As roughly five million Canadians prepare to travel this August, Rogers Communications announced today the launch of innovative new roaming solutions to help Canadians easily manage their data use while traveling outside of Canada.

Starting immediately, Rogers customers on a Roaming Data Pass will be the first in Canada to benefit from real-time data usage alerts while roaming abroad, giving cost certainty and peace of mind. These new Roaming Data Passes start at $5 per day for both customers and small businesses.

The real-time usage alerts (up-to-date within five minutes) will be sent directly to a customer’s mobile device allowing them to monitor and control their data usage. To provide further cost certainty, if a customer exceeds their time or data limit on a pass, they will be notified and then asked to make a choice to either continue at a pay-per-use rate or to purchase another roaming data pass.

“Customers have told us they’re concerned about roaming costs because they don’t have a true sense of how much data they use when travelling abroad,” said Raj Doshi, Vice President of Mobile Product Management, Rogers Communications Inc. “We’ve worked with wireless carriers around the world to deliver this innovative solution exclusively for our customers. The real-time data usage alerts will take the guess work out of roaming while our new data passes will give customers more choice and ways to save money, creating a worry-free travel experience.”

Rogers’ customers can choose from a wide selection of new, affordable day and week Roaming Data Passes depending on their usage needs. Passes are available for both U.S. and International destinations. To make it even easier, data passes can either be pre-purchased before leaving Canada or purchased while roaming directly from a customer’s mobile device.

Last month, Rogers also introduced new unlimited U.S. roaming text messaging offers. Customers now have the option to purchase an unlimited U.S. roaming text messaging pass for $10 (valid for 48 hours) or an unlimited U.S. roaming text messaging travel pack (valid for one month).

“These new options make roaming even more affordable for Canadians,” said Doshi. “We’re continually introducing new plans and new solutions to give our customers the freedom to use their mobile devices worry free when they travel.”