[gfair]

Quote:

---

Now that we have a few different prices to compare, I wonder how Canada's price will eventually be calculated

---

Forget the price of the iPhone, Rogers / Fido charge 3-5 cents PER KB of data. That will sink the iPhone in Canada, unless Apple can convince Rogers to do what it hasn't done already - not gouge people for hundreds of dollars per month for data.
That's $30-$50 per megabyte of data. Fido has one plan, $5/month for 2mb per month and 3 cents per KB after that. So it's $5 for your first two MB, and $30 per mb after that. In Europe as of 2006, you could get data plans of 9GB for 40 Euro per month.
It gets slightly better if you go by Rogers Blackberry, in which case the best data rate is $2/MB up to 200 MB, and $5/MB for every MB after that. So calculating the Rogers price for 9GB of data, you end up with $44,100 per month for 9GB of data, which is over 7000 times more than the Euro data plan.
And now the recent news that the largest class action lawsuit in Canadian history deals with the "System Access Fee" that wireless companies charge us each month being a complete fabrication and, in fact, the companies have been gouging us the whole time.

So... don't be too happy about the iPhone if you're Canadian. One way or another, Rogers will ensure that it overcharges us, especially for the iPhone and all those who lust for it.
The very moment my current wireless contract ends, I'm abandoning plans and going for pay-as-you-go to ensure that the bastards will never gouge me again.

[nyip11]

Quote:

---

Forget the price of the iPhone, Rogers / Fido charge 3-5 cents PER KB of data. That will sink the iPhone in Canada, unless Apple can convince Rogers to do what it hasn't done already - not gouge people for hundreds of dollars per month for data.

---

I think that's a major sticking point - Rogers is refusing to allow unlimited data for a fair price and Apple is refusing to allow Rogers to sell the iPhone without an unlimited data plan.

Quote:

---

And now the recent news that the largest class action lawsuit in Canadian history deals with the "System Access Fee" that wireless companies charge us each month being a complete fabrication and, in fact, the companies have been gouging us the whole time.

---

Well, that's not entirely true. This gouging "system access fee" (typically between $6.95 and $8.95 a month) did start out as a gov't levy used to build up the mobile phone infrastructure, but that has stopped in 1986 and the phone companies are still gouging us. So your statement that they've been gouging us "the whole time" can be taken as quite correct. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
CBC has a very good article on this class action lawsuit at Cellphone class-action suit gets green light which also lists the 3 biggest cell phone companies in Canada as, in order, Rogers, Bell, and Telus.