Need out of your iPhone contract? $1100 minimum please

July 1st, 2008Need out of your iPhone contract? $1100 minimum please

We’ve all been there before, you have 3 months left in your cell phone contract after years of being a customer of one of the carriers, and now you need out. Each carrier in Canada has a different get-out-of-jail fee to break their contracts and Rogers has always been one of the most expensive, but never any more egregious than you’d expect.

Well, we’ve all been complaining that Rogers’ pricing hasn’t changed much with their new iPhone plans, but now I have proof that they have changed.

Instead of a smaller fee like 200$ to break up, Rogers now locks you in for 220$ a MONTH, or $1100, whichever is more. The price can then, on a 3-year contract, easily go up as high as $7,770.

You may be thinking “I’ll never need to pay that”, but you never know. 36 months is a long time to be locked in to a contract, and with penalties like this, you have to think about things like job security before you buy that shiny new Apple iPhone.

This is not normal behaviour, the iPhone is now not only expensive, but completely unattractive. Why? Lets recap:

You have to sign a 3-year contract
It is a device designed for massive amounts of bandwidth, but you are limited to low data usage caps
There are high overage fees if you use more data than Rogers allows
You have to take the voice plan they offer with the phone, you can’t choose another Rogers voice plan
You have to pay an insane amount for Caller ID
System Access fee is alive and well
You have to pay $1100 cash if you life changes in any significant way in the next 3 years, that goes up to as high as $7,770 if you have more than 5 months remaining on your contract.

What about you? Are you going to buckle under the pressure and go ahead and get one? Is the temptation too much? I know I have passed the point of no return on this puppy. I’ll stick with my 1st-Gen iPhone and use a few Wifi Hotspots.

How many of those 20,000+ people will really boycott the iPhone? How many signed the petition, but still won’t be able to resist the lure of the amazing iPhone?

[UPDATE July2/08: Rogers has now corrected their cancellation disclaimers which now read "The ECF is the greater of (ii) $100 or (iii) $20 per month remaining in the service agreement, to a maximum of $400 (plus applicable taxes), and applies on each line in the plan that is terminated." The new terms are far better than the nonsensical figures previously published. However, at 3 years in length, it is worth remembering that Rogers contracts (similar to other Canadian Carriers) are still 50% to 100% longer than every other jurisdiction on the planet offering the iphone.

Flushed with hope, WirelessNorth.ca recently inquired of Rogers whether our regular blackberry bill of last month was also just another typo of tragicomic proportions. But apparently not. - ED]

THE MAN

THERE IS A WAY TO GET OUT OF YOUR CONTRACT. GO TO THEIR WEBSITE LOOK AT THEIR CELLULAR COVERAGE MAP AND PICK A LOCATION THAT HAS NO SERVICE AND SAY YOUR MOVING. THEY THEN WILL WAVE THE DISCONNECT FEE OF 400 DOLLARS AND ONLY CHARAGE YOU 1 MONTHS FREE CANCELLATION NOTICE.!!!!!
Robert

Oh god just stop using them, I use rogers for pay as you go, because cell phone is just that communication and nothing else. Turn it on at night NO VOICE mail, because frankly...if you want to leave me a message..YOU PAY FOR IT!

Text only in important situations or during their daytime RAPE minutes.

They scam scam scam and lie through the teeth. If americans Roaming on verizon can be charged a mere .002 cents kilobyte while in canada, why are canadians paying 5cents?

Stop using them, be an adult and realize you dont' need this shit. Be like our parents, pick up the phone when you need it and talk to them, otherwise shut the piece of shit off. You don't need to be in constant contact with every biological unit, and most of the tiem it's inane prattle and nothing important.

If your company pays for it, fine you need to be in touch with them. But everyday humans could do with less contact with eachother, not more.
Zach

2b. And there is no way to check your current monthly data usage
Kevin

There is a very simple and effective way to get out of any cell phone contract, even more so in Canada. Pick any community north of the 48th paralell (most are not serviced by carriers) and decide that you're moving there in a month. Since they can't service you there, they are in breach of contract and must abolish it. Of course no law prevents you from changing your mind on moving there once the contract has been abolished ;)
Mike

It was a typing error, it is 100$ or 20$/month to a max of 400$.... not 1100$.
Sharp

By the way, it seems that Rogers has corrected their typo on their website. It now shows the proper ECF in english on the iPhone page. I guess the news on wirelessnorth should be updated accordingly..
Robert

Maybe the pricing of their iphone plan is also a typo. Can someone call and check?

(fingers crossed).
Sharp

Personnally, I dont see anything wrong with the iPhone pricing.
Joe Guy

I have a hard time understanding your comment if you haven't checked the US or any other country in the world's prices. Why should Canadians be paying so much more for so much less? So I DO see EVERYTHING wrong with the iPhone pricing.
Sharp

You cannot really compare a canadien carrer with a USA carrier. They have to cover such a wide country with the population of the NY-state. So in order to make money (and pay their network equipment) they obviously have to increase the price.

