[Axl]

Take a look at the 02 plans in th e UK.

http://www.o2.co.uk/iphone/paymonthly

For $90 you get a free 8gb iPhone, 1200minutes talk, 500 txts, unlimited data, cheaper roaming, 18month contract. I believe all cell phone plans in the UK automatically come with free caller ID and voicemail. Remember also that average wages are higher in the UK. O2 seem to have understood that they need to maximize the advantage of a huge amount of free advertising. Their pre-registration had to be dropped due to the onslaught of applicants. They will steall thousands of customers from their competitors. Rogers, on the other hand, have turned their customer base against itself. The potential rush of new customers has turned into a trickle. Rogers name is tarnished and they are now equated with the lowest form of capitalist scum. Not only are they widely perceived as thieves but also as very uncool, and very very stupid. They invited everyone to the party but couldn't help themselves and burst all the balloons.

The system access fee... don't get me started. Not only are they stupid thieves, they are also liars. Their $60 dollar plan is not a $60 plan. By the time you have paid this entirely 'made up' fee, your plan will cost closer to $70.-

I hope Canadians will stay strong and not buy the iPhone. You know you can live without it. Buying into the Rogers plan is demeaning.

[kitko]

Pricing in Canada can NEVER be on par with the USA, because Canada is much smaller market on much larger area. But this certainly doesn't justify the price of everything over here.
Rogers IS a monopoly but in the eyes of the government it's just one of the 3 - it just works with different technology.
Even the wireless auction (courtesy of Industry Canada) is a joke. Rogers, Bell and Telus are the highest bidders, others are just small regional companies. National roaming provisions are favouring current providers.
The fact that foreign or foreign owned telecoms were banned from the auction shows that the Small Three are working together with government and have no real intentions to pull Canada out from the sewage. Any talk about protecting "national interest" is a joke.
And about iPhone pricing - I'd like to know what was the role RIM played in the run-up. Sometimes I got the feeling that Canadians get their Blackberries with birth certificates.

[bynkii]

web said:

It's not a question of whether or not I can afford the $100 per month. It's whether I think it's a value for money proposition. I don't.

Someone in the comment thread at the G&M article said that the caller ID feature was $15 per month for the mobile. That's insane. I pay $5 per month for that on a land line, and even that price is abusive.

Most people don't know how this stuff works. I've written dozens of programming manuals for the digital telephone switches these companies use, so here's a bit of information for the unwary. When you order a feature like caller ID, the service rep pulls up your customer record, changes one field in your record in the database (takes seconds) and then for this effort, they charge you $X per month for as long as you live. The computer that controls the CO switch doesn't work any harder for the fact that you have this feature, it just has a new instruction to send you the calling number data between the first and second ring on your phone, and if you have a terminal that has a display, you can see it. Similar abuse exists for unlisted numbers (simple change of a database field to "don't print").

To add to this excellent point, the phone companies like to make it sound like Caller ID is some kind of special service. It's not. In fact, "Caller ID" hass been around a very lonnnng time, with the initial work being done in the late 60s/early 70s, and initial prototypes being used in Alabama in 1971.

So along with it taking, literally, no real effort to enable or use for customers, Caller ID isn't even vaguely new tech. But if people think it's some kind of spooky black-box stuff, then they'll pay the fee for it. Paying for Caller ID == Free Money for the phone company.

Quote

This screwing of the customer is something they can do because most people don't understand what's happening and how they are paying a lot for trivial things.

If you don't know what's really going on, you're going to get hosed, and often.

Quote

The fee structure for telcos has changed radically over the last 30+ years, and there are many influences. It would take too much space to get into the way these fee structures have changed, but it's not a simple issue.

But that said, Rogers is still being abusive. Caller ID's actual worth is about $0.50 a month. Not a bit more.

I think you're being nice there.

[Troy]

jeffknee,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

Plz updat yr tlkin poentz.

[zetal]

news: Apple is pulling out all iPhones from ALL Apple stores in canada, as a protest to freaking Rogers hwy robbery.

THANK YOU APPLE!!!
Tell Rogers to go to hell and hire Bell, teach them a lesson.

[xmitman]

My current pocket pc phone lets me edit photos from my own digital camera and then send via ftp or email. The iphone can't do that because there is no way to get photos into the device. So I bought an iPod Touch which I use mostly at home for quick email checking and web surfing via wifi. I have no desire for the iPhone until there is some kind of card slot feature. Without the ability to move data via a flash card to and from the iPhone it remains a crippled device right out of the box. Now add to that higher operating costs and it is a no brain-er to own a an iPod Touch and a real cell phone as a much better plan.

