The imminent arrival of the iPhone in Canada has unleashed a storm of controversy over the country’s high wireless data rates and left consumers bewildered by an array of offerings that – if misunderstood – could leave them with a monthly phone bill higher than the cost of a house in Saskatchewan.
In fact, Alberta oil field worker Piotr Staniaszek probably could have picked up a couple of properties in some parts of the country for a bill that reached almost $60,000 one month, climbing to a total of $85,000 by the next.
That was last December and Staniaszek and his wireless carrier Bell Mobility later negotiated the killer bill down to over $3,000, but critics say the current hodgepodge of data pricing, beset by small print and unexpected charges, can only lead to more such digital disasters as the iPhone entices more Canadians to embrace wireless data services.
“We’re getting piles of complaints,” said Bruce Cran, president of the Consumers’ Association of Canada. “We’re classifying this as another ripoff of Canadian consumers. “Why we are getting this totally inferior deal to what they are getting in the United States doesn’t make sense.”
Bell Mobility appears ready to capitalize on the boycott of the iPhone and Rogers that some consumers are promising, announcing the Aug. 8 introduction of the Samsung Instinct smartphone. Instinct users can get a $10 unlimited mobile browser plan from Bell for Internet surfing and e-mail. Other features like GPS and TV are separate and Bell’s Full Track Music service adds another $15 a month for an unlimited subscription service.
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With the Instinct selling for as low as $149.99 and customers able to get a voice package with unlimited data for as low as $40, Bell is aggressively undercutting Rogers’ iPhone offerings that start at $75 for a voice with 750 megabyte of data plan and top out at the heftiest two gigabyte plus voice plan for $115.
They (wireless carriers) deliberately make it very difficult to make comparisons,” said Cran. “To be safe you really need to have an unlimited plan.”
In the U.S., where AT & T is the network that carries the iPhone, customers can get unlimited data at a flat rate with prices that vary depending on the number of voice minutes, starting at $70 with the top plan $110. In Canada, iPhone users will have to know how many megabytes the websites they are cruising amount to, how much watching a one-minute YouTube video will cut into their data allotment or if those holiday snapshots from well-meaning relatives are going to put them over the edge.
Rogers will send users a message warning them when they reach 80 per cent of their plan’s capacity and when they have used it up, but if iPhone buyers discover after a month that the cost is just way too high to justify running their new phone, they’ll face hefty penalties if they want to get out of the three-year contract.
If carrying an iPhone is purely for the fashion value and you opt for no data plan, a pay-per-use fee of five cents per kilobyte will apply. To put that in perspective, a brief e-mail from an editor that just landed in my in box would have cost 35 cents.
Head out of the country and the surprises could be even more painful to the pocketbook.
“Substantial charges may be incurred if your iPhone is taken out of Canada even if no services are intentionally used,” reads Rogers’ fine print on the iPhone.
“People are going to have to be very cautious here,” said Cran. “They can invest in an iPhone, which is very expensive, and they may quickly find they can’t afford it or it is much more expensive than what they planned.”
By Friday more than 34,000 people had signed onto the online petition at ruinediphone.com which is to be presented to Rogers on July 11, the day the Apple iPhone 3G is launched.
The website has also recommended consumers complain to Canada’s Competition Bureau, but those complaints aren’t likely to get anywhere.
“Where consumers are concerned about the plans being offered with the iPhones, we don’t consider this to be a competition issue,” said bureau spokesperson Marilyn Nahum. “We don’t consider the iPhone to be a distinct market.
“It’s a cellphone that competes with other cellphones in the market. If consumers don’t like the plans being offered with the iPhone they can go to the competitors.”
Cran also points out that users will have to pay for spam that doesn’t get filtered out. “This is totally gouging Canadians,” he said.
Rogers points out the iPhone 3G pricing bundles it announced are not the only price plans available to customers who can also use their existing voice and smartphone data plans with the iPhone, combine a voice plan and data plan or keep an existing voice service and get a separate data plan.
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