Roland Tanglao's Weblog

Like Richard, I just added the $30/month 3G data plan to my existing Fido plan. So it should be cheaper (and faster) than  the $50/month I pay  for my current grandfathered unlimited EDGE data plan. If the SIM isn't locked, I am  thinking about buying an unlocked N95 8G NAM  because the camera on the iPhone s*cks (but the 3G lifestyle (it's great! thanks to iPhone 3G I can now tell people about ShoZu and other apps I have been enjoying with my "2.5G" lifestyle and how you can create multimedia content in real time, post it immediately to the internet and get feedback in real-time) of always-on geo-enabled consumption and creation, usability and ecosystem of iPhone apps is far superior to what Nokia and others have done! Nokia, you blew it, this could have and should have been been your market to run away with). Luckily it's early and not too late to win in mobile in the long term but unless S60 usability is improved it's not going to happen!.

And for the record, Rogers still s*cks and so does Fido:

1. Their website is inaccurate; existing Fido customers should just call 611  to get an iPhone 3G
2. The hiring of MS&L digital was a waste of money (despite their blog practice, BlogWorks, MS&L did the non social media aware thing of emailing people and didn't blog, twitter, flickr, facebook or in any way engage social media)
3. 3 year contracts s*ck; in 2010 I bet I could easily go over 6GB/month. There's no reason other than short term economic gain which in the long run hurts the entire Canadian economy by hampering innovation and experimentation and reducing productivity.
4. Giving priority to new Fido customers over old faithful Fido customers like myself who have been paying $100/month since July 2004  is unacceptable. Why should I have to wait for my iPhone unlike new customers? Why can't I go to the Fido store like new customers  and order it there rather than being forced to order over the phone?

There are far more important issues to deal with than the Rogers iPhone rates (e.g. the ridiculousness of Bill C-61, global warming, etc) but I was forced to comment after I received the exact same email from MS&L Digital (Rogers' American PR firm) that Tris Hussey received: (my current plan is to invoke the "Ian Bell option", i.e. import a unlocked 3G iPhone from France and buy a r*poff 1GB/month data plan from Rogers which gets around the 3 year contract!)

QUOTE (from Tris' blog which he received permission to post, the email I received is identical, anybody else get the exact same email?)

Hello,

My name is Nicole Burguess and I’m writing on behalf of Rogers to give you some additional information about the Rogers rate plans available for the iPhone.

The iPhone 3G bundles released June 27 are not the only price plans available to customers, they are the high value plans that allow Rogers customers to use the device to its fullest and offer considerable savings over separate voice and data plans that exist in market today.

That said, Rogers customers have more choices available to them and can use their existing voice and smartphone data plans if they wish. For example, they can select from the new data pricing (ranging from $30 for 300MB to $100 for 6GB or $50 Flex Rate plan) and add a voice plan, or they can choose a combined voice and data plan to best suit their individual needs.

Customers are not required to take the value packs, and can order most other features a la carte, such as $7 for Caller ID.

Existing customers can keep their existing voice service plan and pick a separate data plan (not in the iPhone 3G bundle) to meet their needs. They will need to check their upgrade eligibility, but any customer with a monthly service fee that is over $30 can upgrade to an iPhone 3G at $199 (for the 8GB model). Other options outside the iPhone bundle may be available depending on the customer’s individual information.

If you have any questions, please let me know and I will do my best to help you.

Sincerely,

Nicole Burguess

Account Executive | MS&L Digital

END QUOTE

Here's my response:

Hi Nicole:

Thank-you for your email but it does not respond to the concerns that many people including myself have namely:

1. Why are the contracts 3 years for the iPhone rather than 2 years or 1 year like they are elsewhere in the world?

2. Why is data so much more expensive for the iPhone than AT&T plans? Why is there no unlimited option? I can guess at reasons but this is something that Rogers in my opinion needs to make clear. I have been using a Fido "grandfathered data plan" for unlimited EDGE data for $50 a month. Until Rogers communicates clearly why an unlimited 3G data plan at a price of $100/month or less is nonviable, the lack of an affordable unlimited data plan is indefensible.

3. The lack of reasonably priced data plans is hindering Canada business which in the end hinders Rogers.

I'll be blogging the above and your response (unless you ask me otherwise) at rolandtanglao.com.

Cheers!

...Roland Tanglao +1 604 729 7924

p.s. Canadian idealists (of which I am not one) would be outraged that Rogers is reaching out to Canadian bloggers using an American PR firm (I realize you have a satellite office in Toronto but your headquarters are in the USA). I "googled" your firm and was encourage to find out that you have a social media practise and that you were behind the GM FastLane blog; hopefully you will influence Rogers to engage in social media and to clearly communicate in a timely fashion; something they have been incapable of in the past.

So the questions start:

1. Is there a bandwidth cap?
2. Are 3rd party applications like ShoZu and Qik (if ShoZu and Qik don't port to the iPhone others will) allowed?

