Tips on Choosing the BEST Rogers/Fido iPhone 3G Monthly Plan
Whoa, what happened to September? The month blew by quickly and it conveniently took away the 6GB/$30 Rogers/Fido data plan (it was extended, remember?) with it. That means if you were lazy and didn’t jump on your opportunity to snag the 6GB data plan, you’re out of luck READ EDIT BELOW! 6GB STILL AVAILABLE! Okay so maybe it’s not the END of the world just quite yet. Rogers and Fido has introduced some updated iPhone 3G monthly plans, along with revised data plans for October. I’m going to give you the breakdown on which plan you should choose and why. I’m going to get right to the point. Let’s get started!
New $60 and $75 iPhone 3G Monthly Plans from Rogers/Fido
Rogers loves to play the game of overwhelming customers with too much data, facts, information, notes, revised notes, etc. This is confusing for all of us and makes picking a monthly plan a painstakingly long process. Let’s jump to the barebone facts of what you need to know:
- Rogers and Fido have introduced two new monthly plans: $60/$75. Here’s what’s included:
- Daytime minutes: 250/400
- Data included: 1GB/2GB
- Text Messages: 75/100 sent
- Visual Voicemail
- Additional minutes: $0.35/minute
- Unlimited Evenings and weekends:
- Rogers: 9pm-7am (pure comedy everytime I see 9pm evenings! Some people are already asleep by then)
- Fido: 7pm-8am (decent)
- Unlimited Network Calling: Fido ONLY
- Billing by the second: Fido ONLY
- Bonus: 3 months unlimited talk/text/data
- Unlimited Rogers/Fido hot spot access (who actually uses this?!)
- Fido $75 Plan offers unlimited long distance network calling.
- You’ll need to add on a value pack ($15) for Caller ID/Visual Voicemail/2500 Texts
Rogers vs Fido iPhone 3G Monthly Plans: Who wins?
As you can see from the condensed data above, it seems that the best iPhone monthly plan is available from Fido! Why? Let me list them for you:
- Evenings from 7pm
- Billing by the second
- Unlimited network calling under the $75 plan
Revised Rogers/Fido Data Plans — Goodbye 6GB/$30 Data!
Just for a quick refresher, the new data plans are as follows:
- $15 for 2MB
- $25 for 500MB
- $30 for 1GB
- $60 for 3GB
Ouch. These prices are much more expensive than before, but that’s what happens when we have a GSM monopoly in this country. Just be happy if you managed to get the 6GB plan while it was still available!
EDIT: Apparently the 6GB/$30 data plan has not disappeared quite just yet! If you go into a store and ask the service rep about it, they can still add it to your account. I have confirmation from Rogers sources that it is still in the system. So be nice and politely ask for it, and you will get it!
The Rogers Student MY10 Plan
There is still one more option for a decent plan if you’re on Rogers. Currently they are offering their Student MY10 Plan which includes the following for $25/45:
- MY10 (unlimited talk/text to 10 numbers)
- The $45 plan includes Canada-wide numbers (great for those who talk long distance)
- 100/450 weekday minutes (this is the only weak park)
- 1000 early evenings/weekends at 6PM (yes, 6PM)
- 500 incoming/unlimited incoming minutes
- 3 months unlimited local calling as a bonus
- The $15 value pack is also $5 off. So for $10 you get:
- Caller ID
- 125 sent text messages
- Visual voicemail (trust me, it’s visual voicemail because I know of friends on this plan)
- Notes:
- You will require a valid student ID for this plan. Although if you know of a friend, family member, neighbour, or pet in school you can just borrow their ID. Call in to get this over the phone and it should be no problem!
- This plan ends on November 3rd, 2008
- You’re allowed one MY10 change per month. Meaning you can change numbers only once a month.
Comparing My10 vs iPhone $60 vs Fido Killer EPP
So let’s say you went with the $25 MY10 plan, add on the $10 value pack, plus $25 for 500MB of data, you’re looking at the following bill:
Student My10: $25 + $10 + $25 + $6.95 + $0.50 = $67.45 + taxes
iPhone $60 plan: $60 + $15 (value pack) + $6.95 + $0.50 = $82.45 + taxes (this doesn’t even include early evening calling if you choose Rogers!)
The $60 iPhone plan includes 500MB more of data, and 150 more daytime minutes. However, the My10 will save you money big time since the evenings start at 6PM, plus My10 allows unlimited chat with your 10 most called people AND 500 incoming minutes. How often do you call more than 10 numbers?
Want more? Another possibility is taking advantage of the Fido Killer Offer or Rogers EPP Plan, which starts off at $17.50 for 200 daytime minutes, and 1000 evenings/weekends starting at 5pm. So you’d be looking at:
Fido Killer Plan: $17.50 + $15 (value pack) + $25 (500MB data) + $6.95 + $0.50 = $64.95 + tax
“Wait a minute, what happened to the 6GB/$30 data plan?!”
Now you’re probably disappointed that you missed the 6GB/$30 data plan boat. Well, as the saying goes, “you snooze, you lose!”. But realistically, $25 for 500MB is overpriced compared to the old plan. However, over my first two months of usage everyday, I’ve yet to surpass 500MB of data use a month. For the average user, 500MB a month is a lot of data to consume. You’re only ever going to surpass this if you’re tethering your data plan or streaming internet radio all day. Still though, knowing that you could’ve paid $1/200MB instead of $1/17MB is painful (based on $25 for 500MB). READ ABOVE EDIT REGARDING 6GB/$30 DATA!
So What Plan is Best for Me?
Personally if I was signing up for a new iPhone 3G at this very moment, I would be very disappointed due to these less than stellar prices. It seems the best bang for your buck if you can swing it is the Student My10 plan because you will save on early evenings at 6PM, MY10 is pretty awesome, plus $10 for the value pack is cool too. Too bad it’s only available for students!
If you’re not eligible for the Student MY10 plan, your best bet is to start a Fido Killer Plan. You get earlier evenings and billing by the second. Having billing by the second will save you immensely on your bill in the long run. This was just a brief breakdown on how to maximize your iPhone 3G plan. If you have better plans out there, please feel free to share it with the rest of us!
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