Wirelessnorth.ca

According to big red, hardly anybody (1.2% of subscribers) used more than a 1GB of data on their iPhone in their first 4 weeks of usage, with 95% using less than 500MB and 91.2% using less than 200MB. Rogers is keen to share the stats as a prelude to “right-sizing” their new lineup of data plans once the current $30/6GB special offer runs out.

These numbers are of course a little disingenuous. You would expect these numbers to climb over time as users adapt their behavior to the new capabilities of the 3G devices and as more useful applications are released to the iPhone store. One also wonders how much higher those figures would be if iPhone supported video or, if the iPhone had any reasonable battery life with 3G actually turned on… limitations that other/future devices will not always have.

So the bad news is Rogers is dropping their caps and raising pricing relative to the 30/6GB deal. The good news is, not by that much and consumers should see data bills that are a LOT more predictable, and the evil days of punitive $50/Megabyte pricing are over.

A Rogers email rep emailed us last night to say:

We’re extending the $30 6GB 3G smartphone plan until the end of September (for the Bold mostly but all 3G smartphones can add it). And we looked at that iPhone usage and thought once the promotion ends, we’d create new plans that are better suited to what we know customers use. These October 1 plans are for data devices consumer pricing (so BlackBerry, smartphones, air cards) and I note, Rogers is one of the few carriers in the world that permit tethering. So a preview of new pricing that goes into effect October 1: $15 for 2MB (essentially an email plan); $25 for 500 MB; $30 for 1GB; $60 for 3GB and $80 for 8GB

On top of this Rogers is introducing a $100 cap for all data bill overage [this is a defacto $100 unlimited plan then? -ed] and free SMS alerts to inform you when you are approaching your limits. Presumably this cap does not apply to roaming data use however, which is still a big scary gap in Rogers service plans for anyone who travels.

Nonetheless, predictable in territory data pricing is very good. Tethering is good. And hopefully all of this pricing will come down further with more competition in 2009.

This new openness as well as the current stop-gap $30/6GB plan is a good sign from Rogers. It’s a sign they are getting better at PR and being responsive to consumer outcry at some of their past practices.

Feels like should be giving our carriers such a hard time more often :)

Can we move on to extortionate roaming charges, long distance rates and per-minute billing then?