With have some great news for those in Canada that have handset contracts with Rogers, a new scheme is being rolled out to enable customers to upgrade earlier.

Rogers (a Canadian telecommunications provider) have outlined plans to introduce an early upgrade program that will allow subscribers to upgrade to newer handsets, as early as six months into an existing contract. The customers will need to pay a one off fee that is dependent on the amount of months they have left on their contract, plus a discounted end of contract price for the phone they wish to upgrade too.

Here is a rundown of the extra fees: on contracts for voice or quick messaging devices, the payment is $10 per month remaining. On certain smartphones, tablets and other devices such as hubs and Internet sticks payment is $15 per remaining month and for premium devices like the BlackBerry Torch and iPhone 4 a payment of $20 per month remaining is payable.

We have an example of the deal for your benefit, if a customer with a three-year term wants to upgrade, but is only two years into their plan. Instead of them waiting for 12 months to become eligible to upgrade for $100 to say a Google Nexus S, for example, they can pay a total upgrade price of $280 – which equates to $15 per month multiplied by 12 remaining months ($180) and $100 for the smartphone. Please note that a new three-year plan will be started from the date of purchase. This is compared to a $550 no-term price.

According to the article by staff at Electronista, upgrades have been a difficult on Canadian networks, where the use of three-year contracts are quite common and upgrade periods tend to be longer than those of the U.S. However, there have been some exceptions made for devices such as the iPhone, but still most customers are paying much more to upgrade.

Will you be using this scheme to upgrade early? Please let us know.