Canada Boycotts Rogers Wireless iPhone 3G Pricing Plans
June 29, 2008
Canadians have long bemoaned high cost of wireless service compared to those in other countries, but now they have decided to send a strong message to Rogers Wireless and publicly voice their frustration with corporate greed in Canada.
As Palluxo! readers may recall, Rogers Wireless released Friday its ‘rip-off’ pricing structure for iPhone 3G data and voice plans. All plans require a long three-year contract. At that time, we warned Canadian consumers to think twice before signing such a long contract. Thankfully, they listened.
Voice and data plans for Apple’s iPhone 3G start at $60 per month, which - in all fairness - is not a pocket money, especially when you get poor perks with it. For $60, consumers will get only 150 minutes of voice calling with only 400 megabytes of data and unlimited evenings and weekends. They will also be able to send only 75 text messages, but will be able to receive unlimited incoming text messages and visual voicemail messages. That’s about it. Rogers estimated that 400 MB was the equivalent of up to 200,000 text e-mails, 3,100 web pages or 1,360 photo attachments. There is also a system access fee of $6.95 a month.
According to CNNMoney.com’s blogger, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, “thousands of angry Canadians have made their feelings known in various homegrown websites.” Elmer-DeWitt reports that the largest protest petition “can now be found at ruinediphone.com” website.
According to the petition, “If you consider these plans not suitable, please sign this petition. On July 11th 2008, we will send a printed copy of all these messages to Rogers HQ to demonstrate our indignation toward them. We would like to say ‘Thank You, You’ for signing this petition and helping the iPhone cause in Canada.” Palluxo! endorses this petition and we encourage all our readers to sign it! Thank you in advance.
Rogers and the cell phone companies have been screwing Canadians for years yet we continue to go back and take more. These companies know that. It’s like the gas companies and pricing. Send back their credit cards. For Rogers and the cell phone companies cancel your plans.
I did.
Bet you don’t.
Their price place is a disgusting slap in the face to Canadians.
I can’t believe there is no unlimited data option in any plan and that Canada is still paying so much per minute for cellular time.
I’m a Canadian living in Mexico and I am pretty sure that the Rogers plans will only be topped by the Telcel plan that come out over here.
Both will be terrible ripoffs.
Rogers can go to HELL. I live in Canada and have been a loyal Rogers customer for 10 years+. The rates announced by Rogers on Friday are a major slap in the face to Canadian consumers. We already pay the HIGHEST cell/data rates in the world and these iPhone plans are simply NOT ACCEPTABLE.
Since the market decides the price, I’ve decided not only to boycott the iPhone, but to cancel my current cell and internet services with “Robbers” on July 11th. These Greedy, corporate scum-sucking dirtbags deserve to go BANKRUPT for screwing us ever friggin’ chance they get! I’ll switch my cell to Telus and buy an iPod touch instead.
ROGERS: STOP TELLING US WHAT WE NEED AND START PROVIDING US WITH WHAT WE WANT… UNLIMITED DATA PLANS AT REASONABLE RATES! STOP RAPING YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!
Canadians could consider themselves fortunate, in Australia try $60 for 200Mb plus .25c a text .55c MMS, plus calls, and thats not even an iphone but a nokia 6120. Mind you blistering 3.5 G speeds make downloads and streaming video a breeze but who could be bothered at the above rates.
Rogers bites. If you want true service and unlimited data switch to Bell. They now have a 30$ unlimited plan to combat Rogers getting the iphone. Its not advertised but you can get it if you call and ask. Unlimited data at that price is a beautiful thing.
support us at http://www.notrogers.com , together we have q bigger impact.
fuck rogers,
all Canadian stand up again Rogers,
Don’t buy the iphone
Rogers will fuck himself.. if we all don’t buy the iphone…
I just have to agree with everyone. The Canadian market is fixed. “Price Fixing” is an agreement between business competitors to sell at the same price.
If Telus or Bell had a deal which included an itouch they would have many people jumping shit.
By the way how come all the petition websites are down? I’m guessing way to much traffic for them to handle.
I was so excited to be able to get an iphone in Canada but with the price they charge for the plan I decided to stick with my smart window mobile phone and Rogers can go to hell.
The only way to protest is buy from Fido insted Rogers.yes it still a part of rogers but
if Fido out sold Rogers they mite see the lite
It’s not a boycott; it’s consumers making a decision in the free market.
Equally, there is no such thing as greed, corporate or otherwise.
I manage our corporate phones and internet from work and i am so happy i moved out from Rogers service. We used to pay 1800 for our internet and 5000 for our cell phones a month. I am saving 50 percent for same services from Bell.
It doesn’t matter which company you go to - bell/rogers/telus - the main issue is that they are simply not aggressive and competitive with each other and the CRTC will bend over backwards to let them rape whomever they want!
I long for the days where the industry looks more like Europe where you can easily buy an unlocked GSM phone and bring it to whichever service provider you want!
There’s hope for Americans with the new frequency being opened up (with unlocked cellphones, thanks to Google!) but as far as I know there is no such guarantee with the Canadian frequencies!
It’s time for the Canadian Government to step in and break up the industry! Imagine rogers and bell being broken up into separate entities which compete with each other… Imagine how competitive it would get with rates falling due to competition!
And phones should be sold by the manufacturer with all features unlocked! That way I could easily move a ringtone (that I had paid for) from my computer to my phone without having to find a new one and pay rogers for it again. These phones are so capable and have so much functionality it would astound you… but when we get them 75% of it is gone! Ever shop for a phone with information from the manufacturer but when you see it in the store it doesn’t do dick?
While I’m on such a good rant, I want the price that’s quoted to be the final price! I don’t want the fee, plus 911, plus access, plus nonsense fees…
And the competitive nature of a re-formed industry will make those damned ridiculous charges for voice mail, number id and stuff go away! I can understand that they have costs in buying hardware but look at it this way - $7 for 3 voice mails, x 100000 users, .7 million! How much hardware can you buy for $.7 million? And how many voice mails are sitting on the system? maybe 50,000 at one time…
And what about $7 for caller ID per month? That is a ripoff because it’s a pure service! There’s no storage of data whatsoever!
Why do you think we hate these companies?
And do you know what the kicker is?
I’d do the exact same thing if I were them!
I am so disgusted with Rogers and the way they behave towards customers.
I was in Vancouver last week with a friend who wanted to buy an iPhone- I convinced her to rather return to Whistler and to shop local because you get better service and trust me when using Rogers this is really important!!
So on our return to Whistler, I went to the store run by Dave and Stella Manuel - it is called Mountain Wireless and is our local Rogers dealer. I have dealt with this company for years and have had outstanding service from them.
So in I went to get an iPhone only to see a large apology notice to say that Rogers was not supplying the small dealers with any iPhones - I also hear that they are closing down small dealers around Canada.
I support local business and I am disgusted to hear this.
I will not be buying an iPHONE and Rogers can keep their business if this is the way they are treating individual small business owners.