How am I supposed to access google maps/GPS from hotspots while driving in my car? While I realise I can download the maps from wifi internet prior to leaving home that's not really the point. The device is made to be in constant communication with data and is designed to impact life in that manner. ie. to guide moment to moment choices re: routes, food, activities, knowledge etc...
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Rogers Announces iPhone Plans in Canada
- Thread starter generationxwing
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It is clear that not everyone shares your views. Personally, the only SMS messages I have ever gotten on my current phone are the promotional ones from my carrier. I have no use for, and no interest in SMS. Likewise, I use my cell phone for voice calls perhaps 3 or 4 times a week. So data's what I'm REALLY interested in.
And finally, to be frank, you have little knowledge of what data usage will be like with the iPhone 3G either. I am assuming that you have been using a jailbroken iPhone on Rogers EDGE. The advent of push email, sync, including pictures, with MobileMe, and the new App store will dramatically increase data usage overnight. Many American iPhone users, who have been using iPhones legitimately for over a year say unlimited is the only way to go. Mac pundits like Leo LaPorte have confirmed that anything less than unlimited plans will put a severe crimp in the user experience. I don't want to buy a mobile computing device, just to have to keep myself tethered to Wi-Fi to use it for its intended purpose.
And with all respect to Aristotle, the nearest public "hotspot" to me is over 3 hours away, and the whole idea of moving to 3G is so that you get access to a high speed wireless network without being tethered to Wi-Fi. On the one hand the wireless industry totes all the new, powerful features of 3G, including "near-Wi-Fi speed," and then the carriers put draconian limits on it so you can't take advantage of it. Not good enough.
Exactly. The thing is that Wi-Fi ties you to a specific place. You really can't be going much distance before your Wi-Fi signal drops. To be switching your wi-fi network every few minutes (eg. if you were walking down a street) is just not gonna cut it. What's the point of having a "mobilie internet" in your pocket when it's not truly mobile?
Actually, I am not that important, but I am an on call doc to a rural ER and I try to go to Church even when on call. By necessity I need to leave my phone on, usually on vibrate. I am on call every other night and occasionally try to have dinner at a friends with my cell phone on. Please try to avoid sweeping generalities.
Im not one for sitting in Coffee Shops Hotels and airports just to use my phone.
There are only 25 hotspots in Nova Scotia. All but 5 are in Halifax, and the 5 that aren't are in UPS Stores. What a treat... standing around like a dork, in a UPS Store, watching YouTube ;-)
Although I agree with you regarding voice, I have a serious concern about data, as well. Just as a test, I opened Safari, loaded the first, second last, and last pages of this thread, opened canada.com and read 3 articles from my local newspaper, went to my email provider and opened 5 emails (with images), went to google.ca and searched for "iPhone Canada" and clicked on the top link from the results. Total data usage? Over 500MB. So, if I had Rogers' least expensive plan, I would already be over by 100MB, or $50. In one day! For the rest of the month, all data would be charged at the overage rate. Even on Rogers' most expensive plan, if I did this minimal amount of browsing daily, my monthly overage would be 9GB, or $4500. People are going to get killed on data overages on the iPhone with Rogers! I really hope everyone signing up for this plan knows what they're in for!
Edit: without several unusually large email attachments, the total only came out to about 10MB. Sorry about that!
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)
Simple. Rogers surmises that if 5% go over, they create a surplus profit by racking up overage fees. And for the time being Rogers places a higher priority on that than they do on developing relationships with the other 95%. They do not see the potential other customers outside of their subscriber base as being influenced by the sort of good will PR that an unlimited plan would bring.
It's a business strategy. Driven by desire to profit, and also by a lack of competition to drive them to PR excellence.
So, when the competition comes, and Rogers starts to become more "customer friendly" you remember all this bull**** they are pulling now and show them the loyalty they deserve.
That is to say, none.
clmason said:
Simple. Rogers surmises that if 5% go over, they create a surplus profit by racking up overage fees. And for the time being Rogers places a higher priority on that than they do on developing relationships with the other 95%. They do not see the potential other customers outside of their subscriber base as being influenced by the sort of good will PR that an unlimited plan would bring.
It's a business strategy. Driven by desire to profit, and also by a lack of competition to drive them to PR excellence.
