Rogers Wireless Launches New Roaming Plan

Rogers Wireless, a Canadian wireless carrier, responds to the aversion felt by Canadians for data roaming fees by introducing a new US roaming plan called Roam Like Home, which is targeted to subscribers thinking of crossing the border.

With this new roaming plan, subscribers who are under Share Everything plans can take advantage of their plan's voice minutes, text messaging and data allowance while in the United States for an added $5 each day. 

Basically, all of their plan's inclusions are still intact, with no extra charges for calls or data usage, save for the daily $5 fee, which can be used for 10 days at most per billing cycle. Any extra usage per month will not be charged -- meaning, users will not have to pay more than $50 per bill in order to roam in the US. 

As for those subscribers who do go beyond their plan's allowance while in the US, they will only be applied the same overage fees as they would if they were in Canada. 

There is a downside, however. Roam Like Home is only offered to subscribers of Rogers Wireless's Share Everything plans. The roaming feature will be will automatically activated for all new subscribers who sign up under a Share Everything plan after November 10th. 

As for existing subscribers, they can manually turn the roaming feature on by sending a text message (“travel”) to 222 and then following the prompts.

All thing considered, Roam Like Home is not a bad option, especially for subscribers of Share Everything plans who would prefer not to switch to new phones or SIM cards when entering US soil, but still avoid paying seemingly exorbitant roaming charges. 

The clever thing about the plan is that the $5 fee will only be applied to days in which the phone is used while in the US. This would definitely provide Rogers Wireless subscribers with a nice back-up option, especially if they are planning to only use their phones occasionally when visiting the US.

There is also a likelihood that the Canadian wireless carrier will be extending its Roam Like Home coverage outside the US in the near future. Europe is certainly a reasonable target. Rogers Wireless has already introduced a few international roaming add-ons apart from Roam Like Home, like its $7.99 per day data roaming package, which lets subscribers enjoy 50 megabytes of data per day.