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What I think is going to happen is you won't be charged for tethering
right now but as of January 1, 2010, you simply will no longer have
access to tethering on your iPhone.

That's where the new tethering plans enter.

So your bill is correct right now, but the true test will be if you
can still tether in 2010 with your current data set up.

Hi Andre –

I wanted to respond to your comments about tethering. As part of the @RogersHelps team, I'm committed to improving the overall customer experience and to answering as many questions as I can as transparently as I can. There are times when I can't provide an answer right away – maybe because of confidentiality agreements – maybe because of competitive reasons – maybe because we haven't finalized a decision yet. When I can't answer, I try to be open about that. While we can't help all customers all of the time, most customers we have worked with say they have benefited from our assistance.

When it comes to tethering, we are still reviewing our options and we are listening to customer feedback. I've personally committed to informing our customers via Twitter and in blogs/forums as soon as we can announce the details.

Thanks,
Mary

Mary, it's great for you to come here and reply, and I appreciate your efforts. You obviously cannot help Rogers' position on things, but you are certainly in a better position to get a point across to them than we the paying customers obviously are.

Rogers has had months to sort this tethering thing out. It is now about two weeks from the “deadline” they set for themselves and told to us about for, well… something.

If Rogers is really two weeks away from this and has no decision, then they need to extend this deadline, or say something about it. Rogers is a big company who, I'm sure has all of their ducks lined up. I suspect they do, and they're just clueless about informing their paying customers – their bread and butter, who are just a bunch of potential dollar signs to them.

Rogers has put this item on our bills called Tethering Access. We have seen a date of December 31st when something will change. There is obviously something up that may affect your paying customers – whether it will impact us financially or not, you're not telling us.

All we know is that it has been implied that Rogers will possibly charge us for our data use twice after Dec 31. The competition seems to be not charging for tethering.

Why is it December 15th and Rogers cannot give us an answer that will clarify this once and for all.

I simply do not believe that an organization like Rogers has not made up their mind on this. Hesitating on informing us just makes the company look worse.

My point is just about Rogers making a decision. This doesn't even address how ridiculous it would be to somehow have an additional charge for something we have already paid for. It would be kind of like charging us for calling certain friends and talking a little faster or more loudly, even though we're already paying for voice access.

Thank you,
Andre

Dear Mary,

You're saying that Rogers hasn't decided yet? Why keep us in the dark
till the last minute? So you can release new plans to confuse us all
again?

We are already paying for a data plan. Why would Rogers charge us to
use it via tethering? Data is data.

Its policies like this, keeping us in the dark that makes people
excited about start ups like WIND. We are all not afraid to pay
cancellation fees to leave Rogers.

Aren't we paying you enough? You charge us for voice. You charge us for data. You now make 30¢ on every text message – you hose the sender for 15¢, then you hose the person receiving the very same message another 15¢. You charge a “government” fee that isn't anything to do with the government. Oh, and you charge us to know who's calling – to display the number that you're broadcasting anyways. I bet you're working on a way to charge for touch-tone. Now you want to charge again for the same data?

You know if you squeeze the toothpaste tube enough, you will get almost the last drop. If you keep squeezing hard enough after you got just about all of it, you will eventually cut yourself. Rogers probably has very bloody hands already.

Just a warning about Bell and tethering. Only the very few plans that have iPhone in the name support tethering. If you get another smartphone plan for the iPhone, tethering is not included, and if you use it, you will be charged by the Kb.

I switched from Rogers to Bell, and got one of their Smartphone Combo plans. I made sure to ask the guy in the Bell store if tethering was included, and he said yes. When I got home and read the fine print, it said it was not. I called Bell to whine about it, and they said that yes, only certain plans include tethering.

My only recourse is to switch plans, which I won't do, as I otherwise like my plan. Tethering's not a big deal for me, so I'll drop the issue. I just thought I'd post a warning for others. A friend of mine also got shafted the same way, and didn't know until I told him.

On a brighter note, the reception on Bell's network is way clearer, and their data network is clearly faster.