“The company is asking some customers how they would react to a feature, tentatively called the Data Priority Service, that would prioritize a subscriber’s data packets over others for a monthly fee,” Electronista reports. “It would help guarantee important or real-time data that would otherwise be choked off, the company said.”
Electronista reports, “The plan isn’t certain to appear at all and doesn’t have definite details were it to come into being, although Rogers has floated charging up to $10 for the privilege, according to those who have been asked.”
Read more in the full article here.
so if everybody agrees to pay the fee, then what?
What the hell, now what. Charge me to charge the phone at the end of the day. Give us a break ROGERS!!! Your already charging us WAY to much now for so so access. Back off!
That’s bullshit. Phone plans are already expensive enough. This is just a way for them to use the “we offer a more quality service option” excuse when people call in about the shitty service they receive now. How about fixing what’s wrong now instead of asking for even more money. I wonder how long it’ll be before a U.S. carrier decides to try and follow suit.
… and there I thought all customers were kings, but it seems some kings are more royal than other kings …
Only Rogers would attempt to float this lead balloon.
Hey Rogers, here is a better idea. When you service starts to suck, don’t charge customers for data service since you can’t deliver it anyway.
3 years.
That’s the length of the contracts Canadian carriers force customers to have if they go subsidized. Population density is a bullshit defence since Australia’s is even lower yet 2 years is the max.
So, Rogers/Fido is already raping us with the highest cell and data rates in the world, data service which sucked balls about a month ago (switching to EDGE was faster!!), dead zones in the middle of downtown freaking Toronto… and now they want us to fork over even MORE just to maintain a reasonable level of service!!!??
Tell you what what I think, Rogers–my cable and internet are contract-free for a reason. You degrade my phone service further, and those are history.
If a carrier was able to offer good service they would not have to lock you in, the very fact that they lock you in with no guarantees of any service I have actually had them tell me “it works sometimes”, I asked if it was OK if I paid the bill “sometimes” guess the answer, If you got good service you would stay with the provider, with the customer locked in for 3 years they have no incentive whatsoever to provide anything beyond “sometimes”.
Can you tell I am not happy with Rogers?
Have a great Thanksgiving,
and this will mean nothing to you but..
Go Riders Go!
Jeff
well, there’s a reason they’re (un)affectionately nicknamed “ROBBERS” here in Canada…
And this is why we need net neutrality.
Another example of separation of classes in society; like “Lexus lanes” where rich can pay to drive in carpool lane
That company has to be the absolutely worst on the planet! Thank God I don’t live in Canada! I feel sorry for you Canucks. Do they have a monopoly or something?
I’m happy with the quality of my data over Rogers. Haven’t had a single problem, unless I stop paying my bill, then they treat me like the biggest thorn in their site.
What really gets me is that price for a 3-year contract is the SAME with our without a new phone!!! I brought my own fully-owned iPhone to Rogers and get billed the same fee as someone that walks out with a new phone… I call that highway robbery.
What’s really sick is a other countries like South Korea have Internet speeds 3-5 times faster than most Americans.
Yep, South Korea with a average 40 mb/s dl speeds compared to 56k dial-up still used in lots of places in our country.
Americans need jobs, roll out some fiber optic’s for crying out loud.
Oh, no leadership from the present White House…
Where’s another JFK when you need him?
Rogers no longer has a monopoly, but the “big 3” (Rogers, Telus, Bell) all have 3-year contracts. On the plus side, sweet-deal packages like my “6GB data for $30” is locked in for 3 years instead of 2.
What a joke Rogers. You will lose me to another carrier then. It’s pretty simple.
So Rogers is effectively saying,
“When our service sucks, we’ll just charge you to get it back to the way you’d like it.” or
“We don’t plan on improving our network, just giving our CEOs priority to it when its overloaded.”
“We know you like it in the rear, so please assume the bent over position.”
U.S. carriers aleady do a form of this. Late last summer, ATT began recompressing live, MLB.com video of games. The games became unwatchable on the 3G network. They just didn’t offer a replacemen alternative…
@Penolope, bingo. Can’t believe all the idiots around who go all nuts about government interference and regulation, well Canada’s telecom situation is exactly the way it is (and looks to get worse shortly) because of an utter lack of it. The CRTC has no teeth, and the rare times it does use them it’s usually against consumers!
Cubert
“Thank God I don’t live in Canada!”
Don’t you live in Philly? Just saying.
This is why I’m going to buy an unlocked iPhone 4 so that I don’t have to be tied to Rogers any more
I think a class action suit against Rogers for lack of data quality is the correct response.
They have to do this they are in the process of getting a $10,000,000 fine for false or misleading advertising. So as a customer, the government is actualy giving me a fine. They shoul fine the CEO and put in a stipulation that the company can not pay or reimburse him. Then you might see things change.
The JOY of being on the Rogers Network,
http://postimage.org/image/alzw1f38/
(A screenshot of my iPhone showing my daily headeache with Rogers. I can’t load macdailynews in under a minute. Notice a full 5 bars on EDGE. Your speed: Dial Up!)
My Rogers email has been off line many days in the last little while (two or three weeks). No excuse. No apology.
I have spent days unable to send email from my account.
And to make matters worse, my @me account and my private, non-Rogers account must send their emails through the Rogers SMTP servers so none of my emails were getting out. Soooooo Frustrating!