Today, Rogers launched a new data sharing option for customers that have the 6GB data plan. It will cost $30 extra per month, per device to share your existing 6GB/$30 data plan with up to five devices. But first, some history.
July 2010
With the launch of the iPhone 4, Rogers released their famous 6GB data plan. Along with the 6GB data plan, Rogers also launched a data sharing option that allowed iPhone owners on the 6GB data plan to share their data with an iPad. This service cost an extra $20 + GRRF per month and the promotion expired in September 2010.
It was unreasonable to pay extra to share data you had already paid for. This has resulted in the popularity of jailbroken apps such as MyWi.
Fast Forward To November 2010
As Rogers entered Holiday 2010, the company launched three new Data Shareable Voice & Data Plans and three new standalone data sharing options. To share these data plans with an iPad, for example, it cost an extra $15 + GRRF per month (now $10 until May 2, 2011). Some would say this is robbery.
Fast Forward To February 2011
Today, Rogers launched a new data sharing option for existing 6GB data plan customers.
Get Ready To Pay An Extra $30 Per Month
If you have the 6GB data plan from Rogers and want to share that plan with an iPad, for example, you must pay an extra $30 + GRRF per month, per device (for up to five devices) on top of your already $30 + GRRF 6GB data plan! And don’t forget the $35 one-time activation fee per device.
Let’s break this down with an example:
Is Rogers preparing to charge for the use of Personal Hotspot?
Pay For Personal Hotspot?
In January, we were chatting with Rogers via Twitter about bringing Apple’s new iOS 4.3 Personal Hotspot to Canadians.
While the feature will come, whether Rogers likes it or not, the control that Rogers has is choosing whether or not to charge us. We have yet to get a clear answer about being charged.
If these data share plans are any indication of what’s to come, expect to pay $10 – $30 per month extra–to share your data plan with Personal Hotspot.
Will that happen? We don’t know–but the infrastructure is there to charge us extra fees.
Will you be paying $30/month extra to share your 6GB data plan?
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Heh.. This is interesting but hell no. I’m already paying nearly 100$ month for cell service. If they think there will charge more on how I use my data, they have another thing coming. I guess jailbreaking will be the only option to keep costs down. My question is, how in the fuck can they justify this being ok to charge on top of what your already paying for?
If they do charge for personal hotspot, but I use mywi to tether, will Rogers be able to tell that I tethered or will they think that data was just part of my phone’s usage?
both my girlfriend and I have the 6GB plan and we will both be seriously looking into iPads when the 2nd gen comes out! However I was already sqeemish on the idea of paying $10 a month to share it. I won’t pay $30 a month nor will she, I’ll hotspot it of jailbreak and mywi if I have to. They already get $100 from me for my phone every month and they’ve told me I’m not even considered me in the top 2 tiers even with a $100 a month phone bill! Thanks Rogers!
Rogers can kiss my ass on this one! UNBELIEVABLE!
Interesting that this happens exactly when big telcos are arguing for usage based billing… This looks more like device based billing to me. At $30 extra, you might as well just get a standalone iPad plan.
Regarding Personal Hotspot, it would be interesting to know if the carriers can technically enable bluetooth/USB tethering and keep Personal Hotspot disabled. It’s clear from the screenshots that Personal Hotspot is going to replace tethering in Settings. They can’t remove tethering, it’s part of our contracts. So it would be interesting if you could get that technical info from Apple, as we can expect the Canadian telcos to be last minute on any such announcements.
Rogers sucks. I have an unlocked iPhone 4 & my contract engs in 7 months. I guess Retentions will have to talk to me. I pay for 6 GB of data. I will not pay more!
As far as I know Rogers can’t tell if you’re tethering using mywi and cannot charge you extra. However, this data has already been paid for and should be able to be used as the user wishes. The concept of charging extra for that is ridiculous.
I will never pay more for sharing my own paid data. MyWi saves the day
Nexus already has the hotspot option and you dont see videotron double charging for it… If its part of your data plan, it is part of your data plan! If Rogers starts charging for it, my next phone will be with videotron or a carrier that dont try to screw me everytime it can.
Until then, jailbreak and use mywi! Works like a charm!
Although I don’t agree with how much they charge, tethering is not the same as sharing the data among different independent devices/IMEI’s.
For instance, an iPad could function independently by another family member using the collective 6GB, but $30? C’mon Rogers, who’s going to pay that except the rich or ignorant? We mind as well give that device it’s own separate billing data.
It’s getting hard to believe that while already the most expensive in the world and with the increased rumbling from their customers they continue to RAISE the prices….
