Apple allegedly sanctioning Rogers for iPhone rates - Page 2

Ironic: coincidental; unexpected: It was ironic that I was seated next to my ex-husband at the dinner.

While I agree that a few of her lyrics are a stretch on the definition, most of them are accurate to the definition.

There is no irony in sitting next to you husband at a party, per se, only ironic if you went to the party to avoid the boring git.

Here's a funny analysis of the ironic lack of irony in "Ironic" by Irish comedian Ed Byrne:

"There's nothing ironic about being stuck in a traffic jam when you're late for something. Unless you're a town planner. If you were a town planner and you were on your way to a seminar of town planners at which you were giving a talk on how you solved the problem of traffic congestion in your area, couldn't get to it because you were stuck in a traffic jam, that'd be well ironic."

"Rain on your wedding day is ironic only if marrying a weatherman and he set the date."

"A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break, that's inconsiderate office management. A no-smoking sign in a cigarette factory - irony."

Ref - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

Ted Rogers doesn't eat Apples.

That's ironic.

You should watch, "The devil's hands are idle plaything" on Futurama. Its a hilarious episode on irony and its misuse (I may just like it since I am an English major, lol)

It's not so much that I'm upset that other countries that are licensed to sell the iPhone are offering unlimited data or even the 36 month term commitment. What really boggles the mind is that Rogers is completely ignoring not just what consumers are saying to the media but also are choosing to ignore what competitors here in Canada are offering. Telus for example is a Nationwide carrier that for over a week has advertised $30.00 unlimited data plan for smartphones. Why is it taking Rogers so long to make a decision to do the same? Do they realize by holding off they will only upset their customers to the point of porting to the competition with out any hope of them returning? It's almost as if they are trying to ride the gravy train as long as they can no matter how much damage it does to the company image or their stock value. Don't they realize the bad press is not just in the Canadian news but has drawn attention from several major news sites around the world?

Since such an occurrence could be construed as happening the opposite way as one would assume, it can be considered ironical even if the seating arrangement was just a coincidence.

As for the colloquial use of the term, the latter half of the 20th century has altered the definition to a point that only the most pedantic would find fault with the term. Language evolves, and the advent of instant, worldwide communication is speeding up that process considerably.

In that same vein, people oft use the word sarcastic when they are actually being or sardonic or derisive.

Given that Rogers are complete douchebags, and given that the rates they intend ($60-150/month!) to charge are absurd, I, as a Canadian, am glad Apple are shipping iPhones to other countries where reasonable network rates mean the phones will actually sell. http://ruinediphone.com/ for more.

Additional info can be found here as well: http://www.iClarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1469

I don't think its really sanctioning, its probbaly just being realistic. With the data plans given there isn't going to be a huge demand at the moment, so they'd rather give phones to other countries where people are more likely to care. Not really caring about customers, but more caring about selling more items.

A week to change a pricing plan is not a slow time period. Look at Apple and some of their pricing for components, despite the price in industry going down immensley in the same period. It takes a while for companies to change prices, so if its a month from now and nothing changed a bit of complaining can occur, but right now give them some more time.

Notice that I'm not trying to say what they're doing is good.

Naturally, everybody would like to see wireless prices lowered and in particular, get unlimited data plans. However,…

Rogers has said that the Canadian Data Plans are not out of line. Unlimited Data Plans are, and as such, Americans are paying for something they or the majority of customers are not using.

Now before some of you go ballistic, note the difference between the US and Canadian plans.

• Text messages are only charged to the sender in Canada
• Calls from a Rogers to another Rogers phone are free
• AT&T Data Plans are unlimited

Now, on the last point I have to admit that I lean to Rogers on this one. Unless somebody can prove to me how we can come near the Monthly Data Usages.

For example

• The $60 400MB Data Plan gets you up to 200,000 text emails, or 3100 web pages or 1360 photo attachments.
• For $15 more, you get basically double the amounts.

For the life of me, I cannot see how I could, or have the time, to utilize even the lowest Monthly Data Usage.

Interesting, AT&T iPhone customers are spending an average of $95 per month for their 'unlimited' services. I would be interested seeing how that breaks down.

I personally like the $60 plan, as it is only a buck more than I am paying now. Unfortunately, the Daytime Voice Minutes may push me up to $75. Perhaps I will start sending "Call me" text emails. Or like the car, reconsider my communications' strategies.

