Canada was left out in the cold when it came to the first Apple iPhone, but things are finally going to change on July 11th, 2008. On that day, Rogers Wireless and Apple will unleash the iPhone 3G onto the Canadian public. It’s touchtastic. It’s faster than ever. Its accelero-tacular. And it’s also very expensive…well, the plan that is.

The Apple iPhone 3G hardware itself will be quite reasonably priced. If you opt for the smaller 8GB model and latch yourself down to a three-year service agreement with Rogers Wireless, you can get your hands on Apple’s latest toy for just $199. Bump that up to 16GB and it’s only $100 more. It’s pretty hard to find a $200 phone that will do what the iPhone can do.

So what’s the problem? Well, the problem for Canadians is not about the price of the iPhone itself, but more about how much it’s going to cost you to own the thing and keep it on a service plan. The pricing plans revealed by Rogers Wireless late last month are an improvement over how much wireless data used to cost through Rogers, but the pricing is nowhere close to the price for unlimited data through AT&T, Roger’s US Counterpart. What is a Canadian iPhone fan to do?

Rogers Wireless iPhone 3G Monthly Plan Structure

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Rogers Wireless announced its suite of iPhone 3G voice and data plans on June 27, 2008. The smallest plan is still a pricey $60 a month and that doesn’t include something as basic as caller ID, not to mention licensing fees, access fees and taxes. The four iPhone 3G plans are as follows:

• $60/month: 150 daytime minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends, 400MB data, 75 text messages, visual voicemail
• $75/month: 300 daytime minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends, 750MB data, 100 text messages, visual voicemail
• $100/month: 600 daytime minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends, 1GB data, 200 text messages, visual voicemail
• $115/month: 800 daytime minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends, 2GB data, 300 text messages, visual voicemail

For an extra $15 a month, you get Caller ID, WhoCalled, Caller Ring Trax, 2500 text messages, and 2500 call forwarding minutes. For an extra $20 a month, you get much the same, except there are 10000 text messages and 6:00pm early evenings. When you add up the $60 monthly plan with the $15 value pack, system access fee, 911 fee, and taxes, you’re looking at about $100 a month assuming you don’t go over. If you do go over your voice minutes, Rogers is going to charge you $0.35 a minute, more than some prepaid services. If you go over your data plan, they will want $0.50 per megabyte. So if you go over your data allotment, that next music download may cost you $2.00 for roughly a 4 MB song, not including what you paid to purchase it in the first place.

That’s about as cheap as it’s going to get if you want to cover your basics. With only 150 minutes in the plan, you better like your texting and you better not like checking out YouTube videos, or downloading music, or doing all the fun stuff that the iPhone was built for.

Generally speaking, Canadian iPhone owners are getting the short (and expensive) end of the stick when it comes to voice and data plans. The outcry over how much it will cost to own an iPhone in Canada has sparked a huge petition. Ruinediphone.com — previously the less marketable “f***yourogers.com” (I’ll let you fill in the asterisks) — has already gathered over 30,000 signatures from angry Canadians. Will Rogers listen? Will it take 100,000 signatures for Robbers…err…Rogers to take notice?

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