I finally got around to calling Rogers and seeing what my options were for an iPhone plan. The call of course was largely spurred on by the jaw-dropping shocker news that Rogers was offering a 6GB data option for iphone bought this summer for $30/month:

"Customers who purchase an iPhone and sign up for a three-year contract any time between July 11 – when the device goes on sale – and the end of August will be eligible for a $30-per-month data plan giving them access to 6-Gigabytes of data. Rogers previously had charged $100 for a 6-GB plan." ( from the Globe and Mail )

So, I've been a Rogers customer for a looong long time and as I may have mentioned earlier, do not currently have a contract of any kind with them. As well, my current voice plan is pretty darned cheap thanks in part to the hard-nosed negotiation skills of my fiancée. When I called Rogers I got on the line with a relatively pleasant rep who helped me put together the following package:

• my existing voice plan stays the same, which includes 200 daytime minutes, free evenings and weekends starting at 6pm and Caller Id for $25/month. I'd forgotten it was so darn good!
• an added $30/month for the 6GB of data
• we removed my current 'value' pack which included voicemail, as visual voicemail is already included in the data package
• a free text messaging package of 150 messages/month as an extra bonus
• I qualify for a $50 rebate on the price of the phone ( I'm likely getting a 16GB black one. )

The grand calculation looks like this:

(((25 + 30 + 6.95 + 0.50) * 1.12) * 36) + (299*1.12) - 50

= $2802.86 over the next three years, or $69/month after tax and tip. This isn't too bad, only $15-20/month more than I am paying right now with no data plan whatsoever ( and some weird bundle I never really use ). Now of course the real challenge is going to be finding a phone on Friday morning to buy.

My advice to people who are already Fido or Rogers customers ( who are more comfortable with contracts than Boris ) is to call up and play a polite game of hardball to get retention plan features with this promotional data plan. It is by far the best advertised deal in Canada so far, and more than that, will likely be actually *useful* to me; I really wasn't looking forward to squeezing my data usage into 400mb.