ROGERS PROMO iPhone 8 turns into bargaining chip

• Rogers Communications is using one of Apple’s newest smartphones, the iPhone 8, as a bargaining chip as it seeks to get customers to sign up for select service plans over the busy holiday shopping period.

In a limited time offer announced Thursday, Rogers began advertising an iPhone 8 with 64 megabytes of memory for $ 0 if customers sign up for a two- year plan that costs at least $2,280 before taxes over the contract

That amounts to about $ 95 a month for a plan that includes 300 local voice minutes, one gigabyte of regular data and two bonus gigs. Additional features would push the monthly fee higher.

The Rogers $0 promotional price for an iPhone 8 remains higher than Freedom Mobile’s $ 0 promotion for the same phone with a specified $65 per month two-year plan with different features.

But the use of a relatively new phone model from a prominent supplier l i ke Apple provides additional evidence of heightened competition among the wireless carriers, which have been frequently updating their offers in recent weeks.

Rogers hasn’t commented on its most recent pricing moves, but its executives have said the company competes with Freedom on price but has advantages in terms of network, distribution system and customer care.

“Freedom still has a ways to go in terms of having a network that competes with us and with the other two large players,” Rogers chief financial officer Anthony Staffieri told an industry conference on Dec. 5.

Shaw’s Freedom — which has its network primarily in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia — wasn’t able to carry the Apple 8s and newer iPhone X until this month.

By contrast, Apple’ s iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 plus have been available from Rogers and the other major Canadian carriers since September and they’ve been selling the iPhone X more than a month longer than Freedom, which has had to upgrade its network this year to carry the Apple products.

As of Thursday afternoon, Telus and Bell hadn’t matched the Rogers iPhone 8 temporary price cut.

But last weekend, there were numerous reports of frustrated customers and overloaded customer service workers at some of the big carriers after Rogers and Fido began offering $ 60 per month big- data plans until Monday or Tuesday — an offer that prompted similar moves from Telus, its Koodo brand and Bell’s Virgin Mobile flanker brand.

FREEDOM ... HAS A WAYS TO GO IN TERMS OF HAVING A NETWORK.