IF

ShoZu-like and Qik-like applications appear on the iPhone 3G and they work well and Rogers allows them with a reasonable bandwidth cap (reasonable to my multi-media creation needs is 2GB YMMV :-) !!!),

THEN (it's not a r*poff, hurrah!) AND I'll get a 3G iPhone (since net-net, it's only about $10 a month more to pay than my current $50 per month grandfathered EDGE Fido plan).

The only thing that still gives me pause is the 3 year contract but I can live with it if the apps are there!

So I guess I don't buy one on my birthday but wait to see if the 3rd party apps that I want appear and if Rogers allows them.

QUOTE

$199 + 36months x $90 = $3440 and that’s if you buy the cheap one. Don’t forget the GST/PST.

However, you’ll probably realize you are likely to spend at least that much on cellphone service in the next three years, no matter what your plan.

END QUOTE

The ongoing Fido (and Rogers) r*poff continues. The math: 0.10/0.15 = 66.67%. In a world where every other form of electronic messaging is decreasing in price, Rogers and Fido continue to raise their messaging prices. Needless to say the knock on effect for businesses and innovation and Canada is a net negative. I h*te SMS but it's essential for today's real time business and this is a tax by a member of the Canadian bandwidth oligopoly on businesses and consumers.

QUOTE

U.S. TEXT MESSAGING RATE CHANGE

Please note that effective July 15, 2008, the rate for sending a text message from Canada to the United States is changing to $0.25 (from $0.15). This change also applies to Text messaging options and certain Value packs, as text messages sent to the United States will no longer be included in the options. Pricing does not include applicable taxes.

Visit fido.ca/text for text messaging rates and other important information.

...

International text message Options

25 international text messages $4

50 international text messages $7

END QUOTE

My guess for the iPhone in Canada plan from Rogers: $75 a month plus taxes and b*gus system access fee will include 1 GB of data (2GB would be much better but it's Rogers we are talking about and we can't expect them to be innovative :-( ), unlimited incoming and outgoing text and 300 minutes of voice calls to anywhere in Canada and USA. This plan will not include voice, SMS and data roaming to the USA. Roaming will still be billed at the current Rogers r*poff rates.

What's your guess (I am assuming all will be revealed tomorrow at 10a.m. after Jobs keynote!)????

I'll treat the commenter with the closest guess to a tasty beverage the next time they are in Vancouver!

Sorry, Rogers raising prices by 54% from $65 to $100/month for 1GB of mobile data is unacceptable. This unfortunately confirms Danny's experience.

QUOTE

the $65/month data plan which I’ve written about previously has gone away. Rogers will still give you 1 G of mobile data, but now they want $100/month. Hello? When the rest of the world has data rates that are plunging like a stone, Jolly Rogers is cranking their rates up. Sure smells like a monopoly to me. Is anyone at Industry Canada paying attention? Needless to say, I chose to stick with my pre-existing $65/month “deal”.

END QUOTE

After 12 hours with a borrowed Rogers N95 8GB NAM, my conclusion is still to get an unlocked one!

In short, the Rogers N95 8GB NAM is:

1. The Multimedia creator phone that N series users the world over have learned to love. Great camera and great video!
2. The S60 interface we have come to love/hate which is hard to use as all N series aficionados know.
3. Rogers has put their bogus "deck" in the web browser and Vision software on their version of N95 8GB NAM and it's just as suspected, unusable and totally superfluous. Change the home page and don't use the Vision app; none of it's any good!
4. It's the Rogers Data plan that we have all come to love. Danny who set up the phone, was told by a Rogers CSR he could get a 1GB data plan for $100/month which contradicts the $65/month 1GB PC Card plan that Alec Saunders got from Rogers. Inconsistencies 'r Rogers! Or is it a deliberate attempt to confuse customers by telling different customers different stories about data plans?

My conclusion remains the same: get an unlocked N95 8GB NAM and a $65/month PC Card plan. You'll be a lot less frustrated!

Some more details after the jump

Rogers implements kludgey SMS "you are now getting r*pped off" alert system instead of reasonable data plans. Title says it all. Instead of wasting money on designing, implementing and telling customers about this system, why not have reasonable cost data plans e.g. $50/month for 1GB, $60 for 2GB (and if there are good business and technical reasons why you can't do this even though other countries can, please communicate them)? Oh well now you know why billing software is a billion dollar business.

QUOTE

There is a new feature from Fido and Rogers that is available now to all subscribers. The system will automatically send you a text message to alert you when you are using pay per use data. This is especially important for people using an iPhone.

This is even more important for those who are using the $7 unlimited surfing plan. The system will tell you if you are incurring pay per use data charges. If you don't get a text, you should be fine. If you do, watch out and stop using data.

You will receive a warning text at thresholds such as:
- $10, 20, 50, 75, 100

This is available right now for people who are not on any sort of data plan. It will begin working on May 18th for those on a data plan such as the $7 plan.

END QUOTE

Rogers charges extra per kilobyte for the bult-in email app? This is really bad. I hope Howard got that wrong. Otherwise a lot of email junkies (if they can figure out how to configure their S60 email client, it's not easy) will be unpleasantly surprised by VERY VERY large data bills!

