The iPhone is coming to Canada. And only a year after it was released. Sure it’s got 3G support and all, but still. And what a deal! Rogers, as always, is prepared to screw you out of every possible penny.

The cheapest plan, for $60 a month offers 150 minutes of talk time, unlimited evenings and weekends (with evenings starting at fucking 9pm), 400MB of data, and 75 text messages. If you exceed these limits, they’ll happily charge you 35¢ per minute for voice calls, 15¢ for text messages, and 50¢ per megabyte for the first 60MB of data in excess of your limit, then 3¢ per megabyte thereafter.

Sure 3¢ per megabyte doesn’t sound too bad but the first 60MB over the limit will cost you $30, bringing your monthly fee to $90 before taxes and fees. Oh, and none of the plans include the damned phone. Rogers hasn’t deigned to let us know how much they’ll let us pay for it, but it should be $200 or $300 depending which one you get.

Oh, and that $60 per month doesn’t include the one-time $35 activation fee, the 50¢ per month 911 fee, or the $6.95 system access (translation: we’ll fuck you just because we can) fee. And they won’t even talk to you unless you’re willing to sign up for three years. On the other hand, they’ll be pleased to let you out early for the low price of $220 for each month you have left in your contract or $1100, whichever is greater. Plus taxes, of course.

AT&T in the US will offer voice plans starting at $40 with unlimited data for $30 more, on a two year contract. I’d be in no hurry to spend $70 a month for a mobile phone, but this thing is made for e‑mail and the web. Rogers’ offer of 400MB a month for more money is pathetic.

So what if you want more? Rogers would be happy to sign you up for their super deluxe plan. You’ll enjoy 800 minutes, unlimited evening (cough) and weekend calling, 2GB data, and 300 text messages. All this for $115 per month, plus 50¢ for the 911 fee, $6.95 for the system access fee, and taxes.

What a racket the Canadian cellular network operators have. Rogers has a lock on the iPhone in Canada so it’s a minimum of $67.45 per month plus tax, if you never exceed their meagre limits. The phone is $200, and you have to pay an additional one-time activation fee of $35 for inconveniencing their staff to turn your phone service on. This is what we get for accepting just two major cellular service providers.

In the meantime, Rogers can suck it.

iPhone photo copyright © 2008 Apple Inc.