When Rogers re-introduced the 6GB/$30 add-on earlier this summer, I pounced on it. To show you how good a deal that is on paper, consider the fact that 500 MB of data costs $25/month. See how easy that math is?
The thing is, after a month with my iPhone 3GS I got to thinking about how I was really using the device. I can’t really use more than 500MB of data in a month, but I thought it would be awesome to have the extra gigs for the free tethering until December 31st. It’s great that Rogers is offering free tethering right from the get-go (unlike AT&T), but it seems like a cruel joke to get used to tethering and possibly have to pay more for it come 2010. Cost also played a factor, since my old iPhone bill cost around $90/month. Ouch.
I ended up calling Rogers around the end of July to switch to a $35 “value pack” that provided 500 MB data, unlimited text and MMS, WhoCalled (texts about missed calls), and Visual Voicemail. It turns out that the end of July was the right time to make the switch, since that pack is now $5 more “valuable”.
Effective August 5th, Rogers (also lovingly called “Robbers”) raised the price of their high end value pack to $40. Granted, this isn’t the first change to iPhone value packs this summer. The other two $15 Value Packs that Rogers offered got a bump to $20 in June, but at least they added unlimited MMS to justify the change. This price increase on the $35 pack just seems ludicrous, since absolutely no extra value has been added. The pack is exactly the same as before, but it costs $5 more. As far as I know, the main difference between the $40 and $20 value packs is the 500MB of data. So either Rogers is making a money grab, or the price of data in Canada just got higher. The latter isn’t likely, though, since the price of the 6GB data plan stayed exactly the same at $30.
I’m not the only one who is outraged by this. iPhoneinCanada (a great site for Canadian iPhone news) wrote a post about this on July 30th stating:
Effective August 5, 2009, the iPhone Data Value Pack will be increased in price from $35 to $40. $40!!! That is the highest monthly tier for Rogers ‘ consumer VOICE plans, let alone add-ons! As a little trip down memory lane, when this Data Value Pack first came out, it was $25. Then increased to $30, then $35, and now $40. Yep.
It’s funny that Rogers changed their plans around at the same time I thought about switching mine. It probably also proves that my decision was the right one. If I was paying extra to keep around 6GB of data for tethering purposes when Rogers will just jack up prices willy nilly without any added value, how can I not believe that they won’t charge an arm and a leg for tethering once 2010 rolls in?
My particular value pack should still cost the pre-August 5th amount since I signed up in late July, but I’ll have to check in September to make sure they got things right (they’re that unreliable). Now all I have to do is clamp down on this $35 Value Pack and never, ever let it go.
How about you folks? Anybody out there considering paying for tethering (or jailbreaking your way around that charge) and keeping a big fat data plan?
[pic from Crackberry post about another crazy Rogers smartphone data plan]
Continue reading:
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TAGS: Data, Rogers