Is the "deep packet inspection" guy a Rogers employee? I can think of other techniques to detect third party apps, like hacking the S60 3G and EDGE communications software stack to check if the app is built in and if so to send some sort of "validation packet" which the Rogers gateway detects and removes (thanks to JeffG's friend for that idea!), many ways to skin this cat, all futile, innovation sapping and time consuming in the end, better to spend the energy on innovation than bogus packet inspection and billing software IMHO!

Anyways, compared to the rest of the world, as I said in my previous post, these plans are a r*poff and the N95 Browser while awesome compared to the pathetic browser in the rest of Rogers' phones (cf. any Motorola phone browser) is really inferior to the iPhone browser.

Again, my recommendation: Just say no to "browser only" data plans and "3rd party application bandwidth" taxes! Buy a 3rd party unlocked phone and get the $65 PC Card plan and enjoy your freedom!

QUOTE

One of the data plans available for it is 20 bucks a month, unlimited on device browsing (using Nokia’s terrific s60 browser), 2500SMS, “100’s” of MMS (the Rogers guy’s words) and unlimited web email. If you sign up on a 3 year then you also get unlimited Vision. The $7 unlimited on device browsing plan is also available.

If you add your own apps or use the Nokia email client (for POP or iMAP) then data is billed per kb (so don’t use your Slingbox unless you have WiFi). I asked how they can differentiate between the different types of data. One guy said they use deep packet inspection (the same thing Rogers uses to throttle bittorrent).

There are the typical Rogers customizations; separate Vision app, Music store that doesn’t work with the built-in music player, that sort of thing. It also appears to come with Telenav (which you have to pay to use) - Nokia’s mapping program is also available.

While I’m not thrilled with the customizations, I’m lukewarm about the plans. The data plans are incredibly limiting but the n95 has a pretty good browser so that makes things a little easier to bear.

END QUOTE

As I feared the $7 "unlimited" data plan for the recently introduced N95-8GB and other Rogers approved devices restricts you to using the built-in apps. The built-in apps are *ahem* (to be nice) not that great with the exception of the web browser (and I fear that Rogers has somehow neutered the "great for Nokia" webkit based browser but not so great when compared to the iPhone browser). 3rd party apps, like ShoZu and Qik, are much better in my humble opinion.

Not only that, you are forced to commit to a 3 year contract if you wish to use the $7 plan.

At this time, if you are mobile enthusiast, therefore, I can't recommend the Rogers Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan or buying a Rogers N95 8GB. Instead I recommend buying an unlocked N95 8GB from Tiger Direct or other source and then buying the Rogers 1GB/month $65 'PC Card plan' which Alec Saunders uses with his unlocked non Rogers N95. As far as I know, this plan doesn't have a 3 year contract requirement. And it doesn't have the 3rd party app tax (Alec uses 3rd party app Qik to stream video live and doesn't pay 5 cents per kilobyte).

Anyhow, to end in a positive note, if any Rogers N95-8GB owners want to experiment with 3rd party apps and want to set them up in such a way as to avoid the "5 cents / kilobyte 3rdparty app" r*poff tax, and you are in Vancouver, please email roland AT rolandtanglao.com and let's get together in Gastown at lunch on a weekday and I'll show you how (it's not as intuitive as the iPhone). I've been using Nokia S60 smart phones like the N95 for four years and can show you how to use the powerful but not so intuitive S60 interface to your advantage.

QUOTE

NEW! Adding Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan* to your voice plan provides:

* Unlimited on-device mobile browsing access to your favourite social communities like Facebook & MySpace, news, sports and entertainment sites all on the go for one flat monthly fee!
* Access to search the mobile Internet with Yahoo! Search and Google
* Access to information sites like Yahoo! Canada, Canada.com, Windows Live, The Weather Network, Lavalife Mobile and more!
* Protection against high pay-per-use data charges while surfing the mobile Internet

Start saving on all your mobile Internet browsing with Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing* or pay per use at 5¢/ KB.

Plan or pay per use at 5¢/ KB

Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan
Monthly Fee Includes
$7 Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing*

For a limited time, customers who activate on a Voice Plan and add Vision Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing* on a 3 year term receive Vision Bonuses. Learn more

*Important: This plan includes unlimited on-device mobile browsing only and is only available on select phones (PDAs such as Blackberry or Windows Mobile devices, PC cards and non-Rogers certified devices are not eligible). Data usage incurred on ineligible devices or incurred while tethering (using device as wireless modem for computer) or incurred using non-Rogers (3rd party) applications downloaded to your device will be subject to pay-per-use charges of 5 cents/KB. A 3-year term service agreement is required for Rogers Vision devices.

What is tethering?

This plan does not include any usage incurred while tethering. Tethering is when you use your phone as a wireless modem to connect to the Internet. The phone can be connected via USB cable or Bluetooth. Once connected, you can access the Internet wirelessly on your laptop using the Rogers Wireless network. While accessing the Internet wirelessly on your computer, data charges are incurred at a rate of 5¢/KB.
What are 3rd party applications?

3rd party applications are applications like Yahoo! Go or Google Maps. These are non-Rogers applications which may be downloaded to the device and incur data charges at a rate of 5¢/KB.

END QUOTE