Data Plans From Rogers: Stop The Insanity!

[Jason Dunn]

While researching the HTC Touch that Rogers is releasing today, I came upon something that made my jaw drop: the "special" <a href="http://www.shoprogers.com/business/wireless/services/windowsmobile/overview.asp">data plan pricing</a> that Rogers is offering their customers.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rogers-windows-mobile-data-plans-jd-nov1.gif" /><br /><br />In case you went blind looking at the sheer ridiculousness of the prices there, let me recap: the cheapest monthly fee is $15/month (keeping in mind $1 Canadian is about $1.05 USD now) and that gets you 2 megabytes. 2 FREAKIN' MEGABYTES. What can you do with 2 MB of data? Perhaps if you stick to short, plain-text email messages, and you browsed WAP sites from 1999, you might be able to live with that. <br /><br />Oh, if you go over, you'll be charged $10 per 1 MB that you use. If you're willing to pony up $60 per month, Rogers will graciously extend to you 30 whole MB of data transfer, and only charge you $7 per 1 MB over that amount. Isn't that nice of them? If you want to get their biggest and best plan, $80 per month will get you a whole 200 MB of data, and if you go over you'll only be charged $5 per 1 MB. Gosh! Golly! At those prices I can <i>maybe</i> even receive a few HTML messages or attachments per day on my Windows Mobile device.<br /><!><br />Digging deeper, I looked at their <a href="http://www.shoprogers.com/Business/Wireless/Services/dataemailplans.asp">data plans page</a> (which renders horribly in Firefox I might add) and realized that Blackberry users are even worse off: $60 a month will only get you 25 MB of data. They have a <a href="http://www.shoprogers.com/business/wireless/plans_services/business_plans.asp?plan=dataservice&cat=2&typ=2">Windows Mobile data plan page</a> here as well, and I was baffled to see only one option offered, a new plan I had heard about a month or two ago: $65 per month for 1000 MB of data, and $1 per addition MB. What a minute...that's <i>almost</i> (but not quite) reasonable. They recommend this for "tethered laptop use". It's certainly a massive cost savings when compared to the $80/200MB plan, but is it enough? No, not by a long shot.<br /><br />Rogers, like most North American carriers, is constantly being battered by subscriber churn (a customer leaving for another wireless company) and desperately wants two things: to keep their customers from leaving, and to increase their ARPU (average revenue per unit); meaning the amount of money they make off each subscriber. Current data plans are a way to get a lot of money out of a small number of people. What Rogers and most of the carriers don't seem to grasp is that there's more money to be made overall if much larger numbers of users had less expensive data plans. Rogers seems content with charging 1000 people $100 a month instead of getting 10,000 people on a $20 a month plan. <br /><br />Time and time again, I've had friends and family express interest in Windows Mobile devices, only to have them be scared away by the cost. And we're not talking the cost of the device - it's always the cost of the data plans. People are much more willing to spend $500 on a nice piece of hardware than spending $60 a month on data, year after year. Windows Mobile adoption is being crippled by the expensive data rate plans of Canadian carriers, and until they address the pricing issue, they're not going to see Windows Mobile smartphones selling as well as they could be.<br /><br /><i>Jason Dunn owns and operates <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com">Thoughts Media Inc.</a>, a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He thinks wireless phone companies are part of the Axis of Evil along with insurance companies and banks.</i>

[Don Tolson]

I suspect this may be one of the reasons the iPhone is taking so long to be introduced north of the border, even tho they are 'Rogers AT&amp;T'. Who in their right mind would buy a phone like the iPhone, to have it hampered in its major functions by these ridiculous data plans!

[dudeski]

I just checked my usage for this month (November) and I would have paid them $95 just for data usage 2 days!! and I thought the $40/month for the iPHONE I just got was a bit much. Glad I'm not in Canada! Are the phone companies being run by the RIAA?? When are companies going to learn, that it is better to provide what the people want instead of what the company wants to make on the bottom line? I understand they're in the business to make money, but give the people something that will work in the world as it is now, not as it was 20 years ago! :)

[felixdd]

That's what you get for the government allowing a monopoly to exist in Canada for the GSM market. As far as I'm concerned, that's what happened when the competition bureau allowed Rogers to buy out Fido.

