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The iPhone 4 has a Canadian ship date: July 30th (Apple really wasn't kidding around when they said late July). Telus and Bell have 'confirmed' this date on their website, but other than the shipping date we know very little more information.

What About Early Upgrade Pricing?

The largest concern is that we haven't seen any pricing from the carriers whatsoever. Below is AT&T's pricing for the iPhone 4:

Model	8GB iPhone 3GS	16GB iPhone 4	32GB iPhone 4
New Customer	$99	$199	$299
Early Upgrade	$299	$399	$499
No Commitment	$499	$599	$699

Based on history, and the current non-commitment price of the 8GB iPhone 3GS on apple.ca it's pretty resonable to assume this to the Canadian iPhone pricing:

Model	8GB iPhone 3GS	16GB iPhone 4	32GB iPhone 4
New Customer	$99	$199	$299
Early Upgrade	$349	$449	$549
No Commitment	$549	$649	$749

But one question still lingers, who sets the upgrade pricing on the iPhone? It is Apple, the carrier or both?

If Apple only suggests pricing and the carrier ultimately decides upgrade pricing, we may be seeing each carrier hold onto their cards to see what the other does.

I would put my money on Apple being solely in control of pricing. I don't think we would see Rogers offer early upgrade pricing in 2009 if that wasn't the case.

If I were wanting to fan the flame a little (and a reason why Rogers, as a long Apple partner, may be so quiet on the subject) is that although Apple will be selling the phone on July 30th in Canada, the carriers may not get it until a later date.

So here's the scenario, there's a bunch of text on your desktop PC that you would like to copy to your iDevice for whatever reason. But sending text through email is cumbersome and I would prefer something that's destructive (no reason to clutter the inbox with snippets of text).

Enter myPhoneDesktop.

The concept is simple. Install the app on the iDevice, install a client on your Windows, Linux or Mac OS X computer (or use the web client) sign in to both devices, and then you can copy a selection of text into the app and click copy. A push notification is sent and you can tap to view.

Simple.

One thing missing is the ability to send a file, but I think dropbox solves this.

So Rogers and Bell go for $35/5GB and $15/250MB.

Not only was TELUS late to the game in releasing pricing, it seems like an experiment:

$20/500MB, 5¢/MB after that up to $50/month.

Huh? OK I guess? The problem (And I guess TELUS's business benefit?) is that there are 4 ways to look at this plan: 

1. $20/500MB is better than $15/250MB. For the crowd that never uses more than 500MB.
2. Only occasionally I use over 500MB in a month. Spending $50/month once in a while is better than $35/month all the time.
3. I use more than 5GB in a month. $50 for 10GB/month sounds reasonable.
4. I'm always at a usage level that's between 1.1GB and 5GB. This plan doesn't work for me.

So high-five for expressing yourself TELUS? But I don't think a plan that has to be put under a microscope to understand is a win for anyone.

A little thought I had today: How Rogers missed the biggest opportunity in their company's history. Ok, maybe that's a little overblow, but here's my thoughts.

I'm guessing there is a whole team of people at Rogers that is dedicated to determine how much money plans should cost for specific devices in order to maximize profits for that particular market segment. I can imagine meetings upon meetings with large piecharts and spreadsheets that show research data and a ton of what if scenarios.

And then all proud of this work, the plans are released with high-fives, a few fist pumps and some champagne. Then when the consumer and media backlash hits there is a bunch of head scratching.

It was all about the iPhone

In 2008 when Rogers announced the iPhone's plan pricing, Canadians were up in arms. There was rumors and speculation that Rogers would announce unlimited data that would be on par or a little more expensive than AT&T. It ended up being way too expensive for at lot less as compared to their AT&T counterparts in the States. Although the included phone time was WAY less, the data plans were what upset people the most. 

Rogers jumped the gun a bit with their next business mistake, the $30/6GB plan.  Although a win for consumers, it actually damaged Rogers ability to charge people more than $30 per month, because it taught people that 6GB is probably more data than you'll ever need.

Rogers had the opportunity to charge $35, maybe even $40 for the 'U' word. And I think they would have every right to charge a bit more than the US.

For all we hate about Rogers, they have a pretty decent network. We hear our American counterparts complain all the time about dropped calls and how AT&T is slow, but here in Canadaland as long as I'm within range of a cell tower, the connection is always stable and fast.

