Rogers pushes Share Everything plans by waiving early upgrade fees

Rogers has undertaken to expedite the flow of customers upgrading to its new Share Everything Plans. In recent months, the company has introduced new products and services, most notably GameCentre Live and Roam Like Home, that are either free for a limited time, or only available with one of the new two-year share plans.

According to sources, Rogers will waive a customer’s remaining device balance within the last six months of a contract as long as he or she upgrades to a Share Everything plan. While there is no limit to the remaining balance, eligible customers are likely coming from nearly-ending three-year plans which don’t fall under the Wireless Code of Conduct. Rogers plans to cover the costs of an early upgrade fee for those customers. Rogers introduced Share Everything plans back in mid-2013, and include unlimited national voice and messaging as well as a block of data that can be shared between 10 accounts. Generally, these plans are more expensive than their counterparts under the three-year contract system.

The push comes as the company gears up for its Q4 earnings report at the end of January, with Rogers looking to boost ARPU (average revenue per user) and keep churn rates low. Rogers had the lowest net subscriber additions of the Big Three carriers last quarter.

We’ve also confirmed that Bell also has a similar practice in place for certain customers, providing a $50-100 credit on new devices or towards an early upgrade fee. While the carriers no longer outwardly joust on price, they are engaging in less public ways of securing existing customers and attracting new ones.

Recently, Rogers invested $100 million into Vice, a US-based media company with ties to Montreal, to create and distribute specialty content. The company says that Rogers and Fido customers will begin receiving exclusive content sometime this year.