Since the Apple Watch was announced last fall Rogers has been on the back foot trying to tap dance around the fact that their chief rivals Bell and Telus can support the eSIM technology that it uses and they can’t. Last week Rogers problems increased as Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy Watch. Guess what? It uses eSIM technology as well. Thus it’s not available on the Rogers network. Something that is confirmed in this Tweet:
Hi Mike. We have plans to launch the technology for cellular-enabled wearable tech in 2018. We’ll update our customers as we get closer to that time and you can also check https://t.co/LuQ7gqTRaw for any updates. ^rp
— RogersHelps (@RogersHelps) August 9, 2018
If that response sounds familiar, it’s the same one that they’ve been using for months as they’ve tried to tap dance around this issue. But to be fair, Samsung hasn’t announced availability outside the US and Korea. Thus Rogers can’t really comment on a product that technically doesn’t exist yet. But the fact that questions are already popping up about whether Rogers supports this watch, and the fact that Rogers is serving up similar answers isn’t going to help the perception that Rogers is behind the eight ball when it comes to supporting the latest and greatest tech. Plus you can bet that because Telus and Bell who already support eSIM technology are going to be quickly pushing that narrative the second that the Samsung Galaxy Watch does pop up in Canada. Not to mention that we’re likely a month or so away from an Apple press event where the latest version of the Apple Watch will likely appear. All of that will crank up the pressure on Rogers to support eSIM.
Let’s see if Rogers can actually follow through on their promise to get this done in 2018. I for one am skeptical they can, but I am free to be proven wrong.