Carriers all over have been criticized for steep prices on their iPhone plans. Here in Norway too - and today they just announced a new plan with unlimited data, but with no minutes or SMS included - and a much higher price for the actual phone. So the iPhone is still targeted towards the high end consumers. I think that's the main reason people are complaining. It's not that the iPhone plans are really all that expensive, it's just that a lot of people found out that they weren't really in the target market after all, and THAT's what they're actually disappointed about. The iPhone plans cost a lot - but if you use a lot of data traffic they're the cheapest plans available from any carrier in the country.

People pay to RECEIVE text messages in the US?!?!?!?

As someone who used to be a Rogers customer for cable and high speed internet, I have a totally different view.

Their customer service is so bad that I would not sign up for cell service with Rogers even if they offered unlimited data AND gave me an iPhone for free.

I am going to make do until another 3G provider shows up. (Fido doesn't count, owned by Rogers.)

I went through a big exercise on that song about 12 years ago, and I thought the one that was truly ironic was "ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife." I mean, you'd think someone with so much cutlery of one type, would have at least one of another.

On English (funny off topic sub-thread)
Strange thing is, whilst it is a bitch of a language to master truly well (many Americans for example seem to dislike adverbs 'he did it real quick'), it is an amazingly forgiving language when it comes to us listening. When many errors are made by a foreign user we still manage to mostly fathom the meaning. On the other hand, if I make a few mistakes in French or Spanish they do not seem to be able to understand at all. Oh well C'est la merde

It is a shame Apple and Canada are missing out on the opportunity here. I don't know the Canadian market at all, was there no better partner for Apple or perhaps partners? Or is it an inherently strange system in Canada all together?

wow, when I did an edit, the options to save had changed to VOTE NOW instead of SAVE! lol, I wonder what happened there?

Someone did a quick test on data used for various web pages. I don't recall the exact number, but I think, with data rich sites such as facebook, the average was around 1.3MB. so, Rogers claim of 3100 webpages is skewed...closer to 300 or 10 page loads per day. Even if you half the average size per page, you end up at 20 page loads per day. That would not be difficult to go over at all. Add in email attachments, appstore downloads, and you are easily over you data allotment.

Apparently.

"Text, Instant, Picture, and Video messages are charged when sent or received, whether read or unread, solicited or unsolicited. AT&T does not guarantee delivery of messages."

"When a single message is sent to multiple recipients, the sender is charged for one message for each recipient and each recipient is charged for the message received.

Interesting what you find when you read the fine print. http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-pho...-terms.jsp#gsm

As I stated before, the average iPhone bill in the US is $95 per month. Anybody have a real breakdown of their AT&T iPhone bill to help illustrate the actual costs or are most of the so called experts here talking through the tops of their hat?

I loved the list, thank you. However, I suspect rather than a different root being the cause of diametrically opposite meanings for the same word or phrase it could well be common ignorance and repetition of the errors. Take for example, "I could care less", the totally incorrect use of the phrase "I couldn't care less". You hear and read this atrocious error on TV in books from the President and everyday on this blog. How long before it is accepted by major dictionaries as a legitimate way of saying 'I Do Not Care'? ... Shudder!

On English roots, although not to do with opposites, I was always fascinated by the Saxon v Norman roots post 1066. One small example; 'Pig', the live beast and farm version versus 'Pork' the table version, each word meaning the same thing in the root language yet quite different usage in English simply due to who ruled who. There are hundreds of such examples.

Talking of which, can those of us with Saxon blood apply for a gaming license and reparations yet?

Would you not be using Wi-Fi? Its free and faster!

So you heard that somebody you can't source, numbers you can't recall and something you think that the average is, gives you the right to claim the Rogers is skewing their claims?

On the other hand, here are a couple of references to support that maybe old man Rogers is right.

Data Points:
...according to René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT). He says the device is driving up average wireless data usage as much as 30 times higher than on other phones...the average Internet usage for an iPhone customer is more than 100 MBytes. This is 30 times the use for our average contract-based consumer customers... [from Unstrung]

Matthew Key, chief executive of O 2 Europe, is excited about how iPhone customers are turning out to have a big appetite for data services. About 60 per cent are sending or receiving more than 25MB of data a month, which is the equivalent of sending 7,500 e-mails. By comparison, only 1.8 per cent of O 2 's other mobile customers on monthly contracts are consuming more than 25MB a month...[from Financial Times]

http://www.mobilephoneblog.org/2008/...-europe-us.htm

One final question. Does anybody really think that AT&T would just give anybody, let alone everybody, an Unlimited Data Plan, if they knew that somebody will come close to exceeding the cost.