Honestly i find that 60-100$ for a voice/data price plan is correct. It could be a little better but I am sure that things will change in the future.

Try to find another carrier with similar condition (Australia? Russian?) to find out their price plan, THEN compare.

Also, please note that many carrier that provide "unlimited data" on iPhone apply a soft cap at 1GB. Thus raed carefully.
Robert

Not a valid argument.

Att 2007 Q4 - wireless revenue $11.4 billion dollars, wireless operating profit $1.9 billion
Rogers 2008 Q1 - wireless revenue $1.4 billion dollars, wireless operating profit $0.7 billion.

Rogers have 1/9th the revenue as att but have 1/3rd the profit. If this doesn't convince you that rogers is cash grabbing, i don't know what will.
Sharp

By the way, I just looked to ATT price plan for iPhone 3G and the plans are very similar:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/iphone-info.jsp

From 70USD to 130USD. They have a little more minutes anytime, they offer unlimited evening at $90 (while Rogers starts offering this at $60. The big difference is about Data while ATT says unlimited and Rogers offers 400MB/750MB/1GB"2WG depending of the plan. From my point of view, that's normal since ATT is 10 time bigger.

Honestly, my broadband connection is cap to 20GB and I uses about 5GB/month. So 1 GB should be good enough for data surfing on a phone.
Dan

Why are you shilling for Rogers? Do you work for them?

Here's the real deal:

Canada: $60 + $6.95 SAF + 911 + $7 call display = $75/month = 150 local minutes + 400MB data
USA: $70/month = 450 nation wide minutes + unlimited data
GB: $70/month = 600 nation wide minutes + unlimited data

You call an exta 300 minutes "a little more"? Get real.

Also the fact that they have unlimited data is the most important part of the deal. I could deal with the stingy "never use a cell phone" 7 minutes per day voice plan if they would just give us the unlimited data. What you and Rogers don't seem to understand is that it is NOT about how much data you are actually going to use, it is about being able to use an always on, data heavy mobile device without having to have a nagging little voice in the back of your head always wondering if you are going over your limit. It literally ruins the iPhone because it is a device designed from the ground up with the assumption of unlimited data.
Kyle

Amen.
Sharp

That's your point of view, mine is a little different :)

I found that they move from 5cents per KB to a few cent to many MB (and even GB) for a relatively good price. I agree it is still expensive but now affordable for many people. I expect a better price in a couple of months.

Not sure where do you come from, but we (in quebec) pay 45$ for a capped broadband connection.
I cant imagine an uncapped "broadband speed" wireless connection for less than 100$, voice excluded.
Dan

I do not expect true unlimited. I understand if they put fair usage restrictions (no torrents, tethering, etc). I don't even mind a soft cap. A soft cap would allow them to indenify abusers rather than punish us all. I also would accept if they were to drop down the bandwith afer a certain point like they do in Germany (After 300MB: bandwidth limited to 64 kbit/s download & 16 kbit/s upload). I wouldn't be extantic but at least it wouldn't render the device unusable like their existing plans.

They are simply using the data caps as leverage to try to push people into higher plans. That is why they don't want to offer unlimited data. Greed and contempt for their customers is the Rogers way.
Sharp

By the way, if you do includes extra charge for Rogers, you should do the same for ATT.

Read carefully:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/additionalcharges/
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/legal/monthly-charges.jsp
The batman

As a Rogers employee ( with no additional insider information to offer ), I think it prudent that people wait for such clarification as I too doubt the $1100 ECF and attribute it to simply being a typo. Also, in response to the huge backlash against the announced plans, no-one seems to understand that a regular data plan can be added to your preferred voice plan - those exact details have not been released but the plans are not unreasonable in price at all. People should not all jump on the same bandwagon until all details have been announced and made official.
geo

I just went through a series of emails with a very helpful lady from Rogers. She echoed the email that was posted on Nickster's blog almost word for word about being able to use our current plans with the iPhone. I emailed her back about this post, and showed her the link on Rogers' site that it's based on. She said "All the iPhone bundles are subject to our standard Early Cancellation Fee policy, which is $20 per month for unfulfilled month, with a minimum of $100 to a maximum of $400. I'll investigate the web link but the Early Cancellation Fee policy remains unchanged: it is a max of $400."

So I think we can definitely chalk this up to being a typo. :)
Time For Change

Outrageous pricing from Rogers has destroyed my desire to purchase an iPhone. I've patiently waited for more than a year and my disappointment is enormous.

I simply refuse to pay this much for so little. I already pay more than $200 to Rogers per month and don't want to make this $300 and lock myself into a 3 year contract in the area where things change so quickly. $15 dollar fee for a caller ID is a slap in the face and is simply insulting.

In fact, I'm so disappointed at Rogers with their iPhone ripoff, I'm going to review my options for home phone, high-speed Internet and cable TV and whether I really need all of them.

If I have better options that Rogers, I'll make sure that they know the reason why I'm dumping them. What goes around, comes around and enough is enough.