[Anand7]

Beyond the irritation of the plans, there is the service provider lock. I like to travel and when I go to a country, I buy a SIM card and then let my friends know what my number will be for the time I'm away. I cannot do this with the iPhone.
Worse, even after I have fulfilled my contract and paid for the phone, I am still locked into the original service provider. Like the region-locks on their laptop optical drives, Apple has shown once again that they aren't interested in the traveller.
I had wanted a phone that really works with my Mac after years of watching so-so compatibility. I'll stick with my Treo and leave the iPhone to the posers.

[Warthog]

I agree wait for the next gen Touch

Any clue when it will make an appearance?

[peetz]

If that's the case about Canada, then how come there are no protests about the plans in Australia and New Zealand. For years, the data-plan costs in Australia have left us so battered and bruised that we can no longer raises even a yelp of protest. Hence, a tip for marketers. If you charge exorbitant prices long enough, the people's resistance lowers. It's called charging what the market will bear. If lots of Canadians buy the iPhone, the marketers will conclude that Canadians can bear it, and so you're stuck with the high prices.

[peetz]

Incidentally, those outrageous prices in New Zealand are by Vodafone, and I note that Vodafone, even on 9th July, have not announced their Australian prices. I suspect they'll be equally outrageous as in New Zealand, and they're leaving it till the last minute to announce, so that they don't get heaps of negative press, as per the Canadian situation.

[mcginniwa]

Vodafone NZ is getting harshly critisized by the public via comments on news articles about their price announcement. The story made it to the national news on TV and radio.

Their defense is that their prices are comparable to other NZ prices which, of course, are also ridiculous. There have been talks of protests. No one I know that was going to buy an iPhone is planning to now. Everyone has their eye on at interim jailbroken options.

So perhaps this screw up on Vodafone NZ's launch of the iPhone will bring more scrutiny of mobile plan prices in NZ across the board. A good thing.

[imagineengine]

I'm a Rogers customer from a time when it used to be called Cantel. I actually have no problem with Rogers iPhone 3G Voice & Data plan pricing, no problem with the pricing on the hardware (I don't believe everything should be free) or even they're coverage across Canada. What I would like Rogers to reconsider is adding call display at no charge and changing the data plans to either unlimited data or a minimum 4 GB for the iPhone plans with out increasing the pricing. After all Rogers owns the towers their customers are using coast to coast unlike Telus, Bell, etc where the CDMA carriers tend to rent towers from one another to make up for coverage where they don't have a tower. Also they're competitors Telus and Bell have started offering unlimited data plans for Smartphones starting at $30.00. While I don't imagine anyone going over 1 GB on the iPhone 3G if they at least set a cap of 4 GB they would ensure there isn't abuse on the network and ensure they still make sales on the HSPA laptop data card activations.

Anyway, with all the Rogers bashing on the internet it seems that some are quick to make comments with out commenting on some of the positives with Apple licensing the iPhone to Rogers for selling on the Rogers wireless network. Rogers unlike their competitors have HSPA coast to coast which is both faster than AT&T HSPA network and covers more of the country ( http://hspa.gsmworld...rks/default.asp ). They also don't charge for inbound text messages unlike Telus and Bell that recently announced they are going to start charging for this starting in August. The company has already stated that if a customer doesn't like the existing iPhone plans they can create their own by using a separate voice plan and adding on a separate data plan. Though by doing it separately I calculated it would cost the consumer more to get something close to what is in the iPhone plans. So they are showing value for their customers with the exception of not including unlimited data or at least more reasonable data amounts. They also provide 24/7 technical support and have services such as Advanced Exchange for their Smartphone customers. Unlike they're competitors Rogers allows subsidized pricing on hardware upgrades every 12 months. They also have the same Early Cancellation Fee ($400.00 on voice plans and $500.00 on voice plans with an added data plan) as Bell and Fido though Telus still doesn't really have a cap but if you count their 3 year term at $20.00/month on a voice plan it would cost a customer $720.00 per line to cancel if they still had 36 months remaining. I could go on but we can see that while all the competitors in Canada could offer better services to their customers not a single one is better across the board than the other for various reasons.

[mr.steevo]

How about not buying the iPhone? Is that not an option?



s.

[Bobapple]

I use the PDA features daily. I use the multimedia features at least a couple times a week - to show clients photos of products, to run presentations and videos. Excellent sales support tool. I also use it to manage my email accounts. I'm guessing you've never actually held either an iPhone or an iPod touch? I use the touch, since I'm in Canada and the phone isn't available here. Once this is a push device (Friday, I understand), it simply gets a lot better at what I use it for currently. I likely won't buy the iPhone unless Rogers makes their data plan more attractive. I have Wi-Fi at home and at the office, where I use the device the most.