Holiday Gift Guide »

Rogers Wireless shows us how NOT to do business

By: , IntoMobile
Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 6:09 PM

Rogers sucksVirtually the whole world over has adopted, or is rumored to be adopting, unlimited data pricing structures in anticipation of the iPhone 3G launch. That is, except Canada. Well, not Canada, per se, but Canada’s oft mis-guided and confusingly business un-savvy wireless carriers.

Today’s example of how NOT to do business in a competitive wireless industry comes from Rogers Wireless. Upon announcing their iPhone 3G rate plans, it seems that Rogers may very well have shot themselves in the foot. With iPhone 3G rate plans that seem to mock potential iPhone 3G customers with conspicuously absent unlimited data offerings and bundled minutes that further seem to deride Canadian iPhone 3G hopefuls’ intelligence, Rogers Canada may just well lose a considerable amount of business from scorned customers.

If the reaction to Rogers’ announcement on HowardForums, and our gut feeling, is any indication, Rogers’ attempt to maximize (read: greedily coerce) profit from iPhone 3G fans could end up netting the Canadian GSM carrier lower revenue than if they had offered the iPhone 3G calling plans at more favorable price-points and/or with more bundled service.

[Via: HoFo]

Thanks, Andrew!

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • Jennifer

    I think the key statement you made is “how not to do business in a competitive wireless world”…… Rogers has no competition for GSM or for the iPhone here in Canada so they shaft us evey chance they get. I’ll stay with my unlocked and no data iPhone. As an ex AT&T customer who recently moved back to Canada and was on the “real” iPhone plan back there I will not support Rogers new 3G plans.. your an embarrassment to Canada Rogers

  • Casey

    No competition here in Canada. Rogers/Fido has the only GSM network (at least for a couple of years) and they are going to wring every cent out of it (and generate a TON of bad will doing so).

    Many Canadians will suck it up and buy an iPhone on these ridiculous plans, but they’ll jump ship to another carrier as soon as they get a chance.

    Its a frustrating situation because we all HATE Rogers, but they’re the only GSM network so we smile, get screwed, and then say thank you.

  • ELtawil

    It’s totally ridiculous. Rogers has been ripping us off for years now and we haven’t protested even once. When will we ever get cheap data rates!!

  • NAZGUL

    This is not unlike how the Canadian banks here use their monopolies to screw us and post their HUGE profits to rub in our faces every quarter….

    Rogers does this in every single area they do business in. They have a monopoly not only in the GSM arena, but with digital cable as well. If you don’t like their cable service or rates, you have either Bell (who is not that good either) or Star Choice (both are satellite-based).

    Would Rogers be doing this if they had the likes of Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, etc. competing for the same market? The other posters said it…NO.

    This is the problem with Canada, too many oligarchs and not enough competition.