Still not getting an iPhone and Rogers’ iPhone plans aren’t helping

When I was in Vancouver this week I was having lunch with Rebecca “Miss604” Bollwitt and Colleen Coplick and saw an iPhone ad in the Rogers store across the street.  Yep, the marketing push is in full swing.  Only problem is that until today we didn’t know what the plans would be like.

Now we do and all I can say is: ouch.

The official Rogers press release give us a table with all the plans:

iPhone 3G Price Plans at Rogers Wireless
—————————————-

————————————————————————-
Sent Incoming
Text Text Visual
Price Voice Data Messages messages Voicemail
————————————————————————-
$60 / 150 minutes + unlimited 400 MB 75 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
————————————————————————-
$75 / 300 minutes + unlimited 750 MB 100 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
————————————————————————-
$100 / 600 minutes + unlimited 1 GB 200 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
————————————————————————-
$115 / 800 minutes + unlimited 2 GB 300 Unlimited Unlimited
month Evening and Weekend
————————————————————————-

Data Usage – What You Get
————————-

————————————————————————-
Monthly
Data Usage Online Applications
————————————————————————-
400 MB up to 200,000 text emails or 3,100 web pages or 1,360 photo
attachments
————————————————————————-
750 MB up to 380,000 text emails or 5,900 web pages or 2,560 photo
attachments
————————————————————————-
1 GB up to 524,000 text emails or 8,000 web pages or 3,500 photo
attachments
————————————————————————-
2 GB up to 1,048,000 text emails or 16,000 web pages or 7,000
photo attachments
————————————————————————-
Pricing includes unlimited Wi-Fi access at all Rogers and Fido
Hotspots. Rogers Wireless will also offer two voice value packs for popular
wireless features: a $15 monthly value pack including Caller ID, Who
Called, Caller Ring Trax, 2,500 Sent Text Messages and 2,500 Call
Forwarding Minutes; and a $20 monthly value pack including Caller ID, Who
Called, Caller Ring Trax, 10,000 Sent Text Messages and 6:00 p.m. Early
Evening Calling and 2,500 Call Forwarding Minutes.

Mark Evans’ (turns out I’m going to be living within a few block of him) has his analysis and yeah, he’s right, the iPhone might be a dud up here, sorta.

If this reaction is typical then it’s entirely possible the iPhone could initially be a dud in Canada until pricing becomes more attractive. It could also mean the 100,000 “grey market” iPhone users in Canada could continue to expand.

If you look at the chart below, Rogers lays out the different data scenarios in terms of how many e-mail messages you can receive, for example, with each package. One thing glaringly missing is how many online videos you could watch for each data plan. What Rogers doesn’t want to admit is you could easily burn through 2GB of data (Rogers’ biggest plan) if you watched a modest number YouTube videos a month.

One other thought: why would Rogers not offer an unlimited data plan if one of the major selling points of the new iPhone is it works on a 3G network, which is fast enough to make using the wireless Web easier and more attractive? It could be Rogers is jammed because it would have to offer unlimited plans to all of its Blackberry users. Source: Rogers Unveils iPhone Pricing | Mark Evans

The sorta comes in with people like Rebecca and others with hacked iPhones already, I’m betting that the hackathon will only continue.

Let’s add a twist to this, if Telus switches to GSM as has been rumoured, then they could scoop a lot of hacked iPhones with better data and voice plans.

Not that they are leading the way in the data plan department.  I am so not giving up my unlimited data plan with by EVDO card.

What’s the deal Rogers?  You just trying to eek out more money from gadget-crazed consumers before they bolt away when new providers hit?