“Any” doesn’t mean any

Just like “unlimited” really means subject to limits, the marketing guys at Rogers seem to communicate that “any” doesn’t mean any.

Any tier

Yesterday, I got an ad in the mail from them for their digital cable service, offering a free HD receiver. On the reverse side of the ad, it says that I can sign up for “any tier” of their high speed Internet or phone service to get an HD personal video recorder for free.

Apparently, the fine print specifies that “any tier” really means “Rogers Hi-Speed Internet Lite and above”, which excludes the Ultra-Lite tier valued at $27.99/month.

I don’t think I’m the only one who would find this a little bit misleading.

While it doesn’t really look good on paper to say “sign up for Lite or above” in the big bullet, it would be a lot more honest than defining “any tier” as “not any tier but this one and above”.

And while I would certainly die of broadband withdrawal if I had the Ultra-Lite package, I still think there are people who will probably sign up for the cheapest tier and discover that they do not, in fact, get a free HD PVR.

Here’s the entire scan; click on the image to view in full size.

(As of more than a year ago, I no longer use Rogers cable Internet because there’s something cheaper out there.)

What are the tiers?

On a semi-related note, Rogers seems to be doing a great job at market segmentation. Instead of providing consumers with economical plans comparable to those in France (20-30Mbps connections, VoIP service, and HDTV with a DVR included for just $45 a month), Rogers Communications has decided to split a service as important as cable Internet into… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 different plans.

1. Ultra-lite @ $27.99/month; 500 kbps down, 2 GB limit
2. Lite @ $35.99/month; 3 Mbps down, 25 GB limit
3. Express @ $46.99/month; 10 Mbps down, 60 GB limit
   This used to be the highest plan back when it was only 5 Mbps.
4. Extreme @ $59.99/month; 10 Mbps down, 95 GB limit
   This means $13 extra for 35 GB of transfer.
5. (new) Extreme Plus @ $69.99/month; 25 Mbps down, 125 GB limit
6. (new) Ultimate @ $99.99/month; 50 Mbps down, 175 GB limit

(all plan information current as of April 7, 2010)

Theoretically, creating these tiers of service maximizes revenue by differentiating between groups of consumers with dissimilar willingness to pay for Internet. (There’s also a supposed benefit to charging more for faster speeds and more bandwidth: curb torrenting and illegal file sharing. That’s a more reasonable justification.)

In reality, it just makes consumers jealous of users who can afford $100/month Internet. In addition, I’m rather wary of a company that has the capability to offer faster speeds overall to match the top countries (South Korea has average broadband of 14.6 Mbps, and Japan has an average of 7.9 Mbps), but which suppresses broadband for its corporate gain at the cost of consumer benefit.

This is probably one of many reasons why consumers, particularly Canadian iPhone users (albeit not for cable Internet), despise Rogers. It plays like it dominates the market. After all, broadband Internet in Canada is an oligopoly; Bell, Rogers, and Shaw are essentially the only big players in the market (and Shaw isn’t even available here). We don’t have much choice.

My conclusion

My personal perspective of Rogers, from a consumer view, is that they don’t deserve most of our business.