So all that Rogers-hatin’ angst has actually had an effect: Now both it and Fido have a slightly less limiting data option for you all, plus you can choose from their existing plans not just the iPhone plans:
Effective July 11, and as a limited time promotional offer for customers who activate until August 31, 2008 on a three year contract, a data-only offering of 6GB of data for $30 per month is being made available that can be added to any in-market voice plan…
New Canadian iPhone 3G customers will also have the choice to select from Fido’s existing voice and smartphone data plans and/or additional features to best suit their needs or from Fido’s specific value bundled iPhone 3G plans.
Although that’s more of a concession than we were really expecting, If you’re a big texter or really want to watch YouTube on your commute every day, this probably won’t do much towards satisfying you; but for those of us who use our cell pretty much only as a rather infrequently checked voice mail service and will be doing almost all our surfing over WiFi, this looks like enough flexibility to satisfy us pretty much completely, we figure.
[UPDATE] Heh. Missed this — Cavey McCave the CMO at Rogers flat out admitted that the online fuss made them cave, but only temporarily!
John Boynton, the senior vice-president and chief marketing officer of Rogers Wireless, said in an interview the promotional offer is in response to customer concerns … existing price plans for the iPhone will go back into effect Sept. 1.
“What we’re trying to do is satisfy a very small group of people, the early adopters,” he said. “When those customers are done, we’re back to our basic user.”
Translation: If we can get through August, the media fuss will die down and nobody will care anymore when you get pissed off. Alrighty then, shop now, people!
h/t: MacSurfer, Ars Technica, engadget, iPhoneFreak, IGM, MacRumors, Reuters, 9to5Mac, …
