Aha, offer some of the current plans and offer an unlimited plan. Maybe that would be too complicated for the billing department.

I'm afraid you're in the minority on that vote: Rogers is speaking out of both sides of their mouth if they want to assure us we'll both use too much data, and overspend for an unlimited plan we don't need. It makes sense to offer an "unlimited" plan, knowing that most people will use only <200MB, while yes, some go way higher. The point is, I don't want to be counting. Heck, I CAN'T count, because there's no way to keep track! Except for an SMS when you're getting close to hitting your limit. That may be fine for Rogers, but it puts us in the difficult position of having to know ahead of time how much data we'll use over the next three years. Good luck choosing: safest route is to go higher. Perfect.

Worth noting too that the data is tied to minutes, unlike in the US. So what if I want 750MB of data, but I only need 150 minutes of talk time? Too bad. And call display? You gotta pay $15/month for that.

This article also doesn't even mention the 3-year contract that Canadians would have to sign, compared to the two years in the US with AT&T. That's the really big damage with this deal that has us frothing mad.

So yeah: stinky deal. Will I buy it regardless? I still don't know. I was going to be first in line though. It's my hope that this rage translates to lost sales that makes Rogers change their mind. My breath remains unheld.

Wow, you win. those are dreadful plans. It truly suggests that iPhone adoption won't be that high in these countries.

I have a 2G iPhone, and it turns out that the data usage reported in the Settings is fairly inaccurate. We saw this when it was first launched in the US, as Americans travelled overseas and got nailed with roaming charges that didn't reflect what their usage stats suggested. I think it's because you get charged for both upload and download, where the iPhone only measures the download? Something like that.

Cheers,
Aaron.

Bottom line is that unlimited data is the spirit of the iPhone. Steve wants us to use our email and web browser willy-nilly and those of us with unlimited data have gotten used to that... Simply choose the minutes you need (and maybe add more SMS if you do that) and that's all you have to worry about.

This should bode well for the likes of Sprint and other non-iPhone carriers who have started offering unlimited plans. Sprint calls their plan the "Simply Everything" Plan and starts at $69. Not sure if that applies to the Canadaian market, but I like the idea of unlimited plans that don't nickle and dime us.

I think where the data plans come into play is people who will be downloading music, apps from the iPhone Apps store, etc. This will be do-able via 3G for a lot of apps (under 10 MB in size). You start downloading a few apps, some songs, browse the web, email, google maps, etc and bandwidth used adds up in a hurry. It really depends on how much time you spend doing things that require internet access. Remember, its more than just internet and email that uses the data plans.