So here's the what if scenario: If Rogers had released a $40/Unlimited plan instead of the $30/6GB plan, would you be on it.

I hate to say it, but I know I would, and you probably would to if you didn't know what you know now and only knew what you knew then.

And that would have been $10/month, or $360/36 months! think of how many people have the $30 plan... Between the initial iPhone release and September 2008, Rogers sold 255,000 iPhones... assuming most people got the promo plan, that means Rogers missed out on nearly $100,000,000 over three years and would have had better customer response. No small amount of change.

Well here we are again...

iPad Launches

The fear this company has for providing a positive customer experience is astonishing. Time and time again they end up being so close to doing what's best for consumers, and then create a consumer backlash.

This time it's the iPad.

On the face of things, Rogers has actually done really well with the iPad's pricing structure.

$15/250MB
$35/5000MB

And I completely agree with their statement that these plans will more than accommodate 98% of their customers. I'm sure there is a good chunk of people that will just be emailing text and be fine with 250MB.

The Real Issue

Rogers always seems to be baffled by existing and potential customer backlash when it comes out with what is actually aggressive pricing for the Canadian wireless market. Although maybe not obvious, it's actually really simple.

There is no unified pricing structure!

People like consistency, and Rogers pricing is anything but. Let's look at pricing for some different data plans:

Promo Plan:$30/6GB
iPad: $35/5GB
Smartphone/Blackberry Data Plans: $80/5GB
Mobile Hi-Speed: $65/5GB

So it's $80 for a Smartphone or Blackberry... but now there's an iPad for $35, but I can't get that with a phone... oh, well how about Mobile Hi-Speed for $65... nope, nope that's only Rocketsticks I guess, Promo plan looks good, but that's not available right now, oh and you need a voice plan with it...

If you're not screaming right now, please award yourself a point. Sometimes I wish Rogers was a tangible object, 'cause there are times that I wish to just beat the hell out of 'it'.

Ok, now that I've calmed down a bit, how does this get fixed?

If you haven't guessed you're not following along... It's unify the pricing.

There are so many benefits to creating a unified pricing scheme. I'm going to list my main three:

1 - Improving Customer Relations

This has to be the biggest, fixing the data model would have most Canadian's on their knees screaming "finally!!! We love you!!!" This alone would improve company opinion and I know for myself I would start recommending Rogers without hesitation.

2- Reducing Support Costs

One of the largest problems with the current pricing schemes is that you need to have a very keen memory and understanding of what a device actually 'is' in order to figure out what the price of something will be be. It shouldn't matter if I have a Rocketstick, or an iPhone, or a Blackberry. If I have a 1GB data plan it should cost the same no matter what device it is.

Training customer reps must be such a pain. Half the time I phone Rogers, I have to know exactly what I want or else they will not be able to help me, simple because there are too many things to remember.

Also, less options means a simpler customer management interface. Call turn around time should be reduced to almost nothing. Plus that website you have? Less options means much simpler implementation for a fancy 'update my account' page.

3 - Improved Customer Understanding

Don't confuse this with Improving Customer Relations. Relations are simply how someone feels about a company. Understanding is a totally separate ballgame.

When someone asks me how much Data costs on Rogers I usually give them a blank stare for a moment because I realize I'm going to need to start asking a series of questions before I can give them an answer.

I shouldn't have to develop what would end up being a Choose Your Own Adventure novel in order to figure out a data plan.

Finding a Solution

I don't claim to have a magic wand for how to fix this. But if I were CEO of Rogers Wireless, it's time to start using the 'U' word.

Rogers is scared to death of the word unlimited. To them it means 'people will become abusive and start downloading 24/7 and there's nothing we could do about it'.

Certainly not true at all. WIND mobile has come up with a fair solution for unlimited usage. They simply reserve the right to throttle after 5GB if it interferes with the network.

A perfectly elegant solution. Unlimited data and protects network quality.

There's a very simple reason to offer unlimited. Customer's feel safe knowing exactly how much they will be billed in a month and knowing they won't be charged any more than that. There's nothing worse that a 'big' month.

So there you have it Rogers. Want good customer experience? drop me a note. I'll forward my resume.