Last month, Rogers increased the price of their data overages for new customers, hiking the price up 40% from $5 to $7 per 100MB—or $70 per gigabyte. Now, it appears their flanker brand Fido has caught up and matched these overages.
Fido’s latest Pulse Plans, as we told you yesterday, are also currently offering more data, a simultaneous addition–coincidentally timed–with Telus’ Koodo and Bell’s Virgin.
Fido’s website got a revamp for their plans, which makes it difficult to navigate to see where the cost of overages are. Users need to click unintuitive ‘circular arrows’ to flip the page on plan details to see overage prices, now charged at $7 per 100MB. By having constantly updated websites, it makes it difficult for Canadians to track price and plan changes.
“We’re providing larger data buckets at no extra cost that match how customers are using their phones to help them avoid overage. Our goal is to take the worry out of data usage,” the company told MobileSyrup.
Bell also charges $70/1GB for data overages. Meanwhile, the website for their flanker brand Virgin Mobile, doesn’t even list the cost of data overages for monthly plans for prospective customers anymore. Telus and Koodo still charge $5/100MB or $50/1GB.
The bottom line: if you’re a new wireless customer with Rogers or Fido, you’re going to be paying a lot more for data overages.
Update: A Fido representative responded to our story in an email to say “The overall purpose is to simplify our rate card with updated plan names and larger data buckets that match how customers are using their phones,” referring to how the extra 1GB data per plan is permanent, while the 10GB plan saw a $10 price drop.
Also, about 90% of Fido customers aren’t charged data overages in a given month, while the company’s new Data Bytes feature offers 5 hours of free data per month. But these still don’t change the fact data overages are $70/1GB.