But, alas, I’m sure the other two will follow and the big three will fall in line once again. ..WE’VE GOT TO PUT A STOP TO THIS!!
Jailbreak and use mywi…
Jailbreak and use mywi…
More reason to jailbreak and use mywi or pdanet
Personal Hotspot is an all-or-nothing feature. The carriers can disable it entirely (as Rogers presently does on sub-1GB plans), but they can’t choose which options to specifically enable.
So they’ll either have to claw back the existing functionality and start charging for USB, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi tethering, or keep on going the way they’ve been thus far with the addition of Wi-Fi. There’s no in between here.
Based on Rogers’ past attitude toward tethering, I’m expecting they will do the latter and continue offering it for free. As another poster above points out, there is a big difference between sharing data through a single device and provisioning multiple devices on the network that can use data independently. That said, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them start charging for it… AT&T is already doing this in the U.S., and their data rates are much slower. It made sense for AT&T to charge extra when users were on “unlimited” plans, but charging extra on a capped plan is wrong — data is data and as long as it’s flowing through your primary device it shouldn’t matter how you use it.
I agree completely that tethering is not the same thing and it’s unreasonable for people to expect to share data between completely separate devices at no charge at all. $20 last summer was _barely_ tolerable to share data — $10 would have been more reasonable. However, as you’ve said $30 is insane, especially when you consider that $35/month+tax on your credit card gets you 5GB of data a month just for your iPad alone.
So, $30 to *share* your 6GB or $35 for an *extra* 5GB. Not to mention that the $30 “plus GRRF” probably comes out to more than $35 anyway by the time the dust settles.
This doesn’t even make any sense.
We should all jailbreak, pay the one time $20 mywi fee , and tell those money sucking leeches at Rogers ,bell , and telus to SUCK IT!!!
They must think we are all idiots to pay another $30/month for something we already pay for.
Shit maybe the bank will call me and tell me I have to pay double for my mortgage at the same interest rate,but it will still take 25 years to pay off.
F U Rogers. Treat us with respect !! We pay your bills.
Robbers!
Theoretically it’s possible to tell, but that would require a more advanced level of packet inspection than Rogers is likely to undertake. For the most part, the data will just look like it’s coming from your iPhone, since as far as the Rogers network is concerned, that is where it’s coming from.
I doubt they’re going to charge for Personal Hotspot, since Rogers has never charged for tethering in the past. It’s also likely they’d have to make USB/Bluetooth tethering part of the deal as well — it’s all the same setting in iOS 4.3 (the old “Internet Tethering” option is gone in favour of “Personal Hotspot”). I can imagine even Rogers is unwilling to deal with the backlash that would come from taking something away from existing customers who are already paying for it.
rogers can suck on my 20 dollar plan i pay with them for my iphone 4
HA
DON’T GIVE IN! Protest with your $$$!
Rogers can not continue to charge us for data we’ve already paid for, even if we choose to share it!
FUCK YOU ROGERS!
Get bent Rogers!
I’ve been using MyWi for over a year now, when it was sold via Rock, guess I’ll stick to MyWi.
You would have to be an idiot to pay $30 per month per device. Jailbreak and MyWi is perfect. I’m thinking the $4.99 for the MyWi on demand feature is not a bad idea anymore.
Never, This is radiculous.
Where did you get info that that the iPad will be able to tether using blue tooth?
I am in the exact same scenario, unlocked iPhone 4 , $30-6GB and contract ends Aug this year. If retentions doesnt come thru with a hell of a deal, Rogers can kiss my ass. 6 years with them and nothing but more money more money, and now this BS about data sharing. I have held off on jailbreak becuase I hate the instability….yes I have tried it and it is not polished enough for my liking.
I bet they will charge us to use personal hotstpot. This is Rogers we are talking about. And the other two rats will follow with the same bullshit.
Why can’t one of these CEO’s get it ? If they offered unlimited calling and data (including tethering) for $80-100 they would clean up! I would pay a cancellation fee (if I were on contract) and jump ship.
It’s been discovered by a number of developers who already have the iOS 4.3 beta. For whatever reason it’s not being widely reported, but there are posts about it on Macrumors among other places, and I’ve seen it working myself — you can turn Wi-Fi completely off on both devices, establish a BT pairing and tether away.
Whether this is strictly an iPhone-iPad thing or whether the iPad will be able to tether through non-iOS BT devices is unclear at this point, but I would assume that it’s using the Bluetooth PAN profile and will therefore be compatible with any other PAN device.