[JonnoB]

I feel for you Jason, I really do. I have complained to friends about T-Mobile being slow to roll out 3G, but with the unlimited $5.99 (via proxy) or $19.99 all you can eat EDGE + WiFi, I guess I should be thankful. This surprises me that in the land where the Blackberry was launched that this type of service is still possible. Your government needs to open up the flood doors to competition.

[Jason Dunn]

I suspect this may be one of the reasons the iPhone is taking so long to be introduced north of the border, even tho they are 'Rogers AT&amp;T'.

Yup. The iPhone without unlimited data is just as useless as a Windows Mobile phone without unlimited data (perhaps more so because many iPhone users aren't super techy people). There's even a petition for Rogers to introduce a flat rate data plan just for the iPhone:

http://www.petitiononline.com/iPhone99/petition.html

[Jason Dunn]

That's what you get for the government allowing a monopoly to exist in Canada for the GSM market. As far as I'm concerned, that's what happened when the competition bureau allowed Rogers to buy out Fido.

Indeed. I plan on doing up a post about the whole Rogers/Fido issue as well. And Telus will coming under my hammer soon enough as well. It's time to make some noise about this issue. :twisted:

[Clint Neufeld]

I'm a pretty serious geek, and it's the data costs that's keeping me from signing up with Telus. Unless I wanted to sign over my paycheques to them directly...

Jason, keep us posted with your fight with Telus! :) If there's something I can help with, let me know!

Clint

[saru83]

oh ya, it feels good by still having the $50 Unlimited Data plan from Fido.. but to be honest the $65 Data plan from Rogers for WM phones is not bad, coz i never actually use over 1000MB's.. but it would still be nice having unlimited usage..

[tnels!]

Sounds like a classic Socialism vs. Capitalism example.

I can't wait until the US Govt socializes our healthcare system . . . but I digress.

I think Sprint is $15/mo for all you can eat down here in California. Don't tell me my life ain't work'n out!

God Bless the USA!!!

(Remember you can equal or free, but you can't be both!)

[JesterMania]

Yeah, we really have to make more noise. I really envy the rest of the world where people can surf on the go without worrying about how many KB they're going over. My co-worker has the 5mb for $5 plan and went approximately 600kb over and was charged $20 for that. I have the $10 for 10mb plan (paying $5 for it) and I really have to control my usage and look at my data counter constantly. This totally ruins the entire experience. Seriously, I sometimes wonder if the people making these data plans actually use them. I can't e-mail constantly, barely instant message, definitely cannot stream online radio, and web browsing is a luxury... :cry:

I was going to drop some cash on either a Kaiser or N95 so I could take pictures and post online on-the-fly but nope. So what good is HSDPA when you can't use it...

[mr_yellow]

Sounds like a classic Socialism vs. Capitalism example.

I can't wait until the US Govt socializes our healthcare system . . . but I digress.

I think Sprint is $15/mo for all you can eat down here in California. Don't tell me my life ain't work'n out!

God Bless the USA!!!

(Remember you can equal or free, but you can't be both!)

This is the most retarded comparison you could possibly make.. are you that upset about the canadian dollar being worth more than the american dollar that you have to turn this into a idealogical showdown?

The cellular industry in canada is just as free and capitalistic as the equivalents in the US. You could argue that what we have here is in fact the negative side of the capitalistic model where companies are colluding in a free market to artificially keep prices high to ensure high profits. Because guess what? profit is goal #1. who cares about serving the public need and innovating with technology? government intervention? Oh no.. this is capitalism at work!

Sheesh

:roll: :roll:

[Eriq Cook]

Wow. That's--amazing. They're getting raped over there.

[Anthony Caruana]

Sheesh - what a rip-off!

For the first time in many years there's something close to currency parity between Canada, USA and Australia. That should give some context to the costs I'm about to quote.

In Australia, I'm paying $50 per month for 2GB of data AND and ExpressCard HSDPA modem I use with my MacBook Pro (on a two year deal).

The same carrier, Three (http://www.three.com.au), offer handset deals with the same data costs.

In contrast, the original, formerly Government owned, carrier Telstra still charges like a wounded bull and offers plans that offer MB of data in GB world.

[Duncan]

Sounds like a classic Socialism vs. Capitalism example.

Does it now. Does it really?

I can't wait until the US Govt socializes our healthcare system . . . but I digress.

I think Sprint is $15/mo for all you can eat down here in California. Don't tell me my life ain't work'n out!

God Bless the USA!!!

(Remember you can equal or free, but you can't be both!)

I have all I can eat data for £7.50 per month (c. US$15) thanks to the healthy competition in our telecoms market. I also get heathcare free at the point of use (no matter what needs doing) whenever I need it - and subsidised medicines - and all for a per capita burden that's lower than in the USA (and it must be working out OK considering that on average we live longer than you lot).

God bless the UK and our healthy sensible mix of socialism and capitalism...! :)

(Remember you can be equal *and* free - as I believe Abraham Lincoln once pointed out ;))

[Duncan]

The cellular industry in canada is just as free and capitalistic as the equivalents in the US. You could argue that what we have here is in fact the negative side of the capitalistic model where companies are colluding in a free market to artificially keep prices high to ensure high profits. Because guess what? profit is goal #1. who cares about serving the public need and innovating with technology? government intervention? Oh no.. this is capitalism at work!

Indeed.

It took a while before UK mobile companies started offering decent data rates - largely because when all the companies are as bad as each other - where's the motivation for any of them to improve? People forget that markets are generally pretty conservtive. Once one made an improvement, however, others eventually followed. The last hold out finally buckled under pressure from Apple so they could sell the iPhone. Which all sounds like capitalism in action to me.

[Stik]

" Data Plans From Rogers: Stop The Insanity! "

I equate insanity with crazy. In this instance, imo, Rogers is crazy as a fox and their business plan will not change for the forseeable future because data revenue is a solid growing profit driver as witnessed by Roger's Q3 numbers released today...

" Rogers Wireless had 195,100 net additions to its postpaid subscriber count, up from 171,200 in the same quarter of last year.

Monthly revenue per postpaid user increased seven per cent to $75.15. This was driven by 53 per cent growth in data revenue, which at $183 million represented 13.6 per cent of total network revenue. "

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iEiI3Dp1m7gFnefEEotcGiHyYP8A

The disparity of it all! ...

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=452679328&amp;size=o

Maybe Canadian telco's took Research in Motion President and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis keynote address at Globalcomm in '06 to heart...

" Mike Lazaridis kicked off Globalcomm today with a plea for wireless carriers to reel in their data plans, warning them they risk becoming mere “bit pipes” if they continue offering raw bandwidth rather than specific services.

Unlike the wired broadband world, the wireless network still has enormous capacity constraints that necessitate carriers severely restricting the amount of data allotted to each user. The amount of gross capacity a carrier can offer over a network has a definable ceiling, he said, but the amount of data applications can access is unlimited. If the industry doesn’t discourage unbounded use of data capacity, it will effectively be giving up its revenues.

“We have to make sure we’re offering the right incentives,” Lazaridis said. “Otherwise we’ll fall into the trap of carriers becoming bit pipes. … This is something we have to be very cognizant of as we release wireless data onto our networks.”

http://telephonyonline.com/wireless/marketing/rim_unlimited_data_060506/index.html

[ADBrown]

Sounds like a classic Socialism vs. Capitalism example.

Sounds like a classic idiotic cliche example to me. But then, we can't have any of that icky Canadian free healthcare getting on us. It might make us, er... healthy.

Now scuttle back to Freeperville.

[heliod]

Sheesh - what a rip-off!

In Australia, I'm paying $50 per month for 2GB of data AND and ExpressCard HSDPA modem I use with my MacBook Pro (on a two year deal).

The same carrier, Three (http://www.three.com.au), offer handset deals with the same data costs.



These prices are a complete Rip-off, really. BTW, comparing to the rest of the wrold, USA prices are as well. In Israel we are paying $9 (in average of the three existing companies) for a 150MB UMTS/HSDPA data plan.

I guess it is not by coincidence that the only countries I cannot afford to keep my Push Mail while roaming are those in North America. Last time in Seattle, after 1 week I came back home and found a roaming bill of $900.

I don't know why North America has to be so different than the rest of the world on these rates. The costs of getting this infrastructure up is surely lower there than in Europe.....

Helio

[petevick]

Duncan,
who are you using, and on what plan to get 'all you can eat' for £7.50 per month?

[martin_ayton]

£7.50/month all-I-can-eat with T-Mo, a 3G connection, and I've been streaming NASA TV on my Vario2 for the last few days, watching the 'fun' with the damaged solar array. It's got to the point where it's cheaper to use the 3G connection at home rather than my WiFi. Man, I even have it running in my car (though when I'm driving the audio is all I'm interested in).

I'm stunned that the Canadian politicians aren't doing the comparisons with overseas markets and realising that their potential voters are being royally ripped off. And I can't believe that the campaign fund contributions made by Rogers (I'm assuming that that is legal in Canada) outweigh the potential campaign fund contributions from the corporate Blackberry bushes who are also currently being royally ripped off.

[hamishmacdonald]

"...on average we live longer than you lot."

Och, not in Scotland we don't! Speak fer yersel'! Yeh must be fae England. We huv th' earliest mortality rate in all of Europe! (*tucks into his deep-fried-meat breakfast*)

(Actually, I'm originally from Canada and vegetarian.)

~

I'm about to visit Canada for December, and was hoping that Rogers might have a decent data plan, since non-contract WiFi hotspots always prove hard to find. Dang, looks like that isn't the case.

What I hate is how they disable my PAYG account and SIM because I don't use them for months at a time, so I get the added joy of paying $25 for a new SIM each visit, as well as getting rubbish PAYG rates.

[tnels!]

This is the most retarded comparison you could possibly make..
The cellular industry in canada is just as free and capitalistic as the equivalents in the US. You could argue that what we have here is in fact the negative side of the capitalistic model where companies are colluding in a free market to artificially keep prices high to ensure high profits. Because guess what? profit is goal #1. who cares about serving the public need and innovating with technology? government intervention? Oh no.. this is capitalism at work!

Sheesh

:roll: :roll:
'Sorry for being so retarded. However, collusion is not allowed in a Capitalistic model and is illegal down here in the US. My low $15 rate is probably due to competition and not due to government intervention. Please forgive me if I am wrong here; sometimes I don't think so good because of my diminished mental capacity.

Hey. but good luck with getting to Canadian government to force your data rates lower. By the way, what price should the Canadian government set the price at?

[Ed Hansberry]

Absurd rates. Explains my roaming bills of $50 or so for two days in Montreal. :roll:

[kiwi]

I just clocked over 105mb this month on Rogers.. LUCKILY I have the $80 200 meg plan, this was my first full month using my iPhone!!! ouch!!

With my S620, the data was more like 30GB month. Its the media rich browser and email thats forcing my usage up. I mean, with the Iphone you have to download the whole message, you dont get the option to say headers only. Same with the weather app, it always trys an auto update.


No Way in Hell Robbers will have unlimited data for iPhone here. Canadians love to bend over for Ted Rogers.

[GregWard]

£7.50/month all-I-can-eat with T-Mo

Can you point us to this deal? The best I've seen from T-Mo in the Uk is around £22 a month (Flext 20 + web'n'walk on a 18 month contract). Ok that does include £34 allowance on calls - so it's a pretty good deal - but I'd rather pay £7.50!

nb The deals I've seen are all subject to a fair usage policy as well. Actually they have three "unlimited" deals on their site at different prices! I believe they have 1gb, 3gb and 10gb limits on the fup. Again "not bad" but not really unlimited!

Not that I'm complaining in comparison to the Canadian prices mind you! The only crumb of comfort I can offer is that UK prices have got MUCH better over the last few years.

:D

[alanjrobertson]

I'd agree - in fact just in the last couple of months the UK prices have vastly improved - Voda/O2/Orange are still lumbering in behind Three and T-Mobile but they're finally getting there.

For those who are interested (and those that aren't, I guess!) here's a round-up of the latest UK pricing. I've been checking out all the options as I just finished my 1y contract with O2 - now onto 18 months with T-Mobile with a HSDPA-capable (ie. 1.8Mbps or so) K850i for about £10 upfront (after Quidco cashback) and then £32.50/mo for Flext 25 + WnW Plus (3GB data, laptop use/streaming allowed - great for the Slingbox!).

Cheers

Alan

PS - roughly double the prices for American/Canadian/Australian dollar.

(Reposted from my original post on uk.telecom.mobile)
-=-=-
O2
Costs
- £7.50/mo for 200MB O2 Web Bolt On - modem access NOT permitted
- £30/mo for 3GB O2 Web Max Bolt On - modem access permitted
Restrictions
- O2 Web Bolt On - Instant Messaging, IP Telephony, Point 2 Point file
sharing and file transfer, VoIP (e.g. Skype™), Video and TV streaming,
Slingboxes; and Use in conjunction with routers not allowed
- O2 Web Max Bolt On - Instant Messaging, IP Telephony, VoIP (e.g.
Skype™), Video and TV streaming; and Slingboxes not allowed
-=-=-

-=-=-
Vodafone
Costs
- £7.50/mo for 120MB - modem access permitted.
Restrictions
- No obvious restrictions but £2/MB over monthly limit.
-=-=-

-=-=-
Orange (very difficult to find information - eventually found at
http://www1.orange.co.uk/entertainment/OrangeWorld/terms.php)
Costs
- £8/mo for Orange World Monthly Access - 30MB of anytime access - no
mention re. data modem access in T&amp;Cs (cf. off-peak access) so appears
to be permitted.
- £5/mo for Orange World Off-Peak Access - 1GB of evening/weekend
browsing - modem access NOT permitted
Restrictions
- common to both plans: not to be used for other activities such, non-
Orange internet based streaming services, voice or video over the
internet, instant messaging, peer to peer file sharing, non-Orange
internet based video
-=-=-

-=-=-
T-Mobile
Costs
- Web'n'Walk - £7.50/mo for 1GB - modem access NOT permitted
- Web'n'Walk Plus - £12.50/mo for 3GB - modem access permitted
- Web'n'Walk Max - £22.50/mo for 10GB - modem access permitted
Restrictions
- WnW - peer to peer file sharing, internet phone calls or instant
messaging not allowed
- WnW Plus - internet phone calls not allowed
- WnW Max - no restrictions
-=-=-

-=-=-
Three
Costs
- Internet 10 - £2.50/mo for 10MB data - modem access NOT permitted
- Internet Max Add-On - £5/mo for 1GB data - modem access NOT
permitted
- Broadband Lite Add-On - £10/mo for 1GB data - modem access permitted
- Broadband Plus Add-On - £15/mo for 3GB data - modem access permitted
Restrictions
- I've searched over the site and even the T&amp;Cs at
http://www.three.co.uk/personal/help_support_/terms_conditions.omp?cid=1187800248881
don't seem to mention any services that are blocked - would be very
interested to hear people's views.
-=-=-

[PantheraLeo2k3]

I do believe what needs to happen is the Canadian gov't needs to go to, say, T-Mobile or Orange or someone and offer them a nice tax break to set up shop in Canada, perhaps if one carrier comes in and starts competing it would be the catalyst that would start some competition happening in this country.

[ctmagnus]

I would love to see another GSM carrier in this country. Preferably one that offers better than unofficial coverage where I live.

[mtnmedic]

8O

Whoa.

Somebody at Rogers is on CRACK.

Wow. Even Sprint PCS's $59.99/mo for unlimited data card use at Rev-A speeds is a deal compared to this.

[bmurphy]

I just bought the HTC x7500 Advantage- (an Awesome device!) mainly for the WM6 and the huge screen. I have been hesitating on getting the phone and GPS working- since my only choice is Rogers. I did purchase a sim card, but haven't activated it yet because I have been confused and uncertain as to what I could get. Your information is more than I've been able to get out of the rogers people! thanks for the warning about the overage costs... that has not been mentioned. I've been with Telus for 14 years, but they are not at all in the running for this device.
Skype mobile also doesn't support it!- they haven't gotten it working for the Advantage, just the chat, and I would like to use the video camera for it.
I might just have to stick to the wifi, that lets me into the banking sites my that my Axim wouldn't.

[Duncan]

Can you point us to this deal? The best I've seen from T-Mo in the Uk is around £22 a month (Flext 20 + web'n'walk on a 18 month contract). Ok that does include £34 allowance on calls - so it's a pretty good deal - but I'd rather pay £7.50!

You realise we're only talking about data charges - not calls as well? On T-Mobile in the UK that means £7.50 per month

nb The deals I've seen are all subject to a fair usage policy as well. Actually they have three "unlimited" deals on their site at different prices! I believe they have 1gb, 3gb and 10gb limits on the fup. Again "not bad" but not really unlimited!

Of course there's a fair use cap - I'd be surprised if any company anywhere offered genuine uncapped data usage.

