Brad says:
May 10, 2010 at 7:56 pm
When the new iPhones are released, can I buy the iPad 5GB-for-$35 plan as my data option on an iPhone? How about data only, no voice?
Brad says:
May 11, 2010 at 9:06 am
“But even for our rocket stick/embedded laptop customers, 95.6 per cent use less than 5GB per month.”
Seeing as you mention the Rocket Stick and Laptop customers, can those customers now expect to be able to put their devices on the 5GB-for-$35 plan? Or will this $35 plan exist only for iPad customers?
The sooner Rogers becomes agnostic about devices and treats data like the commodity it is, the better for all of us. Bits are bits, and the wireless network is infrastructure, no different than hydro lines or water pipes. Charge for quantity consumed, and simplify your plan structures.
I posted the comments above on the Rogers Redboard discussion site. I anxiously await their approval.
Rogers is taking a lot of heat for revealing the details of a $20 charge to share data from an existing plan, then backtracking and removing the option. I think customer anger over the removal of the shared plan is obscuring the true story here: that Rogers is actually offering a fair and usable data plan for a 3G networked device (iPad). The 5GB-for-$35 is light-years ahead of any other plan on the market in Canada, in fact it’s about one third of the current asking price for a 5GB data plan.
I get the strong impression that Apple leveraged the popularity of the iPad, and forced Rogers to offer a decent data plan in order to be recognized as the data provider for the May 28th launch. The link from the Apple pre-order page must be driving huge numbers of people to the Rogers site to view the plan details. AT&T is thought to have bought itself a longer exclusivity period as provider of the iPhone and iPad in the US by offering an unlimited data plan for $30. Taking a page from that book, I think Rogers negotiated with Apple the right to be the only Canadian wireless provider mentioned on the Apple site by agreeing to a fair and reasonable data package. Interestingly, though, the plan is pay-as-you-go, so there is nothing stopping an iPad user from switching to Bell or Telus when those companies unveil their offerings. I guess Rogers is counting on a certain amount of “stickiness” in their subscribers.
My biggest concern is that Rogers and the other providers will restrict these plans to iPad devices only. I don’t fully understand how SIM cards (or mini-SIMs) work. Would it be possible to take the mini-SIM from an iPad and plug it into a new iPhone? Would you get 5GB of data, and no voice minutes? That kind of monthly data, at that price, contract-free, would be a huge win for consumers…
…and a huge loss for the wireless provider. I think the margin on mobile data is pretty thin. The telcos make their big bucks off the voice minutes, long distance, and texting fees they charge. Overage fees for data use are also a big bonus to the wireless providers. Rogers has stated that their iPad plan is structured to avoid overage fees entirely: if a subscriber reaches the 5GB cap before the end of the 30-day billing period, a new billing period starts immediately, and the user is charged another $35 for the next 30 days.
This to me is the clearest indication that Rogers is starting to “get it”. I don’t know if 5GB-for-$35 is the right amount of data-per-dollar, but I think it’s a reasonable start. More importantly, it represents a big step forward in that the wireless provider is thinking of itself as a utility providing a commodity. We can hope that the 3G competition that already exists in Canada will exert pressure to bring down the data-per-dollar cost. It will be very interesting to see what Bell and Telus offer for the iPad. Indeed, it will be interesting to see if this “data enlightenment” shown by Rogers is reflected in the iPhone plans that should launch in June with the new iPhone.
