Share everything plans are a great idea as long as you have enough of everything to share and at a reasonable monthly rate. Talk and text are generally unlimited so there is no problem there, but what about data – those carriers love to be stingy with their data…they treat it like gold. If their network has the bandwidth then they want you to pay out the big bucks for data, but most networks have done away with unlimited data and want to fit you in a shared plan.
Rogers has many different share everything plans, starting with only 500MB of data for $80 with one smartphone. Their latest plan goes all out with 30GB of data for as low as $240 if you bring your own device or use a $50 Smart Pick or $250 if you purchase a new phone. Rogers said in a statement that the plan is perfect for “heavy data users who enjoy on-demand video and other content on their devices, [or] large families or groups of friends and roommates with several smartphones and tablets.”
As smartphone use grows beyond making basic phone calls and texting, the use of data is increasing at a tremendous rate – screens are larger so we are doing more web browsing, video watching, movie and TV downloads, book reading, and playing online games. One of the fastest growing usage of data is sports – watching the NFL in the U.S. and Hockey in Canada. Even the ESPN Sports Apps are getting a lot of use with video clips and sports talk shows, not to mention Gamecast where you can ‘watch’ just about any sport in real-time. Those types of activities eat up our data, especially if you are not near a place with Wi-Fi. Roger knows a couple things – one that video watching has increased more than 700-percent between 2011 and 2013 – second, Canadians average use of data is higher than most other countries – and third, they just bought the NHL hockey rights for the next 12 years and they would like you to buy a package to watch them…using data, of course.
This is still much more expensive than we pay in the U.S. – let’s say the plan starts at $240, but that is only for ONE device, once you start adding more phones even at the $50 rate for a family of four, you are looking at $390 a month! Please hit us up on our Google+ Page and let us know what you think of Rogers’ new 30GB offer…as always, we would love to hear from you.