Rogers serves up North America's first video calling service
With the introduction of the video call capable A706 this week, Rogers is now about to bust the doors wide open with the first North American video calling service. To celebrate the launch, we hear Rogers is going to be offering some crazy incentives to get the ball rolling. The word is that by just picking up the handset on a three year contract and tacking on a inexpensive Vision plan -- as little as $5 CDN a month -- you will get three years of unlimited video calling, three months of unlimited Video on Demand, and three months of unlimited Internet access. Also in there is Rogers' VOD service which will see you watching MTV, YouTube, Sportsnet, MTV, Access Hollywood, Tonight show, CNN and more. Since that is hardly enough, Canada's 3G provider is including 25 XM channels with 5 of them exclusive to Rogers Wireless. All of this falls into the too good to be true category, so we will hold our collective breath and wait to see what's what, but know that we are seriously hoping some of Rogers altruism rubs off down here.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Samsung, Rogers Wireless, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
person4 @ Mar 30th 2007 9:33AM
What "altruism?" TV on your phone? Why not get one of those 70s LCD TVs? I don't understand why anyone wants this, when you could have the actual internet and freedom to access what you want, not some schmaltzy canned collection of bad radio and TV you can't get away from anyway.
Video calling and internet for three whole months? You already have decent wireless Internet plans in the US, we're still waiting.
Does the video calling work with anything other than other trapped phones? Could you use it to call someone on a PC? Do we need more proprietary video phones?
Considering they want to talk people into a three year plan, details are amazingly sketchy. Does the phone really include a memory card option? Or are you stuck downloading 13MB at a time "exclusively" from Rogers?
This looks like another proprietary trap to me, Rogers and Samsung's version of the iPhone, in a cheesy locked in way.
Give me real internet, a real mobile handheld computer, or give me... a 5 year old basic phone!
Donald @ Mar 30th 2007 10:04AM
The phone's essentially the same as the Samsung Sync/A707, so you don't just have to download.
pierre le coq @ Jul 27th 2007 11:42AM
Bonjour
je voudrais commander vos produits.
je suis bas en cote d'ivoire en afrique.
je voudrais savoir si vous faites de la vente par correspondance et vous faites l'exprt de vos marchandises par UPS et FEDEX.
je voudrais savoir si vous acceptez les cartes de credit comme
moyen de paiement.
Dans l'attente de votre reponse
Cordialement
Mr pierre
Hello
I would like to order your products. I am based in ivory Coast in Africa.
I would like to know if you make mail order trading and you make the exprt your goods by UPS and FEDEX.
I would like to know if you accept the credit cards like means of payment. In waiting of your answer
Cordially
Mr pierre
Nicholas Niksic @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:01AM
Nicholas Niksic, Windsor ON Canada
Does the Cingular/ATT North America Cell Phone Plan still exist?
Are there any other Cell Phone Companies that offer North America Cell Phone Plans?
Cingular/ATT, Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile in the US
and
Telus/Mike, Rogers or Bell in Canada?
And what are their Rates?
Right now I am with Telus/Mike* (iden Network) and I pay after all fees and taxes $60/m (CDN) for
- 350 Daytime Minutes
- Unlimited Evening and Weekends - 6pm start
- Unlimited Free Incoming Calls
- VoiceMail, Call ID, Call Waiting, 3way Calling, Call Forwarding 3000 mins - all included
* This just covers my local call area in Windsor, Surrounding Area and Metro Detroit. Area Codes
519,226 in Canada, 313,248,586,810,734 in USA
Is there similar plan out there that covers North America?
(specifically Canada and USA - No Roaming and No Long Distance, while Making or Receiving calls from Either Country)
Preference Network would be GSM
Preference Price* would be $60-$150 *on the North America Plan (Canada and USA)
Preference Features would be similar to what I got right now with Telus/Mike
Are there any Cell Plans Out There? What are the Monthly Prices?...For people who need North America Cell Phone Service in Canada and the USA without paying outrageous roaming or long distance costs and/or resorting to phone cards or prepaid throw-away phones?
Thank-you
Nicholas Niksic, Windsor ON Canada
person4 @ Mar 30th 2007 10:21AM
Donald, that provides more info except often features are removed for particular markets, so ultimately we're still in the dark. And people who simply want to buy a leading edge device and use it on a GSM network with Internet are still stuck.
BTW, I got video calling / video on demand terms backward. But what future is there in this implementation of video calling? I guess they expect me to talk everyone I know into switching to Rogers. Hah.
M_Nemesis @ Mar 30th 2007 12:35PM
Let's make something clear up here in the Great White North...There are really only 2-3 cell phone carriers up here...COMPETITION...We wish...We get raped on plans, long distance, and get the shits for phones...Altruism...I doubt it. Canada is highly regulated...It was just this month that we finally got number portability. You don't want our polar bears and maple syrup, you will certainly not want our cell phone plans.
