Canadians to iPhone: No thanks!

Commack, NY -- Facing user backlash over its contract, despite last-minute revisions, as well as general suspicion of Canadian operators to begin with, Rogers Wireless has a tough furrow to plough in Canada as it starts pushing 3G iPhones out the door to tomorrow morning.

'Push' is the operative word there, according to Allan Yogasingam, an Ottawa-based technology analyst for TechOnline, who's encountering apathy and indifference from peers and retailers alike toward the iPhone launch. Nonetheless he's planning to line up at 3 a.m. tomorrow morning, along with fellow TechOnline analyst Steve Bitton, to secure one for a TechOnline special teardown. (Follow their experience and the related teardown by clicking here.)

The problems for the iPhone initially started with an original Rogers sign-up plan that was less than satisfactory. "None of their plans featured "unlimited" data usage and initially, the plans ranged in price from $60 CDN for 400 Mbytes to $115 CDN for 2 Gbytes of data use," he said. Let's not forget what our neighbors to the north have to pay for basic cellular coverage. The lowest cost U.S. plan currently offered by AT&T is approximately $69 which includes 450 anytime minutes and unlimited data use. "The cheapest plan from Rogers (prior to today) featured only 400 Mbytes of data usage and only 150 anytime minutes," he said.

"Combine expensive plans and low bandwidth with a mandatory three-year contract for buying a 3G iPhone and you can see why Canadians aren't camping out in front of Rogers stores for days on end and why the only news you hear about the iPhone in Canada is bad news about consumer rejection."

While the general public remained apathetic toward the Rogers plan, he said, the 'real' techies caused a backlash and Rogers today revised its contract downward to $30 extra, but for 6 Gbytes instead of 1 Gbyte. Even still there's a catch: "Some say it's better, but the new plan drops some features, such as voicemail, caller ID and texting that were available in previous plan incarnations " said Yogasingam. "And it's only a promotion rate: after August 31st this special rate is no longer being offered so who knows what's ahead if you sign up for a plan in September. And the user's still stuck with a three-year contract ! "

The Rogers experience is symptomatic of a disillusioned Canadian public. "We're very skeptical of our operators here," said Yogasingam, adding that conspiracy theories abound that put all three in cahoots.

"The plans offered by our big three operators [Rogers, Telus and Bell Mobility] just don't promote cellular phone Internet usage, it's too expensive for the average Canuck to surf the web on the bus or look up a movie schedule on their mobile phone," said Yogasingam.

Such skepticism is yet another reason why Yogasingam believes Apple was smart to disassociate itself from the operators and their plans after push-back it got from users upset over the company's singular ties to GSM-only AT&T for the original iPhone rollout.

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