.
p@dDy
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Another thing… I’m a Fido user as well. The CityFido plan rocks. I’m proud to say that I was one of many that caused Fido to lose $1M/day/suburb which in hand caused Rogers to purchase Fido.
And another thing, Fido now uses exactly the same network as Rogers. The same 94% coverage in Canada. No more extended network coverage for $5/mth.
p@dDy
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Lol @ 10,000 SMS/MMS / month. Why not just make/call it unlimited?
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I really don’t get it, why won’t they let the 45 dollar smart phone plan be available for the i phone. I don’t need everything that is offered for the 60 dollar plan and the 15 dollar savings will definitely help since we have to pay the 6.95 “service” cost. Can someone from Rogers or have experience dealing with Rogers explain this?
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Black93300ZX. Shouldn’t you be bashing 3G TouchPro threads over on the X?
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@ paddyhong
This ain’t true.
I have 2 friends that works for Ericsson (Company who makes Rogers’ network) here in QC. And both of them confirm to me, Fido customers will only get 1/3 of the full network. Rogers’ customers still remains priority to the network.
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