I’ve had the pleasure of making friends with some of our neighbors to the north. In my conversations with my newfound Canadian friends I found two recurring topics regarding the technology world. One is that they are upset that the Canadian dollar is worth as much (more?) than the US dollar, yet tech products (like most other products) still cost more in Canada. The other is that they still can’t get the iPhone. Oddly enough, this next story touches on both issues.

According to rumor, Canada is (finally) going to get the iPhone sometime in the next couple of weeks. The sad truth is that the phone isn’t going to appeal to many customers. The first major turnoff is going to be the price. The rumors have it pegged at $799 for our friends to the north. I hope for their sake that this is false, as that’s twice what we’re paying in the US.

The second turnoff is that they will need to use Rogers Wireless for their service. Unless you’re Canadian, you likely don’t know about the scam that is Rogers. If you’re a residential customer you have three options for internet browsing. You can opt not to get a monthly plan and pay $.05 per KB, you can pay $5 for 5MB per month or $10 for 10MB per month. Each of the monthly plans has an additional data rate of $.03 per KB. Once again, that’s just ridiculous. However, when there’s no competition in the market, people can get away charging whatever they want. I’m sorry to say it, but I think our Canadian friends are better off without the iPhone.

Report: iPhone Coming to Canada via Rogers [via betanews]