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April 29th, 2008Rogers to get iPhone, all your base

Posted by Editor in announcements, apple, iphone, nokia, Rogers

As widely reported everywhere Ted has announced he finally got the iPhone. Rogers reports their Q1 earnings today, some notable points, ARPU (average revenue per user) is up almost $5 to a wallet crushing $72 thanks in part to a growth in Data ARPU (now 14% of revenues) and as Rogers seems to have lost some low end share to growing competition to the likes of Telus’ Koodo and other discount brands. (we hear koodo is doing well, despite the branding)

Meanwhile, further rumours have the Nokia N95 (and other n series?) coming to rogers as well. Certainly Rogers will price the hell out of the high-end Nokias but notice these two announcements would Rogers is finally (and smartly) dropping the hammer on their GSM advantage on Telus and Bell. Those two share a network based on the increasingly-orphaned CDMA standard not supported by nokia or apple.

The coming of May means an important tradition, the coming of the Spring quarter and new mobile pricing and marketing plans from all the big carriers. What shall it be this time?

Just off the phone with a CSR at Rogers for one who informed your editor of this little tidbit: the reason Roger’s roaming charges on data are so high (not unheard of for folks to run up 800-1000 blackberry bills on a few business trips to the US) is because Rogers has never had a roaming plan for data. There’s a thought. But, says the CSR as well as sources from other carriers, starting next week expect some new new rate plans across the board as each carrier launches their spring campaigns and Rogers clears the deck for iPhone.

Expect the iPhone in June or so. Expect it to be the second gen iPhone with 3G and a few other tweaks to the current model.

Thank goodness for decent blackberry plans on Telus and new GSM entrants on the horizon, elsewise your future is looking awfully Rogery and you might as well sign over all your future paychecks to Ted right now just to get it over with.

Jim

Anyone who wanted one has it already from the US
Anyone thinking of buying one will buy in US
Rogers isn’t going to gouge the customer on this one… customers are getting too smart.
http://www.hoggworks.com/ Brian Hogg

That’s quite a generalization, Jim. I certainly wanted one, but I didn’t buy it from the US. I’m technically savvy enough to handle the jailbreaking, but if I have it here with the existing price structure, I’d have to pay a LOT for the data plan, and I don’t want to do that. Aside from the cost of the thing, there’s also the arms-race between Apple and the Jailbreakers; since the only way I could use the thing is by jailbreaking it, I’d be at the mercy of people doing something illegally, in their spare time, for the functionality of my phone. And that’s not something I’d be willing to do.

Also, you seem to be forgetting the fact that the majority of the cell phone consumers are going to be casual consumers: they’re going to walk into a cell phone store, and pick from whatever’s on the rack. They’ll ask for the iPhone, but be told it’s not available, say, darn it, and pick whatever one looks second-best, if they even know to ask for the iPhone at all.
http://www.kenseto.ca Ken Seto

I think there will be plenty of Rogers iPhone buyers, especially if they bundle it with a reasonable data plan (“reasonable” is a subjective term of course).
Sharp

Hi,

I just looked yesterday at the Rogers data plan. It is far better than it was:

7$ for unlimited browser (“WAP”) on your cell phone. (it is not allowed to put your sim into another device such as pc-card or use your phone as a modem).

–or–

real data plan (still expensive but better):
- 65$ for 1GB
- 75$ for 2GB
- 85$ for 3GB
- 100$ for 5GB (and 3cents for MB after)

You can pick the cheapest one and they will automatically upgrade you to the next plan if you bust it. So 100$ for 5GB on either a cell or data card, it is not bad for a premium service like this.

However, roaming data is another story..
http://www.kenseto.ca Ken Seto

Some analyst at RBC Capital Markets is predicting a $35 for 100-200MB plan and says it’s “more than sufficient”.

If that’s what Rogers is actually going to bring out, they certainly aren’t counting on people using YouTube much.

Considering recent reports that YouTube is actually responsible for a huge chunk of internet traffic (20% or more of all HTTP traffic), they don’t think people just MIGHT use the iPhone for YouTube?

And YouTube is now offering higher res. videos now too.
http://wirelessnorth.ca/2008/05/02/rogers-q1-earnings-a-closer-look/ Wirelessnorth.ca » Blog Archive » Rogers Q1 Earnings: A Closer Look

[...] reported here and elsewhere, Rogers released strong Q1 earnings on Tuesday, which were largely overshadowed by [...]
http://www.startupnorth.ca/2008/05/03/weekend-reading-may-3-2008/ StartupNorth » Blog Archive » Weekend Reading – May 3, 2008

[...] The iPhone is coming to Canada. [...]

April 29th, 2008Rogers to get iPhone, all your base

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