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February 11th, 2008When Unlimited isn’t. Rogers shuts off the internet to 3rd party apps.

Posted by Editor in applications, Carriers, competition

Wireless competionIn the news today, Torontoist calls foul on Roger’s new “unlimited” data plan. Go read. excellent rant. Why is it important?

Among the plan’s many “unlimited” caveats, is this gem:

3rd party applications are applications like Yahoo! Go or Google Maps. These are non-Rogers applications which can be downloaded to the device and incur data charges at a rate of 5¢/KB – Rogers “Unlimited” browsing plan

In Roger’s case, this isn’t an offer, this is declaring preemptive war on off-deck content. 5cents a kilobyte is $50 a megabyte 3 years, or a prohibitive cost and fear denial-of-audience attack against any non-rogers owned or licensed off-deck applications.

Now all mobile application developers, whether you are Google, an art student or designer experimenting with new modes of interaction, or a kid in the garage with the Next Great Software Idea, you all now have to do a corporate deal with Rogers to have any hope of distribution and mobile usage on the Rogers network.

Where are Bell and Telus in all this? If I were them , there’s tremendous opportunity here to call out the emperors nakedness on data and play the white knight of the industry. There’s a whole internet and mobile ecosystem out there exploding with new (3rd party) mobile services and applications – which your competitor is shutting out. Sounds like a competitive advantage to me.

  • http://terrychambers.com Terry

    I fumbled across this issue last spring when Google released their “Google Mail” Java application. I eagerly downloaded it to my phone and discovered it would not work. When I emailed Rogers support they told me I needed a “business plan” to use it. Now I’ve seen the same issue with Java games that must link back to their host. They are all blocked.

    Consumers are becoming more savvy so forcing them into their “dirt road of Internet access” is not going to cut it for long.

    If Bell or Telus did not have this limitation, I would jump ship today.

  • http://pema.wordpress.com Pema Hegan

    Unfortunately Rogers is the only GSM provider in this fine country. So, even if Telus or Bell decided to play the role of white knight, all of us 3rd party handset owners (iPhones etc) would still be stuck with Rogers. Boooo :(

  • http://www.ineedsugar.com Lee Dale

    Phones are so 2000 anyway. It’s time to add SMS to the iPod Touch, start up a ubiquitous WiFi/SMS network, and be done with all this carrier BS. Of course, Bell has recently earned the right to charge SMS short code owners $500 per month if their short code touches the Bell network. They’re getting you on both ends, as the consumer, and the company pushing data to the consumer.

    I guess the main question is, should we be entitled to freedom of communications when we’re traveling on other people’s data lines? Is this too utopian of a demand in our capitalist nation? And, regardless, is it the job of those in the know to do something about it? ie, do enough people care to start up some competition? Or, is the truth that only the nerds are raising their fists and everyone else is oblivious?

    Anyway, I’m headed to the Gladstone tomorrow night to deal with copyright freedom. I’ll worry about data freedom after we deal with that.

    Peace.
    Lee

  • http://www.thomaspurves.com/2008/02/22/speaking-at-democamp17/ Speaking at DemoCamp17 » ThomasPurves.com

    [...] Did you think it was going to get better? [...]

  • http://InfoQ.com J-P

    I caught you at DemoCamp yesterday. I was quite prod to realize that it was a local Torontoian who had published that graph on wireless rates around the world I saw everywhere last summer. I find Canada’s postion a bit ironic given that we were a leader in wireless communication back in the 1950s when were built the cross country microwave network.

  • http://www.tabooki.com Bob

    I signed up last month and have been using it non stop with my Nokia N95. Upping pics to Facebook and Flikr, vids to youtube, Using the GOS and google maps etc. As long as everything goes through your wap connection it’s fine. End of the month and over 200 meg upped and dloaded and it was $7. Awsome deal if you ask me.

  • http://jaygoldman.com/2008/09/01/dear-bell-canada-your-rebrand-is-a-disaster/ Jay Goldman » Blog Archive » Dear Bell Canada: Your Rebrand is a DisastER

    [...] into the arms of the nearest Roger who would have me. Sure, he regularly mistreats me and pulls the same tricks you used to (and a whole bunch you only fantasize about in your wildest dreams), but at least [...]

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