iPhone unlocked, operating on Rogers Wireless in Canada [Update 3]

[Update 3] Well, that didn’t take long. Two days after we bought our iPhones, I was able to find an online reseller who was providing the iPhoneSimFree unlock service without any delays. We went with FreeOuriPhones.com, a European reseller who was listed as an iPhoneSimFree authorized reseller. Within minutes of sending off my PayPal payment of $59.99US, including my iPhone’s IMEI number in the PayPal notes, I received an email back with a link to the iPhoneSimFree software and instructions for installing and performing the unlock. The email catered to Windows users, but the reseller was quite helpful when I asked Mac specific questions, responding to my emails within minutes each time.

As stated on many other blogs already, the process requires you to have already jailbreaked (jailbroken?) and activated your iPhone. I recommend using iNdependence version 1.2 (or newer) to accomplish this, as well as updating the firmware of the iPhone to the latest 1.0.2 version. Then you copy the SimFree application to your iPhone’s /Applications folder using whatever method you prefer (iNdependence offers this functionality, but I used SFTP myself), install your new SIM card, run the SimFree app and press the Apple logo that appears on the screen. The actual unlocking process takes 2-3 minutes, and the software keeps you informed of it’s process quite nicely. Once it’s done, it will inform you that your phone was unlocked successfully, but you’ll have to re-activate your new SIM card using iNdependence before you can start using it.

Once you’ve done all of that, you will be able to make and receive calls, send/receive text messages, and even use EDGE internet access, once you’ve entered your carrier’s specific APN server, username and password in the appropriate fields under Settings–>General–>Network–>EDGE. For Rogers, these are:

APN: internet.com
Username: wapuser1
Password: wap

Also note that you may have to upgrade your SIM card, if it’s an older one. Rogers recommended a SIM card version of 8930 2720 4000 or greater. If you have problems, check to see if your SIM is an older one.

So what doesn’t work? Visual voicemail, which is an AT&T specific feature, but you do get standard voicemail notifications, and tapping the voicemail icon on the Phone screen will automatically call your provider’s voicemail number. The YouTube app also doesn’t work, which is a known issue for which there is apparently a workaround. Otherwise, it’s functioning as one would expect, and functioning well. A word of caution to Rogers customers though: Rogers data rates are VERY expensive. These are the rates I was quoted by Rogers on the phone:

Rogers Mobile Internet Data Plans:
$5/month for 5MB combined upload and download, 3¢/KB thereafter
$10/month for 10MB combined upload and download, 3¢/KB thereafter

Rogers MyMail Email Data Plans:
$15/month for 1.5MB combined upload and download, $21/MB prorated thereafter
$25/month for 3MB combined upload and download, $10/MB prorated thereafter
$40/month for 7MB combined upload and download, $6/MB prorated thereafter
$60/month for 25MB combined upload and download, $7/MB prorated thereafter
$100/month for 200MB combined upload and download, $5/MB prorated thereafter
$210/month for 500MB combined upload and download, $5/MB prorated thereafter

To give you an idea of how much data certain features use, I checked the weather for 4 cities using the Weather widget, and updating the Stocks widget for 5 stocks used up 14KB of combined data (5KB upload and 9KB download). Not too bad, then I loaded two web pages, one from a forum post on ehmac.ca, and then the home page of the Art Of Geek blog. The usage jumped to 347KB (29KB upload and 318KB download). I signed up for the $10/10MB Mobile Internet plan, which appear to be the best value, provided you don’t go over your limit in a month since each extra MB will cost you $30. Ouch! Checking and receiving about 40 emails added another couple hundred KB to the usage, most likely because the iPhone has a full mail client which downloads all the new emails rather than just mail headers like some other smart-phones do. It’s clear that Apple intends users to have an unlimited data plan like that offered by AT&T, as they haven’t gifted iPhone with many features to help the user limit data use such as only downloading headers in Mail, or disabling the loading of images on web pages in Safari. So anyone planning on using an iPhone on Rogers in Canada should be conscious about what features they’re using and whether they are connected to EDGE or a free WiFi network.

I was fully aware of these issues when I decided to buy the iPhone, and had it not had WiFi built-in, this would have been a deal-breaker for me. But all this isn’t new to anyone who has an internet enabled smart-phone in Canada. I had the same issues to contend with on my previous mobile phone, a Nokia E61, which also had WiFi. But the iPhone’s larger, higher resolution screen, and far superior desktop-like web browser, email and Google Maps clients make the iPhone a far more useful and capable mobile internet device than the Nokia E61, which was considerably slower and woefully underpowered, occasionally unable to load certain web pages due to lack of memory. In contrast, the iPhone loads full emails with inline images and browses complex web pages very efficiently, even over the Rogers EDGE network.

I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more iPhones roaming the streets of Canadian cities in the weeks to come. The Rogers rep I spoke to on the phone said I was the third person he had spoken to this morning. This is likely to grow since Apple slashed the price by a third and affordable software unlocking becomes widely publicized. In fact, just today, news broke about a free software unlock solution having been released, available here. I knew it was only a matter of time before this would happen, but certainly didn’t expect it just a day or two after the iPhoneSimFree solution was released. Had I known, I could have saved the $64CDN I paid to have my phone unlocked. Thus is the price of early adoption, and it’s a price that I was not only fully prepared to pay, but in my opinion, was worth every penny.

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Update 1 – 9/16/2007, 12:01 am: added the $100 and $210 Rogers data plans to the list of plans. Thanks to DataGridDotRedraw for providing the info.

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Update 2 – 9/16/2007, 6:33 pm: added the $5 and $10 Rogers “Mobile Internet” plans to the list and updated the article to indicate I’ve signed up for the $10/10MB plan.

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Update 3 – 10/4/2007, 11:10 pm: I’ve been reading on the ehMac forums that Rogers has a $65/1GB data package which was originally intended for PC Card cellular modems but is being offered to iPhone customers. This is the first package that seems somewhat realistic if you want to use the iPhone’s capabilities to it’s fullest. I’m tempted, but just can’t justify spending that much just for mobile data. When added to a voice plan, that would push my monthly cell phone bill over $100. If/when it drops down to below $40, I’ll probably jump all over it.