[stoker]

I am late one that bandwagon, but everything that I would have said, has been said. Next, Rogers is going to say that they have to charge that much because of the small size of Canada's population! I really don't know what business school most of the management must have gone to
to apply such inane and also insane pricing logic. And we thought that the Canadian chartered banks had a monopoly here!

[martin_ayton]

Can you point us to this deal? The best I've seen from T-Mo in the Uk is around £22 a month (Flext 20 + web'n'walk on a 18 month contract). Ok that does include £34 allowance on calls - so it's a pretty good deal - but I'd rather pay £7.50!

You realise we're only talking about data charges - not calls as well? On T-Mobile in the UK that means £7.50 per month

Thanks, Duncan - you got there first. Yes, I was only talking about the data portion of my bill. I don't think that's unreasonable: People's call and text usage varies so enormously and nobody has come up with a flat rate for that. Yet!

[midtoad]

Iit's the data costs that's keeping me from signing up with Telus. Unless I wanted to sign over my paycheques to them directly...

You mean, sign over your house, and your parent's house as well.

[midtoad]

As long as Canadians keep chaining themselves to Rogers under 3-year contracts just to get shiny new toys at so-called low prices, Rip-Off Rogers will continue to keep charging exhorbitantly high prices. The ONLY way they will lower their rates is if they lose customers. So, vote with your feet. Now that we have cell-number portability in Canada, we should actively seek out and reward the company with the lowest rates, and at the moment that company is Virgin Mobile Canada.

My voice plan with Virgin costs me $10/mo TOTAL cost (for 0 minutes, with each minute I use costing $0.10). I don't make many calls, so this the cheapest option. I purchased their new Samsung m510 phone and then the $10/mo. Tidal Wave UNLIMITED emails and browsing plan. I've download GMail's app and the Google Maps app. Sure, browsing on a small screen sucks, but the money I have saved in the past few months more than pays for the Wifi-equipped Eee PC I just bought for use whenever I stop in a wireless-equipped café. Hell, for $30-35/mo. I could have unlimited wireless internet at all the Hotspot locations in the country.

So people, it's up to you. Quit yer whinin' and punish Rogers. It's the only way they'll learn.

[golfman32]

The issue is not Rogers, sure they are only GSM carrier in Canada.

The issue is that all wireless carriers in Canada are in collusion and no one can/will stop them.

No one will start a price war!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe if MTS (oh, sorry, either Bell or Telus will buy them) or Quebecor buy spectrum and set prices on the basis of trying to make a fair profit, then the others will follow and lower data prices.

Look at the issue from the carriers standpoint, the only people whinning are the Prosumers who purchase PDA data devices and want to surf.

My opinion is that until Canadian Government let another entrant into Canada, Rogers, Telus and Bell will keep price high.

I also think the 3 carriers should offer 2 tier pricing, one for subsidized devices and another for BYOD (Bell and Telus need to open their networks as well like Sprint nextel and Verizon). This will allow prosumers who purchase unlocked devices/unsubsidized devices to get the best price for data plans.

I know the carriers can make money, Bell had had $60 unlimited data plans on special from time to time, if you are a business customer, you usually can get an unlimited plan based on pooled data.

The other option is to have a global carrier like TMobile or Vodafore come into Canada and disrupt pricing (ie $40 unlimited data in US from TMobile)

The other option is to write your MP and complain, if enough people complain to the Federal Government, maybe this will put pressure on Industry Canada Minister Jim Prentice to have CRTC add mobile to their portfolio.

Another option is to create a lobby of avid prosumers and lobby the Feds!!

Thoughts?

DJN

[ctmagnus]

It looks like Rogers may have to change their data plans in the near future: http://www.theunwired.net/?item=announced-bell-introduces-the-htc-touch-smartphone-with-a-unlimited-internet-access

That, or face a mass-migration of their customers to Bell.

[desertrat_blog]

Windows Mobile adoption is being crippled by the expensive data rate plans of Canadian carriers, and until they address the pricing issue, they're not going to see Windows Mobile smartphones selling as well as they could be.Nice to see the failure of WM being blamed on high data prices. Never mind the bloated, bug-ridden, crash-prone code. Mobile data users the world over are indiscriminately shafted by the high prices. Whether you use a WM device or a real smartphone doesn't matter, you still pay the same ridiculous prices.