Friday, April 17, 2009

Rogers Data Plans Revisited -- Almost There

I was rather savage last year over the ridiculous cost of Data that characterized the avarice of Rogers and Apple when the initial iPhone gold rush was in full swing. People were complaining about the outrageous multi-thousand dollar bills they were receiving, and the cost of pay as you go data was higher than that of any known street drug ...

So a quick revisit of the data plans shows that they are getting there. The 6GB plan at $30 has long since disappeared ... now you get 1GB for that amount of cash. An increase of 6 times ... not tolerated in many industries, but barely noticed in the Canadian wireless market, known to be the biggest rip off in the western world.

But the real change is a maximum data fee of $100 per month. Data used to be to Canadians what medical bills are to Americans -- a quick way to eliminate your life savings. We solve the medical issue a long time ago (and I'm shocked that there are so many Americans who think it's a bad idea to solve it there) ... and now we've solved the data problem in Canada, which interestingly I think they solved in the USA quite a while ago ... data is pretty cheap there compared to here. Go figure ...

Anyway ... my only issue now is with the low end plan costs ... I think they need an entry plan that'll get you hooked. Something for occasional users. $25 for 500MB is simply too high. For an extra $5 you get 1GB ... and that's why Rogers does it. They don't expect anyone to pay $25 for half the data you can get for $30 because people don't want to look stupid. It's simple greed on Rogers' part to force people to spend the extra $5 per month.

What they should offer is a plan at $15 for 300MB ... a plan at $20 for 750MB and a plan at $30 for 1.5GB ... that way, people can start cheap (and stay cheap if it works out) and get more data as they go up, instead of this silly step function from $25 to $30.

Whatever ... I'll wait. Hasn't bothered me much ...

No comments: