Rogers’ Blackberry Customers Should be Upset
News Update: Apple Insider is reporting that you won’t be able to purchase an iPhone at an Apple store in Canada, apparently because Apple is pissed at Rogers about its data plans. This story must be “news” because TechCrunch is on it as well.
And now back to our regular programming….
Amid the furor over Rogers declining to sell the iPhone with consumer-friendly packages (e.g. unlimited data plans, a contract less onerous than three years), it has been interesting to hear little, if anything, from Rogers’ Blackberry customers.
Truth be told, they should really be the ones pissed off when you do an apples vs. apples comparison of Rogers’ packages. Granted, the Blackberry is a different apple from the iPhone but for the sake of argument let’s agree they both fall into the same smartphone bucket.
Let’s take a look at Rogers’ iPhone four packages:
And now, let’s take a look at what the equivalent packages cost Blackberry owners - many of whom have their bills paid by their employers. These calculations are based on Rogers’ Right Fit voice plans and its Blackberry Data Plans.
Plan #1: $15 for e-mail, $25 for 250 day-time (non-weekend) minutes, $30 for 300MB of data = $70 $55
Plan #2: $15 for e-mail, $35 for 350 day-time minutes, $50 for 500MB of data = $100 $85
Plan #3: $15 for e-mail, $60 for 650 day-time minutes, $60 for 1GB of data = $135 $120
Plan #4: $15 for e-mail, $85 for 1000 day-time minutes, $80 for 3GB of data = $180 $165
(Note: Apparently, you don’t have to pay the $15/month e-mail fee if you have a data plan. This would make prices $55, $85, $120 and $165 respectively - still much higher than the iPhone plans.)
Granted, the calculations may not be totally bang on because there are always special deals, bundles, etc. but it’s pretty clear that Blackberry users pay significantly more than iPhone users will be charged for roughly the equivalent service.
Now you can see why Rogers can’t be overly-aggressive with its iPhone pricing. If it goes too far, its army of high profit-margin Blackberry users will revolt and demand lower prices.
So, when you think about it, Rogers has very little wiggle room about how it prices the iPhones. As much as people want to criticize Rogers, the reality is some of the blame should be directed toward Blackberry users, who have been paying hefty bills without thinking much about it - mostly because most of them never see a bill at the end of the month.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:54 am
One serious error in your calculations, Mark. the 300MB/500MB/1GB/2GB data plans include email - deduct $15 from each of your totals. Either that or Rogers is missing something on my monthly bill where I have had a data plan for some time (and recently changed to the 300MB plan). Just checked at the link you gave above, follow the “Personal Email on Blackberry” link on the wireless data plan page and you’ll find that the >300MB data plans are shown as plans that include email.
Does Rogers really want to be in the business of separating out email packets from browsing, etc. packets within their billing operations? I don’t think so. “Email” in their lingo simply means getting a username@rogers.blackberry.net email address as well as being able to pass up to ten POP, MAPI, GMail, Yahoo email accounts through to your Blackberry via Rogers BIS server (the control point). It also gives you access to Blackberry Messenger.
And I’m not sure why you’re adding $7 into the RiteFit voice plans. Both the iPhone plans and Blackberry Voice basic plans consider evenings and weekends to start at 9 p.m. Mondays to Fridays. With either you will pay $7 to get the extension to 6 p.m. Each plan will also require the $7 system access fee.
Based on my own plan resulting from these changes and modifying it to compare “apples” to “apples”, 450 minutes with 100 minutes long distance, 750MB and the $15 smartphone value pack come in at $120 for Blackberry and $127 for the iPhone. All these involve a three year contract. When you get to the 800 minute/2GB plan comparisons, the iPhone has a slight edge.
The more interesting uproar should be coming from their customers with BES servers where data plan rates have not changed from $60 for 25MB or $100 for 1GB; see second chart on the Rogers Wireless data plan rates you linked to above. But maybe that will get addressed at this evening’s Blackberry Bold launch event in Toronto for Rogers enterprise Blackberry customers.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:43 am
@ Jim Thanks for the comment and info. I’ve adjusted some of my prices (removed the $7/month extension and $15/month email fees) but it still looks like the BB is more expensive than the iPhone.
July 8th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I agree that the rates for bb are pretty bad as well and higher than for the Iphone. I found that most of the bb users mostly use it for email and not Internet browsing or any applications like Iphone has. Bb are pretty savvy in the way the phone downloads and compresses the data. So 10-15 mb per month would be enough for the most heavy email users. I don’t think this is the case with the Iphone though.
July 8th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
You’re missing something important though…all data on BB (not included what’s used by third-party apps) gets compressed by RIM’s servers. In truth, it’s very difficult to use 300MB in a month on a Blackberry.
Besides, I picked mine up used so I didn’t have to sign a contract or put up with minimum price plans (pay only $30 for the 300MB, don’t use it for voice)
July 8th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Apple iPhone fanbabies deserve to get ripped off.
Sure the new Samsung Instinct may not be as trendy but hell for $10 unlimited data from Bell, I’d get one or snag the HTC Touch
- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080704.wrbce04/BNStory/Technology/SIMON+AVERY
- http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/07/06/samsung-bringing-instinct-to-canada/
July 8th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I have a few points in regard to earlier posts:
Mark - don’t forget about text messages. The iphone plans include a batch of SMS text messages in each plan, so you need to add $6 to each of the first two Blackberry plans $10 to the last two Blackberry plans. See Rogers text messaging pricing plans at
http://your.rogers.com/business/wireless/plans_services/essentials/text-messaging.asp
I think you are right in that many of the actual Blackberry users don’t pay the bill and so they don’t complain, but purchasing managers should start to notice and they should complain. Telus offers an unlimited Blackberry plan for $30/month.
Jim - You are right. It’s the Blackberry customers running BES that are getting the least competitive pricing, especially on the bundles. Comparing the $75 bundles, Blackberry gets 7 MB of data compared to 750 MB for iphone.
Roman/Bob - you are correct that Blackberry uses spectrum much more efficiently, but why should us Blackberry users pay more per MB just because we are easier on Rogers’ network? That would be like charging hybrid car owners more per litre of gas compared to SUV owners. Plus, it is the profits from us Blackberry users that have paid for Rogers network and now they are subsidizing costs for Apple and penalizng RIM and (more importantly) the loyal Blackberry customers for running more efficiently on their network. We deserve better or at least equal pricing per MB. Period. We are also the largest segment of paying customers for Rogers data business, so why are we being overcharged? Plus, the new Blackberry browser and newer/faster Blackberry devices make browsing much better and the new Bold will browse even faster than the iphone, so browsing volume on Blackberry will continue to increase. Plus, there are more applications added every day for both business and entertainment and they all consume data.
There is no reasonable argument for charing more per MB, but Rogers probably won’t change until the so-far loyal customers complain loudly or switch to Telus or Bell.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Here is the link to the $75 bundle mentioned above:
http://your.rogers.com/business/wireless/plans_services/business_plans.asp?plan=blackberryvoicenemail&cat=3&typ=2
July 8th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
The BIG catch with the iPhone plans (which does not occur with the blackberry plans asaik) is that the Rogers bandwidth bundle ONLY includes bandwidth incurred when using ‘official rogers applications’ that they have unlocked on the iPhone.
So this means no installing 3rd party applications (browsers, skype, etc) - these kinds of ‘unregistered’ applications incur bandwidth at a seperate, per-kb rate.
So anyone that wants to configure their phone how THEY want to use it (and not how ‘rogers’ wants to you to) will negate any savings that they might have gotten with the bandwidth bundles.
This kind of consumer lock-in is the biggest pile of bs about the whole deal.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:01 am
@hiro
I’d be curious to know where you heard that, because I’m a little skeptical of that statement. I can’t imagine Rogers isolating the consumed bandwidth on a per-application basis. Data is data.
July 11th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Good news!
I just got the new 6 gigabyte BlackBerry plan for $30 per month. The $30 per month applies to ALL SMARTPHONES including BLACKBERRY!!!!!!! YAY!
July 11th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
New 6 gigabyte BlackBerry plan for $30:
http://your.rogers.com/business/wireless/plans_services/business_plans.asp?plan=blackberrydata&cat=2&typ=2
July 12th, 2008 at 7:00 am
[...] Rogers’ Blackberry Customers Should be Upset, comparing iPhone and Blackberry data/voice [...]
July 21st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I currently use a BlackBerry on my company’s BES however I have to pay for the plan myself unless my project covers the cost (Consulting).
I currently have a bundle for $52 that includes 250min voice and 7MB of data. I was hoping to upgrade the Bold on July 25th and sign up for the $30 / 6GB data plan however this plan is not applicable for BES. I don’t know how Rogers can justify this… with the new web browser on the Bold I would definitely want to use more data than 7MB.
If Rogers doesn’t change their BB plans I think that iPhone is going to look WAY more attractive than picking up a Bold.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
[...] Rogers was assailed for its ridiculous data plans, the company essentially did nothing to respond. Only when the assault turned into a hailstorm did [...]