Canadian iPhone pricing

The iPhone pricing cat is out of the bag.

Canadian Mac blog ehMac.ca has apparently got its hands on an e-mail detailing the iPhone service plan prices, which look quite reasonable on the surface.

For $30 a month, consumers will apparently be given unlimited web and e-mail access. The data service must be combined with a voice plan from Rogers. Visual voicemail, a key selling point for iPhone enthusiasts, is included as part of a voicemail plan.

Enterprise users that want personal and corporate e-mail are on the hook for $45 a month on top of calling plan costs.

All told, iPhone users will likely pay anywhere from $80 to $100 a month once taxes and the system access fee is included in the final tally. Not bad – right?

Probably. There are two kickers users need to be aware of before consumer buy an iPhone in July.

First is the 3-year plan. Canadians will be asked to commit to one before their beloved device is activated on the Rogers/Fido networks.This is a unique Canadian wireless construct. Users should calculate their costs over the three-year period before entering a Rogers store.

Another potential kicker is the Rogers definition of unlimited data usage. In the Canadian wireless vernacular, unlimited has in past not been used in the strict Webster’s definition of the word, leading to higher-than-expected costs for Canadian smartphone users. The low ceiling on unlimited data plans has also acted as an inhibitor of sorts to smartphone adoption in Canada.

As more handsets, like the iPhone, are introduced to Canadians and data plans are made to be truly unlimited, expect to see more BlackBerrys and iPhones in the hands and on the hips of Canadians in the near future.

First up is the second-generation iPhone, which operates on Wi-Fi, EDGE and 3G networks. Rogers will make it available to Canadians on July 11. The 8GB model will be sold for $199 and the 16GB model will be sold for $299.