The point is that I don’t think they *can* do this. Information I’ve seen thus far suggests that carriers won’t be able to pick-and-choose which “Personal Hotspot” features are available, and the old “Internet Tethering” features (from pre-4.3) are actually all now wrapped up in the single “Personal Hotspot” feature. The user can’t even choose which ones to enable — it’s either all on or all off.
While it’s possible that carriers may have a hidden setting for this, it doesn’t seem like something Apple would want to allow carriers to do. Disabling tethering entirely is one thing, but picking and choosing which features to enable should be irrelevant and would damage the user experience that Apple works so hard to protect in its devices.
If this is the case, the only way they can charge for Personal Hotspot would be to start charging for USB and Bluetooth tethering, which they’ve already given away for free to a great many users who are on contract. The negative backlash from a decision like that would be too severe even for Rogers to want to deal with.
They’ll think nothing of it.
What a load of crock from Rogers!
I just could not believe my eyes when I saw this. I am highly cynical of Rogers and their business practices, but this blew my mind yet again.
Are the people in Rogers that make these decisions from another planet??? Do they think that people will actually pay this kind of money, under these circumstances?
Rogers, are you FUCKING NUTS???
The only thing that allows you to do this is your virtual monopoly that you have on the market!
What’t the bet that Fido will follow suit, as Rogers owns all of Fido!
Except that particular feature is designed only for Bluetooth pairing to an iPad, so it’s not as useful as it first sounded
Come to think of it, I can’t wait to see what Rogers is going to charge for Hotspot functionality!
Rogers can learn a few lessons from Apple. Apple is giving us the Hotspot functionality in the next version of iOS for free – I bet all my life savings that Rogers will NOT let us get away with it for free! Of course the same goes for Fido, which is owned by Rogers.
Fucking monopoly!
I would be embarrassed to work for a company that had such business practices.
Do both devices need to be on 4.3 ?
No, I’m not ready for that at all! You are right this is robbery and Rogers should be shame! It looks like they are kidding us: ‘Ideal for existing 6gb customers…’
Hell NO! I am already paying $30 for 6GB data. Why should I pay extra to share that data I have already bought?! They are shameless blood suckers! Jailbreak your phone and use MyWi is the way to go!
I pay $30 for ‘my’ data. I opted into the program knowing that down the road I’d use most of the 6G. Currently I’m using 10%. So why not share it with my iPad. Why not? It’s my data. I pay for it, even if I don’t use it.
Let’s all shout at Rogers: ‘It’s my data and I want it now!!!’
I read this and fell off my chair, then got back up and fell down again!
Too funny Rogers… Too funny.
LOL
When I pay Rogers the $30 for 6 gigs data, that is paying them to provide my phone with access to that much data. Now what I do with that data once it hits my phone is none of their concern, and nor should they be able to dictate to me how to use it. And so I see it as hard to believe they will be charging extra for personal hotspotting. However if I wanted Rogers to start providing data to different devices over their network (3G), be it splitting my current data subcription or just getting a whole new plan for the second device, then I can see how they could charge to provide such a service. I mean if they can start charging us to hotspot, they may as well start charging us for hooking up to our own private network at home. Makes equal sense in my mind.
Hell NO!…I already paid for that 6 GB, why should I pay extrra if I want to share what is already mine?!
LMFAO! Perfect example why Rogers = ROBBERS
Great way for them to reach even deeper into our pockets.
I’ve never wanted to jailbreak my iPhone….until now.
There’s a cracked version of MyWi out there. #teamjailbreak #sinfuliphone
I think you have summarized it well.
My point is, if Rogers still ADDED VALUE to it all, I might be persuaded to part with some additional fee (although $30 would be WAY too much). However, Rogers (or Fido) is NOT adding value.
From what I can see, Rogers doesn’t need to do ANYTHING to accommodate the addional functionality of Hotspot. They are being ruthless opportunists – simply want to grab cash where they can, whether they have done anything for it or not.
Why is it that Apple can give one MORE functionality/features/value for the same price point, but Rogers does exactly the opposite???
Will you be paying $30/month extra to share your 6GB data plan?
Hell, NO!!!!!!!!
Of all the stupid things rogers does this is the worst!!yea sure 60 dollars for 6 gb of data. Do they just assume all Canadians are stupid,or that we just bend over backwards.
The iPad would, as prior versions don’t support Bluetooth tethering at all. It’s unclear whether the iPhone would require 4.3 or could use the standard Bluetooth Tethering capabilities from prior versions. I expect the iPhone could use any iOS version that supports Bluetooth tethering, but this actually might be a good test in determining whether the iPad is using the generic Bluetooth PAN profile or something else.