I’m in the communications department at Rogers and can confirm that we are aware of this issue with the 6GB promotion. It was a technological malfunction that resulted in an error on less than 10 customer accounts. We take these things very seriously and we’re working to fix it. We will, of course, continue to honour the 6GB promotion for those customers who signed up for it.
Thanks Keith, now how about news on bringing back those $30/6GB accounts as standard so Canada reaches some form of parity with US pricing?
So yesterday we linked to Zach Epstein's story over at BGR, the one about an internal Rogers briefing call that claimed Vancouver would be enjoying some 4G LTE at 50Mbps+ just in time for the Winter Olympics.
Okay, fair enough, it's not the nearly 7 million iPhones our big United Statesian brothers to the south consumed in the last quarter, but for a market the size of Canada's (where it is cold and we must work hard just to survive...), 255,000 iPhones moved is EPIC.
According to BGR, Rogers Wireless (and subsidiary, Fido) has announced:
A decision by the Rogers finance department to cut sales commission by as much as 50% has seriously irked the sales staff who played an integral role in the approximate 30% increase in sales since the beginning of 2008.
I was first in line at my local Rogers store (corporate owned) on iPhone launch day, when the entire Rogers sales central went down and the management and employees handled the situation with grace and particular care for all the customers stuck waiting... and waiting... and waiting...
My fellow Canadians, if you're already enjoying the virtually "unlimited" goodness and peace of mind that comes with Rogers reluctant, 11th hour $30/6GB promotional plan, then there's nothing to see here. Your rate is good for the length of your contract.
If you haven't jumped on the "deal" yet, however, remember that the plan is set to expire Aug. 31. Or it was... Rogers seems to have extended it -- slightly -- to Sept. 30.
I got to my local Rogers (corporate owned) store way early, and was immediately nervous upon seeing tons of cars. They were filled with senior citizens -- strange iPhone demographic, I thought. When the doors to the mall opened at 7am, the seniors raced in. Near jog, no joke. I thought I'd end up behind a ton of angry, eager iPhone golden oldies, but a funny thing happened: they raced right on past Rogers. Turns out they jog/power walk/amble about there every morning. Who knew?
One week later, and how are things now? I just got my first bill (wow, that was faster than 3G!). $30/6GB data, $35 Mega My 5, $15 Visual Voice Mail Value Pack, $35 activation fee, plus crazy Canadian taxes. $124. (Plus the initial $299 for the 16GB handset...)
But what else is going on in my home and native land? Read on to find out!
UPDATE: More confusion! Stylemonkey in the comments below says Rogers claims not to be doing this when he called in over the phone. However, I spoke to a couple more Rogers reps and they're still insisting they're being told Rogers will bill for WiFi use, perplexingly by using the EMEI number of you phone. While they say Rogers can't tell data usage this way, they can tell WiFi is being used, and will bill based on time. Ridiculous? Sounds like it. But what's even more ridiculous is Rogers telling this to (some of?) their stores and people in the field. Crazy!
ORIGINAL POST:
So I was waiting in line at a Rogers store yesterday when the staff came out and said that if we didn't take the Rogers' iPhone specific plans, anytime we used WiFi it would be counted towards our custom plans (like the newly announced $30/6GB promo). They said that even though the iPhone would show WiFi, it would still count down (crazy fast) 3G data, and we'd only find out come bill time when charges came in. One of them said they were waiting on clarification from Rogers. Another said this was what Apple wanted and implemented. (Yeah, I know... I'm just repeating the comments).
We didn't run the story then because we couldn't get any confirmation of the rumor, but now other reports of people being told the same thing at different Rogers stores has turned up.