Yes, its dumb. Whats worse is you pay to recieve multimedia messages. I was lucky enough to receive a phone number from a former debtor, who never told anyone of their problems, or change of service. I was getting calls and pictures from a friend of theres for about a year afterwards, each picture would cost me 25 cents to receive.

Mobile plans in the US are really bad, I'm much happier with the service here in the UK.

A barely-literate 21 year-old who doesn't understand the definition of a word about which she's singing? -- nope, not even that is ironic.

Maybe those of us who are Rogers customers should consider canceling our service. I've been with them for five years and I'd rather not give up on my phone, but perhaps I could do with a land-line for a while. I'll have to give it some thought.

First off, this seems to me to be less a "sanction" then a realization that the demand will be much less then anticipated as a result of the lousy plans.

I was looking forward to the iPhone, but have decided in the end to hold my nose and lock myself in to a long term contract with Bell. The Blackberry plan and loyalty discount that we managed to extract from the "retention" dept. were far better than anything Rogers has to offer and after reading numerous horror stories, I don't think that I can ever (in good conscience) deal with Rogers.

R.

I was referring to macFanDave, not Morisette's incorrect use of the word "irony".

$30 for unlimited is not unreasonable and if most folks wont go above 400MB anyway then providing an unlimited dataplan is simply a way to generate additional revenue at no cost.

As opposed to simply shooting yourself in the foot by getting national attention for price gouging.

The more likely scenario is that Rogers likes charging data overage fees at $0.03 per MB.


Calls from a AT&T phone to another AT&T phone are free. Even the base Nation 450 includes unlimited mobile to mobile minutes. AT&T also provides roll over minutes which is pretty nice to have when you see on your bill that you've gone over this month but there was no charge.


The average web page size is nearly THREE times what Rogers quotes. 312K vs 132K.

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/s...rage-web-page/

The primary use of bandwidth for me will be movie/tv show rentals. Do you NOT expect to use any iTunes download features except when you're on wifi? Heck, when I'm stuck somewhere unexpectedly is when I want to download something the most.


Or half a movie. And it's a 1000 web pages unless those are myspace pages or any other above average sites.

For $15 more you can basically almost download a movie without overage fees. For a 1.19GB movie you're only 190MB short. Hey, with their current posted overage fees that's a mere $33.90 ($0.50/MB for first 60MB followed by $0.03/MB thereafter).

edit: I finally checked rogers directly. Gah...finally the right numbers

What a bargin! I think I like the AT&T unlimited data plan for $30 an itsy bitsy bit more.


Because you're thinking the iPhone is a traditional smartphone.


Yeah, like losing one of the key advantages of the iPhone except when you're near a hotspot. If you can't burn 400MB in a month then 2G and 3G are functionally equivalent.

I know and it was very funny. The Morisette thing was just a flippant aside.

Another thing on the Rogers debate - here in Canada, and I think also in the US, you get charged when people call you, not just when you call. That must be shocking to people from Europe. I don't know what it is like now, but when I had a phone in the UK I caller ID came as part of the package, and I also got more than three voice mails which is what I get here (for a fee!). If you buy a $30 dollar package in Canada you actually pay closer to $60.-, Now THAT's ironic.... or is it?

Wow. Paying to receive messages, pictures etc. That's just wrong. How can they get away with that? I mean, it's probably very difficult to do anything about that now, but how could they get away with that to begin with? It's just insane.

You are right, I should have added some references, but they were comments in other forums from users that did quick ad hoc tests. I would put as much stock in comments from carriers, such as O2 and Deutsche Telekom AG. (Or Rogers)

In this survey from May 2008, you can see the average page size is now 310 KB. Assuming pages visited by iPhone users will follow this average, that is about 1/4 what I had previously mentioned. So, let's quadruple the original number and we get ~40-50 page loads a day. That is a good number and I would think well within most users usage. But it is still far below the numbers that Rogers states, so I still say they have skewed their numbers, by at least double. Also taking into account that the target audience is young and fairly tech savvy, and the likelyhood that they would visit more data rich sites (facebook, myspace, youtube etc), and the 400 MB starts to look sort of low. This, still not taking into account AppStore and emails and attachments.