-M.
TJ @ Mar 30th 2007 3:16PM
Agree with M_Nemesis
Specially the Data plans!!!!
Digitalosh @ Mar 30th 2007 3:51PM
M_Nemesis, you are looking at this the wrong way. Having worked for Bell, I know that there is certainly a great deal of competition in this market. The catch is that it is in THIS market, not the US market. Yes, we do get raped for plans... even if you look at some of the provincial carriers, they are doing a far better job than the big 3... E.G. SaskTel's christmas promo: 150 daytime minutes, free evenings and weekends starting at 6PM-7AM, free calling to other sasktel customers (which is 85% of the Saskatchewan cellular market right now, and is expected to increase now that there is wireless number portability) free voicemail and 100 free text messages, all for a flat fee of 20 bucks. Thats nigh unbeatable by the big 3... But the big 3 only compete with eachother. And that's how it will likely stay
M_Nemesis @ Mar 30th 2007 6:53PM
Digitalosh,
You must live in a cave!!! I got friends in the states that have unlimited long-distance to all of North America and a great data plans. It's no wonder everyone down there can check their e-mails without selling their souls, unlike over here where you start checking a few movies and a little bit of weather, you’re running a pretty hefty bill. Don’t start even start with Bell, those guys are basically mooching off Telus, if Telus ever decided to pull the plug, Bell would be on it’s knees. We all know that Rogers owns Fido, and that Virgin just buys massive amounts of minutes from Telus (Again if they were to ever pull the plug, Virgin would be dead)…I smell Oligopoly. Don’t even get started on the rates they get in Europe or Asia. I picked up a sim card down in China and got cheaper long-distance to Canada than I would in Canada…Go figure. THANKS CANADA!!!
-M.
Jamar @ Mar 31st 2007 12:19PM
Exactly- China is so much cheaper than the rest of the world (for $6 per month I can get 450 minutes free, but no night/weekend). This is the country where I can also pick up a SE K790 free with a $50/month 2-year contract (you know what a K790/K800 is, right- the first Cybershot phone) that also gives a boatload of minutes.
Nick Niksic @ Apr 22nd 2007 5:44PM
Nick Niksic, Windsor ON Canada
Does the Cingular/ATT North America Cell Phone Plan still exist?
Are there any other Cell Phone Companies that offer North America Cell Phone Plans?
Cingular/ATT, Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile in the US
and
Telus/Mike, Rogers or Bell in Canada?
And what are their Rates?
Right now I am with Telus/Mike* (iden Network) and I pay after all fees and taxes $60/m (CDN) for
- 350 Daytime Minutes
- Unlimited Evening and Weekends - 6pm start
- Unlimited Free Incoming Calls
- VoiceMail, Call ID, Call Waiting, 3way Calling, Call Forwarding 3000 mins - all included
* This just covers my local call area in Windsor, Surrounding Area and Metro Detroit. Area Codes
519,226 in Canada, 313,248,586,810,734 in USA
Is there similar plan out there that covers North America?
(specifically Canada and USA - No Roaming and No Long Distance, while Making or Receiving calls from Either Country)
Preference Network would be GSM
Preference Price* would be $60-$150 *on the North America Plan (Canada and USA)
Preference Features would be similar to what I got right now with Telus/Mike
Are there any Cell Plans Out There? What are the Monthly Prices?...For people who need North America Cell Phone Service in Canada and the USA without paying outrageous roaming or long distance costs and/or resorting to phone cards or prepaid throw-away phones?
Thank-you
Nick Niksic, Windsor ON Canada
shaheem @ Jun 25th 2007 10:07AM
I have heard thru a friend that T Mobile has a North American Data plan for Blackberry unlimited data plan.
$29.99 USD Unlimited e-mail
$19.99 USD BlackBerry Unlimited International E-mail.
Make the world a little smaller. Send and receive unlimited e-mail while you travel for one low monthly fee. You must be using a carrier that provides GPRS Internet service to send or receive e-mail. Voice calls are billed at standard international rates.
Includes 300 domestic text/instant messages
Unlimited Web browsing
Voice calls at $0.20 per minute, including nationwide long distance and roaming
Let us if this works for Canadian residents.
Lane2 @ Sep 28th 2007 9:15PM
Everyone is in the dark. Search and compare t-mobile in UK to T-mobile in US. We (in the US) are about 3 years behind. it's been two years since video calling (video talk) was released in UK and we are still not even talking about it. Think it has something to do with our "big brother" society, maybe they are afriad of let us have a tool like video talk, imagine what they couldn't cover up.