Rogers announces plans for budget-minded 'Chatr' wireless brand
By Donald Melanson 
posted July 2nd 2010 6:38PM
posted July 2nd 2010 6:38PM
Well, it looks like Canadians will soon have yet another discount wireless brand to consider -- Rogers has just officially announced plans to launch a new budget-minded "Chatr" brand to compete with the likes of Wind, Mobilicity and Public Mobile. Yes, that's the same Rogers that already has the Fido discount brand, but it says that the "launch of a third brand mirrors many other industries like the hospitality and retail sectors and is designed to offer Canadians more choice." The official announcement follows some rumors and leaks that have been circulating as of late, which suggested that Chatr would initially launch in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver on July 5th, although those details still haven't yet been confirmed by Rogers.
It makes sense that Rogers would try to refill the capacity on the "Abandoned" 2G infrastructure... and lots of people only need a phone for voice communication and SLOOOW data... if you're just checking email and the very occasional web page, 2G service is all you may need... it certainly was 'fine' until 3G came along. I'm currently using SpeakOut, a 2G Rogers-based MVNO, and this might work for me... but it better be CHEAP, and I don't want to see any "$10 per month for unlimited texts" shenanigans.
This makes me laugh, because a few weeks ago the CEO of Rogers said they had 'no plans' to compete with the new entrants...
To give you guys a heads up, I'm going to be working for Chatr (99% sure, the company handling this just stated it as a "Rogers Wireless" position, but from talking to the regional manager and whatnot it lines up).
Anyways, training for the Edmonton crew starts July 5th, I'm told we start around the 13th. Two locations are going to be opening for Edmonton, Kingsway and City Centre mall.
I'll leave this right here: http://bj0.org/pictures/RobbersLogo.png
I feel dirty just using Rogers, I'm on a Family share plan and have a 500 MB data package for my BlackBerry Bold 9000... I have no idea why the people on AT&T are bitching and moaning that for nearly the same price, they get four times the amount of data.
There is one thing I see that Rogers is decent for: Tethering. If you have a plan 1 GB or larger ($30+) then you can tether without any silly fee. Yes, that's correct. A pain in the ass carrier still lets people tether lol.