Wirelessnorth.ca

Rogers, Canada’s only GSM provider has recently provided some new clarity around their famous $7 unlimited “on device” browsing plan. The plan gives you unlimited use of the Rogers-branded browser on certain devices (not blackberries, not pdas, not data cards) for 7 bucks a month.

Without a data plan, Rogers charges 5cents kilobyte, $50 bucks a megabyte, $50,000 or an entry level BMW per gigabyte of usage.

The funny thing about Rogers new HDSPA network is that it’s pretty awesome. We know you can get speeds up to 250kb per second using a 3.6MBs device (or a GB in about 70 minutes). With a newer
7.2MBs phone would be notionaly up to double that, or least better than a Gig per hour at top speed. You wonder if the engineers forgot to mention to the pricing folks how many wildly more kilobytes you can push through the air than

One way to look at this plan is that $7 a month is one heck of a discount on $50,000 dollars an hour. The other way to look at this is the other way around.

Being so cheap, the deal makes some sense as deal as basic mobile websurfing as it’s an application (like $15 a month unlimited email) that doesn’t tend to have high bandwidth requirements to begin with. There’s also the advantage of forcing all mobile surfers to start of at the rogers portal/deck welcome page – and all the co-marketing monetization opportunities that come along with that.

It’s really any mobile app other than browsing or email that would have high bandwidth.

Here’s what Rogers has to say about that:

How could I incur additional data charges outside of the Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan?

You may be incurring additional data transfer charges if:

1. If you have downloaded an application to your handset that is not Rogers Certified, see rogers.com/mobileinternet for a list of eligible applications and websites.
   OR
2. On the Nokia N95 8GB, when you launch the Nokia mobile Internet browser and do not see the Rogers homepage, you are accessing the mobile Internet outside of the Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan.
   OR
3. Tethering: When you use your phone as a wireless modem to connect to the Internet. The phone can be connected via USB cable or infrared Bluetooth.

Pay-per-use data rates for in-eligible usage with the Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan:

Up to 5MB 	$15/MB
5MB to 10 MB 	$10/MB
10MB to 20MB 	$5/MB
20MB or more 	$0.50/MB

Here’s what that translates to on your bill at speeds of (only) 250kb/s:

First 5MB 	$75	20 seconds
10 MB		$125	40 seconds
20 MB		$175	80 seconds
 1 GB		 $687	 70 minutes

What’s your thoughts, Can we still call this punitive pricing on data use? It’s pretty close. It’s clear that Rogers is gung ho about pricing by application and no so keen on this whole idea of “off deck” applications.

Next up on WirelessNorth.ca! Top 10 mobile applications least likely to be certified by your carrier for unlimited usage. Care to take any guesses?

p.s. Fortunately(?) there is another option, the not widely publisized but generaly avalable option to apply a $65 for one GB of any-type usage to your phone, and, sometimes (pick the right CSR) you can get the data card version with incremental GBs costing only $10 each (another heck of a discount from 50 thousand a gig) added on as well.

So there we are, can we put this topic to bed now? _{Just please don’t ask about roaming rates, blackberry rates, rates in different provinces…}