Unfortunately, this situation is the result of GSM monopoly that Rogers is exploiting to the fullest. Where is Canadian Government in all of this? I don't like government intervention in business matters, but this is clearly a monopoly case. Yes, there are Bell and Telus that run CDMA but GSM is the world standard.
Sharp

Caller ID is not $15 but rather $7 (with caller number plus caller name).

The $15 package is a bundle that includes caller id, 2500 outgoing sms and Ringback tunes.
Gazora

From the terms on the Rogers site (in French): (i) 100 $ ou (ii) 20 $ par nombre de mois restant à la période d’abonnement, jusqu’à un maximum de 400 $

So the cancellation fee is the highest of 20$ per month (over the remaining term) or 100$
Sharp

It is amazing how such (bad?) typo can become such a flaming war against Rogers. However we need to realize how bad is Rogers when they type something on their website.
Richard Smith

I have often wondered if inside Rogers' there isn't a war going on: the "Blackberry Division/VP of Blackberries" doesn't want to lose customers and so has fought against lower data rates and now this nonsense. It seems like a strategy to limit adoption, quite frankly. Make it such a "stinker" of a plan that you can avoid cannibalizing existing lines of business/revenue streams.
Sharp

Regarding data pricing, I think the main concern of Rogers is not to reduce the data price rate, but rather to find the sweet spot. If to put a price "too low", it is really hard to jump the price up a few months after. They moved it down, and the will move the price down again. It is still too high, but they are moving in the right direction. I'll wait and see..
Richard Smith

Ah. Sharp (above) has sorted it out. A tempest in a teapot caused by a typo. Thanks, Sharp...
Sharp

I just verified on the rogers website, it was a typo. Here's the ECF:

Early Cancellation Fee

* An Early Cancellation Fee (ECF) applies if, for any reason, your service is terminated prior to the end of the service agreement. The ECF is the greater of (i) $100 or (ii) $20 per month remaining in the service agreement, to a maximum of $400 (plus applicable taxes), and applies to each line in the plan that is terminate.

it it NOT 1100$ nor 7770$.
Sharp

I wondering why it says "to a maximum of 400$ plus taxe per line". How it could reach 1100$ if the maximum is 400$. I would suggest that this is a typo.
Air

My mom always said that rogers was the devil when she cut off our cable as young children and we thought we would never understand her...now I get it..now I know what she knew all along...with this new iphone pricing.. it is confirmed...they are Evil!
Jonathan E

I noticed this yesterday and was shocked. After posting it on Twitter and alerting some friends to it, who continued to spread the word, I've got to think that this may be a big typo. The sentence just doesn't make sense when you add that "to a maximum of 400 dollars" line.

Either way, Rogers is really not handling this launch well.
Jevon

It just says "to a maximum of 400", not $400. It could mean 400 months ;)
Rob Hyndman

"The ECF is the greater of (ii) $1100 or (iii) $220 per month remaining in the service agreement, to a maximum of 400 (plus applicable taxes)"

One month in to 36 month contract, that amounts to 35 months x $220 per month [what does "to a maximum of 400" mean in this context?]. That's $7,700, as Alistair says, the price of a used 2002 BMW 328i [http://twitter.com/brundle_fly/statuses/847628525].

This is at least wildly, uncontrollably, greedily rapacious. It's not just about not making sense. It's exquisitely well-timed commentary on the culture and business ethic of Rogers.
Nelsormensch

In the US, the early termination fees are about $175-200. http://www.ucan.org/telecommunications/wireless/cell_phone_termination_fees

Rogers is charging more than *five* times that? Honestly, this would stand anywhere else in the world. The spectrum auction can't end soon enough.
Nelsormensch

... would _not_ stand
heri

i am ok with the limitations and price but this is just too much.

the thing is, we are all sure that Apple will release a 3rd generation iPhone in one year, and another one in 2 years etc. Which means people who would get the Rogers' iPhone will be stuck with a crappy device in the 3rd year - with everyone else in the world enjoying smthg else.

might just get the iPhone with just a voice plan and the standard 1 year contract. or better yet, prepaid.
Pema Hegan

Also - I has a strange experience with my jail broken iPhone yesterday... I plugged it into the laptop and got an iTunes screen saying "iPhone activations are unavailable at this time". Photos, music and contacts didn't update. I guess Apple really want us to 'officially' activate with Rogers...
http://pe.ma/2008/06/unlocked-iphones-not-syncing-with-itunes-anymore/
Jevon

Yieks. I will test this with mine today. That is scary.
Pema Hegan

I'm sticking with my 1st-Gen iPhone too Jevon. This is ridiculous.
I heard an interview with someone from Rogers on the CBC yesterday. They explained that you will be able to use an iPhone on the Rogers network without picking an iPhone plan - you can simply pick the voice and data plan you want or use your existing plan. For me this at least means I'll be able to stick with my current plan and update the software on my iPhone (i.e. re-virginize it and update to the official iPhone 2.0 software).

Wirelessnorth.ca

July 1st, 2008Need out of your iPhone contract? $1100 minimum please

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