So, when the competition comes, and Rogers starts to become more "customer friendly" you remember all this bull**** they are pulling now and show them the loyalty they deserve.
That is to say, none.
That doesn't sound right.
I'll start off with the web pages. The canada.com homepage is about 2MB. I'll assume that none of their other pages go over 5MB. From what I can tell without logging in, newspaper articles are about 0.5MB zoomed out and 1 or 2 MB zoomed into a page.
Your emails must have had LOTS of very large images to add up to 500MB.
I'll put the "iPhone Canada" search in the same catagory as checking the online newspaper.
There's absolutely no way that you could have downloaded 500MB in roughly 10 minutes from regular surfing unless you're watching YouTube videos in the high quality setting. If you were using Activity Monitor or iStat Pro to check how much you downloaded, try restarting your computer and run your test again.
If you manage to top 500MB again, give some details about where most of the data is coming from.
There is no way you could have used 500MB on a few mostly text based website pages and 5 e-mails!!
Re-do your test. You will find that you used 5MB instead (at the most) unless the photos in you e-mail were .raw files at a 100MB each.
Ok, so I talked to my Rogers rep on the phone and they said that I was able to do a hardware upgrade. I have never had an iPhone and the Rogers rep said something to me today when I went into the store that really started to freak me out.
I am getting the phone with NO data as Rogers is really hooping us (As we all know) And the Rogers rep asked me how come I am getting an iPhone without a data plan. I explained to her that at my work I have WiFi available and at home as well so there really isn't a huge need for data right at this time. The Rogers rep then told me that WiFi would be disabled for regular use unless it was an authorized Rogers hotspot. Is there any truth to this statement or is the rep as clueless as I am about the phone and what it can do.
FYI, I plan on turning off 3G and EDGE. Is that possible on the new phone in the settings?
Thanks for the help guys.
I am getting the phone with NO data as Rogers is really hooping us (As we all know) And the Rogers rep asked me how come I am getting an iPhone without a data plan. I explained to her that at my work I have WiFi available and at home as well so there really isn't a huge need for data right at this time. The Rogers rep then told me that WiFi would be disabled for regular use unless it was an authorized Rogers hotspot. Is there any truth to this statement or is the rep as clueless as I am about the phone and what it can do.
FYI, I plan on turning off 3G and EDGE. Is that possible on the new phone in the settings?
Thanks for the help guys.
Typical rogers csr stupidy. You won't be able to use wifi in your home or at work? It's funny how people can sell things they have little or no knowledge of.
Just wondering how much do you pay a month? to be able to do a hardware upgrade?
Impossible, for the activity you describe. To move 500 MB in ten minutes, you would be pegging a 6.7 Mbps connection constantly for the entire time. Either your math is borked, or you're downloading a whole lot of other stuff at the same time over a very favourable line.
-b
WiFi is WiFi. I doubt Apple would let them do this...I think the rep is just stupid. How much for a voice plan?
Yes, on checking again, the majority of the data was email with unusually large attachments. Without them, the total was only about 10 MB. I stand corrected (sorry about that).
However, that still is very minimal usage, and does not include any use of MobileMe, which is likely to substantially increase data usage.the voiceplan I am on now was a promo last december. I pay $10 for 250 minutes, 100 text messages and unlim evenings and weekends starting at 7. Plus $10 for call display..etc. I pay $33 a month after tax. So I am eligible for a hardware upgrade for the 8gig at $349 and the 16gig for $449. Not too bad seeing how most unlocked phones on ebay cost around that. Because im stuck with Rogers for another 2 years I may as well get my money's worth with the dirt cheap plan I am paying now and just use WiFi all day.
Where did you find out the upgrade prices? I talked to Rogers yesterday and they had no clue.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The wording on Rogers.com is "If you subscribe to an iPhone Voice & Data Package, then you will have WiFi access to Rogers and Fido Hotspots without incurring additional usage charges while using your iPhone."
If you search at canadianhotspot.ca, it's pretty clear that certain hotspots are run by certain providers... I wouldn't bet on getting free access at a Bell- or Telus-run hotspot. (I should add that even if that's the case, that's not a shortcoming of Rogers' plan -- this offering is probably the positive highlight, IMO).
I'm a little nonplussed by reports of WiFi cutting data usage. It's great for users it works for, but that's not everyone.