Before Christmas, Rogers was advertising 6 months free on a 2 year family plan. With 2 teenagers who are getting harder and harder to keep track of, maybe it was time to join the 21st century and equip the whole family with cell phones. Well the initial 6 months of “free” service has passed and so it’s time to assess this wonderful deal we got. The bottom line: it sucks—Rogers and Motorola have teamed up in what appears to be an attempt by each to underperform the other. Let’s go step by step through the features of our package.
What did each company say in order to entice us to purchase the phones and sign up for the plan?
Rogers: The flyer offer said you could get a plan with up to 4 phones, $20/month for 100 minutes, weekends and evenings free and for an additional $5, the phones could share the minutes. I feel like the ultimate rube. My first phone bill was nearly $400. It was all the things they didn’t mention in their advertising—$35 connection fee per phone, $5 share alike fee per phone (OK, they mentioned that one), $6.95 connection fee per phone, $.50 911 fee per phone, $20 plan per phone, bandwidth charges for internet connection, email, transfer of photos. I phoned them up and asked: if it’s $20 per phone, what’s free in the first 6 months? The Rogers rep said the phones don’t even operate unless you’re signed up for the minimum plan ($20/month/phone) and so all your calls after the first 100 minutes are free. In other words, nothing is free, and I’m an idiot for believing their deceptive advertising.
Motorola: Just plug the phone into your computer and download photos and videos, upload new ringtones or music. Problem is Rogers distributes the phones but doesn’t carry compatible headphones, memory cards for music, or the software you need in order for your computer to talk to your phone. I had to order the software from motorola, and I couldn’t download it; I had to order it with their special USB cable (I already have half a dozen of the same cables), and pay the shipping and handling as well—another $85 all told. The software is PC only, and installing and using it is less-than-intuitive. My parents would never have managed it, and I suspect that most people just throw up their hands and put up with the pre-installed ring tones. As for the memory cards, they weren’t even available through retail outlets when we purchased the phones, so, again, we haven’t bothered. Why throw good money after bad?
Is convergence really here? This is supposed to be a phone, web browser, text messager, camera (640×480), camcorder, mp3 player. As a phone, well … it works. Connections can be dodgy, but it works a lot of the time. Don’t rely on my comments about this as a web browser. I’m a visual person and primarily interested in a nicely laid-out page with good integration of visual and textual content, so I’m never going to give up my Powerbook for browsing when I’m away from by desktop. Don’t even ask me to browse with a phone. I suppose it works; but why bother? Text messaging? The kids love this feature and (while it was free) used it hundreds of times a week. But there was only one instance when it served any use as a family phone—I was in the library and my daughter sent a message asking if she could go to a friend’s house. As a camera? Compare the two photos below. I took one with my phone and the other on the point-and-shoot settings of my Olympus E-1. I didn’t colour correct either photo. Hmm … wonder which was taken by the phone? If you don’t care about things like colour, contrast and focus, then you’ll be happy with the phone. As for the camcorder feature … don’t even ask. And as for the real attraction (from the kids’ point of view), the phone works as an mp3 player if you don’t mind forking over extra for a memory card. Our family spends most of its time on the Mac side of the universe, so Motorola seems unwieldy next the iPod, and the memory card is limiting by any standard. I would never use or recommend it as an mp3 player.
What about customer support? As the 6 months of “free” service was coming to a close, I went to the Rogers web site; my friendly sales rep had told me I could manage my account from there with the greatest of ease. But each time I clicked the buttons to select a new family plan, the Rogers site tried to sell me a new set of phones. I used my old-fashioned (Bell) phone instead and called customer support. A friendly rep tried to walk me through the web site (treating me like I was some old fart who didn’t know how to click a mouse), and then she hit the same wall. So I made the changes over the phone. I don’t mind transactions by phone, but I do mind being put in a queue for 45 minutes, listening to traffic reports from a city 3,000 miles away.
But what does a cell phone do for us as a people? After I signed up for the Rogers plan, I noticed something interesting when I rode the subway through a part of town not noted for its disposable income. As we came up out of the the tunnel and boarded the buses, virtually each one of us pulled out a cell phone and started half a conversation. I looked around me, stunned. Surely not all these people can afford a full-featured cell phone plan. (I was still reeling from my first invoice and the additional monthly expenses I had just agreed to assume.) Surely not all these people have such pressing business that they must, at this very minute, pull out their cell phones and speak to their brokers or their business associates or their legal advisers. I remember reading how, when cell phones were first marketed for personal use, many people carried fake cell phones or only pretended to speak on their phones. This is still true in countries where the majority of people cannot afford cell phones for personal use. The sociologist, Anders Persson, describes this as a “given off” expression of impression management. Such people function like actors on a stage, acutely aware of their audience. But here in Toronto, and in most of the west, where public cell phone use is now the rule rather than the exception, impression management is confined to youth. To my kids, the simple fact of being observed talking on a cell phone remains an essential badge of social acceptance. But for most adults, what matters most is the manner of the call one purports to be making. It is not enough to carry on a cell phone conversation; one must carry on an important cell phone conversation. In addition, Persson sees the cell phone as an involvement shield.
I’ve enjoyed my brief flirtation with the cell phone, but I have a much better device for impression management, a far superior involvement shield. I’ve decided to revert to my old-fashioned method. I’ll just read a good book. Books make me look smarter than I am, and they have the added benefit of exercising my grey matter no matter how smart I really am.
Update (2019): After 13 years, we are still on a Rogers family plan (despite the fact that my children are now adults). I use an Apple iPhone 6S. I shoot with a Canon 5DS. My expectations for photographic equipment have far outstripped anything a cell phone can (or ever will) deliver.