Rogers used to offer two annual prepaid packages. One had unlimited texting and 100 minutes, and the other included unlimited evening and weekend calling plus 100 daytime minutes. Both were priced at $100 per year, but you had to choose which unlimited service to do without.
No longer do you have to make that choice. Rogers has retired both of its previous pay-by-the-year offerings and recently replaced them with a new “Unlimited Pay As You Go” plan that offers both unlimited texting and unlimited evening and weekend calling for $120 per year. The daytime minutes have dropped to 50, but otherwise, the new plan includes everything from previous packages.
As usual, the devil is in the details. The minutes are local-only, so you’ll have to watch for dialing long distance numbers. The texting is SMS-only so picture and video messages are not included. In addition, the unlimited evenings begin at 6pm. And forget about paying monthly, you’ll have to pay up-front for the entire year.
However, at the equivalent of $10 a month, that’s much cheaper than other talk-and-text options on the market. Text-only packages typically start at $15 per month, and talk-and-text packages are usually $25 and up.
What happens if you run out of your allotment of 50 daytime minutes? Extra minutes are charged at a staggering 1995 rate of $0.50 each. As always, careful consideration of your expected usage in advance of signing up is key to making sure this is a true savings or not.
It’s possible to add mobile data to the plan at a variety of rates, ranging from $1 for 10MB for a day, to $50 for 2GB for a month. There are better deals out there for people who plan to use mobile data every month, but the option is there for someone who anticipates occasionally needing mobile data.
While this plan is not going to be meet the needs of everyone, there are probably some with light mobile usage who could benefit from it. I can see some parents putting their younger kids on it, and I can see some Canadians who’ve resisted bearing the expense of a mobile device finding this cheap enough to finally take the plunge.
[source] Rogers [source]