You are right though, with Wifi, most data will be 'free', so 400MB is probably enough for those sites you visit when using G3. But not everyone has wifi at home and/or work. These people will not have the benefit of offloading their data usage to an ISP connection.

I am not one of those that is demanding unlimited access in all packages, although I understand the sentiment. Just as home internet use to be metered by time online and people hated this, metering data usage can feel just as, if not more, restrictive. Specifically, Rogers's iPhone plans seem to be restricted by low data and high prices. I think at 400MB, you will be carefully metering your usage. While P2P etc have forced ISPs to introduce data usage caps, they are fairly high for the average user and do not generally force you to track your data usage. Imagine caps on your home internet that are so low, you need to constantly monitor your usage for possible overage conditions and when you do go over, the overage charges are extraordinarily expensive

I do feel that the iPhone packages are unfairly priced and configured. For me to keep my current features with Fido and go with one of the iPhone packages, my monthly bill would more than triple and I would get 750 MB of data. Sure, it sounds like I could instead add on a non-iPhone data plan to my existing voice plan, but then we don't know yet if these will include iPhone specific functionality like Visual Voicemail. They also might not include HotSpot access and they don't seem dramatically less expensive overall. One of the core development concepts of the iPhone was to make the internet on a mobile device as convenient as on a desktop or PC. By forcing very restrictive caps on data usage and very high overage charges, Rogers has diminished this experience.

My sentiments exactly.

The iPhone is made for unlimited internet access. Many people will not use more than half a gig anyway so why not just remove the restriction altogether and let everyone go unlimited. The bandwidth is costing them next to nothing so incremental data fees simply manufacture a value on a service disproportionate to the cost of delivering that service.

Via your source (to a quoted link on their article):


http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp...unstrung_gnews

Yeah, you can't IMAGINE how to use 400MB/month. Whatever.


No. But it sure beats paying $34 when you want to download a movie when you're nowhere near a hotspot. Even at 2G/3G speeds.

If it starts being a burden then new iPhone data plans will be more than $30 for unlimted next year.

Here is an analysis done on iPhone consumption that is based on real-world usage. 400MB just isn't going to cut it.

The thing is you can't download movies/songs from the iTunes WiFi Music store while on the cell network, so there's never going to be a charge for that. Directly from the Apple site.

Buy music over the air from the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store on iPhone. Find a Wi-Fi hot spot and tap the iTunes button. Then take your pick from more than 6 million songs.

A good read and good example of why Rogers plans are far too restrictive.

No, but you can view YouTube videos. You can visit web radio sites. Also, that text from Apples site doesn't say you will be prevented from dl'ing over 3G. Maybe you can't but if you can, it will certainly eat into your data allotment heavily. Even if you can't dl from iTunes over 3G, the other activities that you might choose to use your iPhone for will be far more data intensive than the skewed numbers Rogers presents. That you would have to delay these activities until you are next in wifi range completely goes against the "internet in your pocket" experience.

How fast is 3G again? At 500kbps, a 1.5 hour iTunes movie would take about 4.5 hours to download. Then you're pushing the realistic battery life when using the 3G radio. It's probably best to do a movie download at a computer.

Well then fill your boots then if you can't manage to keep videos and music on the 8/16GB the iPhone provides. Quick search for iTunes WiFi and 3G posts most reviews saying it's still not in the cards for the 2.0 OS. I suppose we'll see, but I would doubt it. As another poster showed, you're battery would probably be dead by the time you finished your movie download from iTunes. Then again you would have to ensure you had the space free to download anything.

Fido's site says
about 7 times faster (peak) so ideally about 13 minutes.

Fill my boots....?

The other poster was incorrect about 3G speeds, so the battery comment really isn't valid. 8-16 gigs is plenty for downloads on the iPhone. You would have to dl a shitload of songs to fill this. Not too many video files, but most videos will probably be through youtube and only cached on the phone. You are likely right and there will not be 3G dl from iTunes. But, even without this, the caps are far, far too low.

Average video size for a 42 minute TV episode formatted in M4V format for the iPod is around 340MB in size.

HSDPA speeds are up to 7.2MB, so on Rogers in core area's your download seems are potentially extremely fast. Though I doubt anyone will ever actually see those speeds.