they’re designed not for the convenience of the customer, but for the benefit of Rogers to charge you for 1 or 2 “essentials” you really need. but individually they’re so outrageously priced (for something that should be standard) that you feel inclined to buy the bundle with 3 or 4 other useless features. (Caller RingTrax, anyone?)

actually, you can buy Caller Display separately, without the Profit Pack. That’s a “wireless essential” aka a feature that should be standard. others would be voicemail, extra text messaging, etc.
by itself, Caller Display is $7 (they do the same for all other plans). Rogers has recently confirmed you don’t have to buy one of the 2 mentioned Profit Packs with the iPhone 3G, you can buy the essentials a la carte. How generous of them!

it reminds me in a way of how Air Canada tries to put a positive spin on the fact that you have to buy snacks and meals on some flights – “look at the great selection and convenience we’re offering you, see our Popular and Innovative Menu!”. I can’t wait to see how they decide to tell us they’re doing us a favour by charging for checked baggage…

The majority of the population lives within 100km of the US border – so Canada is actually more like Chile tipped on its side. There are, from the perspective of population, only really a handful of significantly populated Canada metropolitan areas (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec).

It is folly to argue that it’s more expensive for Rogers because they have to service all of Canada, which has a smaller population. Nobody said they needed to service middle-of-nowhere-ville, did they?

That said, sure, there is reason to believe it will be somewhat more expensive; however, the extent of the expense seems out of line. That’s not limited to the iPhone cell phone plan – everything seems to be unjustifiably more expensive here, and everyone just accepts it.

http://www.fuckyourogers.com/