“As Canada’s leading wireless carrier, Rogers Wireless is thrilled to bring iPhone 3G to Canadians on Canada’s fastest wireless network,” says John Boynton, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Rogers Wireless. “With iPhone 3G, we’ve had the best weekend sales of a handset in Rogers Wireless history. We want to thank all our customers for their enthusiastic response, as we welcome our new iPhone 3G customers to the fastest and most reliable network in Canada, and we appreciate the loyalty of all our existing customers who upgraded to an iPhone 3G. For our future iPhone 3G customers, tens of thousands of new devices will be in stores from coast to coast no later than tomorrow.”
iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast(*) as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.
Source: Rogers Wireless
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “bc” for the heads up.]
Wow, Rogers could have just sent out a Press Release with the acronym, BOHICA, and be done with it.
B.O.H.I.C.A.
Bend Over Here It Comes Again
Source: Rogers Wireless
nothing to see here folks ….
What would Ampar say. BTW, where is Ampar????
Rogers is terrible. They could not be any less helpfull, more arrogant or stupid really. Their service is the worst I’ve ever dealt with thus far.
Faced with no choice, I have passed on a Rogers iPhone, despite being an Apple fan for 20+ years, on my 9th Mac, 6th iPod…..And buying almost every OS since 8.6 on the day it was available.
Hopefully Rogers prices will improve, I can afford it to be honest, But it makes me still feel to sick to consider spending any more with them………
I’m *starting* to warm up to the idea of getting an iPhone under Rogers high prices, but only because I’ve done the research and the competition isn’t all that better. I would like Rogers to have a shorter upgrade window, though. A year is too long.
Guess what’s changing my mind are the 10,000+ souls that blindly signed up with them over the weekend. Feels like all of my efforts at challenging Rogers pricing have been pointless. They won’t budge with turnouts like that.
So if they sold tens of thousands of iPhones (let’s say that’s conservatively either 10500 or 20000), how many outlets does Rogers have selling iPhones if so many were complaining that stores only had about 15 to 25 units?
Or were some of those complaining just handing out misinformation?
Just so you know, this weekend their.. um.. activation system was down.. prety fsckin pathetic, I just came back from Asia, and wanted to drop a pay as you go SIM cardi into my GSM phone.. needed to wait a day because their ‘computer system’ was down.
what a joke of a company.
One is not limited to the iPhone plans at Rogers.
I simply signed up for a reasonable voice package (starting at $25/mo.) and added the $30 data plan (6gb) and the $15 bundle (text, visual VM, etc.).
Pretty reasonable considering.
I am wonder how Mexico sold more iphones (4th place in the world) whit the crappy expensive plans from telcel. It sells even more phones than rogers…
Rogers press release should have read:
In spite of our best efforts to screw our fellow Canucks who wanted an iPhone, we still sold more iPhones than we had any right to. Is Canada a great country of what!
@mark
I would think that since it’s in Rogers best interests to lie about the launch, that this whole article is a bit of a puff piece and likely not even true.
I would believe the reports of people on the ground in the stores (that service was terrible, prices high and supply extremely limited), before I would believe a self-serving press release from one of the most evil corporations in Canada.
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@84 Mac Guy, you got that right.
I would like to see a breakdown of the plans they sold with those iPhones (How many suckers took the original iPhone Plan and how many created there own plan with the new $30 6GB data).
I have call ed around my area and all the stores still have the 8GB iPhone no one has the 16GB, as I will be stuck with the Phone and Plan for 3 year I want the most storage I can get.
Yes I have my Rogers Petroleum Jelly ready.
Rogers has over 500+ outlets in the Greater Toronto area alone.. That includes Rogers Wireless, Rogers Plus, Rogers Video, Telephone Booth and WIreless Wave which all sell phones… Imagine, how many outlets they have across Canada… That is why some stores got 5 to 25 to 500 phones… BECAUSE TOO MANY STORES HAD TO SELL IT! They wanted to get it across to as many people but DIDNT have the SUPPLY for the DEMAND 🙁
Rogers can go and fsck themselves.
It was available on Sunday when I went there. Very few in the store… a few people playing with it.
I got a 16GB black Friday night around 7.30PM. Like Barry, I signed for 350 minutes ($20.00), 6GB Data ($30.00), + the $15 package. Not too bad. It took all of 20 minutes between the time I came in and the time I came out with my iPhone working. The 2 sales persons there were super, super nice. I’m very satisfied.
Just think how many they would have sold if their updated plan was the first one they released and the term was for 2 years!
Rogers could have ordered enough iPhones, but they didn’t “get it” In fact they still don’t “get it”.
The iPhone is unlike anything they have ever sold.
The staff are under-prepared, ill-educated, and completely unaware.
But I’m not bitter!!
I had great service from Rogers. After watching them try very hard to connect to Apple’s servers which were down throughout the world (read: Not Rogers’ fault) on Friday I came to my senses.
The iphone is here to stay, and it will be here on Saturday and the next week as well. That said I wanted something to play with so went out and downloaded the ipod touch version of the software 2.0 update and played with that, and the applications I had bought the day before.
Saturday at 9:30 when they opened the store I walked in and bought an iphone within twenty minutes. I chose the $30 upgrade package and am happier than a <strike>politician</strike> in Edmonton.
The guy at the counter was very helpful in choosing the plan and setting things up. I also discovered the reason they had limited stock was that someone broke in the night before the opening and stole a great deal of their multi-function machine inventory (all brands). Something which may have happened at a number of stores.
All in all, I never once saw their frustration during the grand opening express itself to their customers, and they had the stock on the next day when I wanted it. I’ve also had some good things happen at Rogers since discovering their Retention Line instead of relying on their not-so-effective customer service line.
@Viktor
“I am wonder how Mexico sold more iphones (4th place in the world) whit the crappy expensive plans from telcel. It sells even more phones than rogers”
That is an easy one Viktor:
Canada total population: 33 million,
Mexico has around 107 Millon, half are poor, the other half is NOT, so that is more than 53 millon people, i.e. almost twice the population of Canada ! (assuming there are no poor people in Canada)
Basic plan w/o data, 45 USD, with 400 US minutes (200 mexican minutes) 100 SMS, 100 MB (yes thats what I meant by no data).
Biggest day ever??? Canada has the lowest cell phone penetration in the developed world and it has everything to do with Rogers outrageous phone and data plans.
Rogers iPhone sales suck. Look,, the USA is only 10 times the Canadian population and they have had the iPhone for a year already.
10 times the population
40 times more sales of iPhones.
Rogers is loosing money,,, their stock should TANK.
At the moment there are no “plans for corporate clients, ie. you have to cancel your corporate account in order to get the $200 entry point for the iPhone, other than that you will have to pay full price. $600-$700.
I guess I will have to wait until Apple and Rogers have come to an agreement regarding this segment.
I received my iphone from Rogers via the mail last Monday.
It took 11 phone calls to get my voice mail activated!
Not a joke!
They are complete idiots! Dropped calls well trying to get through… one lady said ” it’s all hooked up” and then I get the run around after a few more calls after figuring out it was not “all hooked up”
She forgot to press enter after taking all my info!
I ended up getting three free months of local minutes and a 50.00 rebate.
After spending around 12 hours with Rogers on the phone I can truly say they SUCK!