Do you feel special?
I have lots of disposable income and can afford these plans any day. But that's not the point. The point is I'm not getting value for what I'm paying. Would you go into one of those 5-star hotels that cost twice as much but has twice the negative reviews as the 5-star hotel beside it? I wouldn't. If you would, well then...I have nothing else to say.
Maybe you should stop trumping people with your self-proclaimed wealth.
I don't feel special. Do you?
There is nothing wrong with wanting a good deal but did you notice that the Canadian market is a lot smaller than the US and yet GSM providers have to cover about the same amount of area? When I looked at what the price of data plans where with Rogers before the iPhone plans were announced and compared them to what they are offering now I can see a huge difference. We basically have price parity with AT&T if not data limit parity now compared to what it was a year ago.
I never expected price parity given how small the market is here and the only problem I have with the plans are the weekday minutes, incoming calls and outgoing text. The data cap is not an issue for me given that I can access the hotspots around my city and where I travel on business and because I do not plan on watching streamed video often on 3G.
When I travel on the company, I try to remain frugal but when I travel for pleasure, I have decided that I will get the best accommodation and travel arrangement at the cheapest price possible. Ultimately, I have to balance what I can reasonably afford with quality. Going with a 5 star hotel in foreign locales is not matter of being snobby but based on experience with the star system in Europe and Mexico where a 3 star hotel or resort abroad is often below a 1 star hotel in North America.
I was accidentally was booked into a 3 star all inclusive resort in Cancun by my travel agent when I had paid for a 4-5 star all inclusive and guess what? During my one night stay in the wrong hotel, I had to use my hand to unclog the toliet after taking a dump (room was on the ground floor), there was no phone in the room and the phone booth by the road was broken and no air conditioning.
The same thing applies with phones. I started out on the Telus mobility network with a "brick" motorola flip phone which probably weighed the equivalent of five iPhones. I also tried out Fido before going with Rogers several years ago before Fido was bought out by Rogers.
I had a Nokia phone with WAP from Fido, Moto V60 from Rogers, a Samsung Slider phone and now Krzr from Rogers. All of those phones had WAP internet and only the Samsung did not have MP3 ringtones locked out by Rogers.
The iPhone is what I want and the plans are what I would consider reasonable with a few tweaks considering the size of the Canadian market.
But I have to reiterate that the "iPhone" is what I'm interested in because it is the first network locked phone that is not software or feature locked by the telcos.