It’s amazing that even though I take a fair amount of shots at Rogers, that they (via a Rogers employee with the title of “Social Media Specialist”) actually took the time to send me an e-mail with the details of their iPhone 3GS offering:
Hello,
I saw your blog post on the new iPhone 3GS today and I wanted to confirm that Rogers Wireless and Fido will have the newest iPhones available to our customers.
Starting June 19, Rogers and Fido pricing for the iPhone will be as follows, on a three-year voice and data plan:
· iPhone 3G – Price drop to C$99
· iPhone 3GS 16 GB – C$199
· iPhone 3GS 32 GB – C$299
There will also be a ‘no-term’ price for the new devices at launch.
Starting tomorrow and for a limited time, we’re also excited to reintroduce the 6 GB/ $30 monthly data plan for iPhone users.
Other Rogers and Fido data plans will remain the same, including the only national standalone data plan at C$25 per month for 500 MB. We know that this is the right plan for most Canadians – 93 per cent of current iPhone customers on a data plan use less than 500 MB of data per month.
More details on pricing and availability will be posted on rogers.com as available. We’ll be in contact with more details on June 19. Please let me know if you have any questions.
It’s interesting that Rogers is out in front of this from the start rather than having to react to negative press like they did the last time they launched an iPhone. Perhaps it shows they’re learning. It clearly shows that Rogers reads my blog. Perhaps that means I have influence? (Wishful thinking I know)
In any case, I took the time to ask the following questions:
- The Apple fanbois in the US are flipping out because MMS won’t be available until later this summer. Can you confirm that Rogers will have MMS capability at launch?
- I’ve gotten e-mails from Canadians who have never been happy about the requirement to have a three year agreement to get the best device price in comparison to US telcos who only require two years. Is that going to change any time soon?
As soon as I get answers, I’ll post them here.
UPDATE: I had questions, and Rogers gave me answers. Keith McArthur (you might remember him from this) was kind enough to answer my questions:
Rogers will have MMS at launch.
We can’t comment on potential changes to our plans.
Let me know if you have any further questions.
Keith
Keith McArthur
Senior Director | Social Media and Digital Communications | Rogers Communications Inc.
I’ll give Rogers points for answering my questions. Given the rocky history that they’ve had in terms of their relationship with their customers, it takes some guts to go into potentially hostile territory to make any sort of comment. Bravo. I’ll also give Rogers points for having MMS available when the iPhone 3GS launches. Clearly someone at Rogers was thinking. Hopefully that becomes a trend and spreads to other areas of their company, such as their customer service for example. But I digress…. For a change, Canadians are one up on the Americans. It sucks to be them right now. As for the fact that there’s no comment in terms of the length of commitment required to get the best price. That’s a fair answer. But I suspect that that may change shortly due to outside forces (cough, Globalive, cough).