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According to big red, hardly anybody (1.2% of subscribers) used more than a 1GB of data on their iPhone in their first 4 weeks of usage, with 95% using less than 500MB and 91.2% using less than 200MB. Rogers is keen to share the stats as a prelude to “right-sizing” their new lineup of data plans once the current $30/6GB special offer runs out.

These numbers are of course a little disingenuous. You would expect these numbers to climb over time as users adapt their behavior to the new capabilities of the 3G devices and as more useful applications are released to the iPhone store. One also wonders how much higher those figures would be if iPhone supported video or, if the iPhone had any reasonable battery life with 3G actually turned on… limitations that other/future devices will not always have.

So the bad news is Rogers is dropping their caps and raising pricing relative to the 30/6GB deal. The good news is, not by that much and consumers should see data bills that are a LOT more predictable, and the evil days of punitive $50/Megabyte pricing are over.

A Rogers email rep emailed us last night to say:

We’re extending the $30 6GB 3G smartphone plan until the end of September (for the Bold mostly but all 3G smartphones can add it). And we looked at that iPhone usage and thought once the promotion ends, we’d create new plans that are better suited to what we know customers use. These October 1 plans are for data devices consumer pricing (so BlackBerry, smartphones, air cards) and I note, Rogers is one of the few carriers in the world that permit tethering. So a preview of new pricing that goes into effect October 1: $15 for 2MB (essentially an email plan); $25 for 500 MB; $30 for 1GB; $60 for 3GB and $80 for 8GB

On top of this Rogers is introducing a $100 cap for all data bill overage [this is a defacto $100 unlimited plan then? -ed] and free SMS alerts to inform you when you are approaching your limits. Presumably this cap does not apply to roaming data use however, which is still a big scary gap in Rogers service plans for anyone who travels.

Nonetheless, predictable in territory data pricing is very good. Tethering is good. And hopefully all of this pricing will come down further with more competition in 2009.

This new openness as well as the current stop-gap $30/6GB plan is a good sign from Rogers. It’s a sign they are getting better at PR and being responsive to consumer outcry at some of their past practices.

Feels like should be giving our carriers such a hard time more often :)

Can we move on to extortionate roaming charges, long distance rates and per-minute billing then?

Ever wonder when that fat telco bill lands every month, where exactly all that money goes? How much does it cost to run a wireless network anyway? Never fear friends a little forensic finance plotting reveals all. Lets use the nation’s largest carrier Rogers for an example. All figures drawn from Rogers Communications Inc. wireless division Q2 2008 published results.

Rogers average revenue per user is $75 this quarter. So, for your $75 you spend on your Rogers bill here’s were it goes:

General overhead, shiny offices, salaries etc: $30
Cost of sales (Direct costs, electricity bill for those towers etc.): $7.69
Marketing (You might have seen some): $7.44
Depreciation (Infrastructure cost of the network): $6.06
Debt (interest on loans for past spectrum auctions and investments): $3.55
Profit (before taxes): $27.89

Note that Rogers debt expenses are currently on low side historically, though they did just draw down a billion in Q3 for that new spectrum. All said and done, nearly 90% gross margins before all those fixed costs come in to play is quite a business to be in.

Less than encouraging signs these week from “Canada’s national cell phone” as RIM’s latest Bold launch is looking sadly timid. All signs point to RIM struggling with early manufacturing/delivery woes with the device, a not uncommon problem. Your guess is as good as ours as to which particular component or supplier might be at fault. Mark McQueen has the perspective from the heart of Toronto’s Bay street.

…One journalist observed that it wasn’t anywhere near as exciting as the iPhone launch. The truth is, BlackBerry customers aren’t lining up to buy them ’cause they aren’t in stock yet.

It looks like our August 12th scoop that the Bold will be “available in a couple” of weeks will pan out to be accurate in the end. Can you imagine Apple launching the iPod without product in stock? What a PR disaster that would’ve been…

The form factor feels very solid, much more so than the 8700. The screen is a bit shorter than one might expect, but the keyboard feels like bubblewrap when you tap a key. Not quite the squishy 8800 keys, but not really any better, either.

The fellow next to me and I agreed that it just didn’t feel right. Maybe it was this particular demo, and a real “suitable for ownership” model would feel more sure-footed. But I doubt it.

To get tens of thousands of white collar workers in Toronto, Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere to prematurely upgrade for several hundred dollars down, plus a 3 year plan extention, will likely take more than this hardware offering, I’m sad to say. It looks good, but doesn’t drive quite as well. At least based upon a quick “drive by”.

The sophisticated testing labs at WirelessNorth.ca stand ready for either RIM or Rogers to send us over a unit for our own thorough evaluation.

LINK: I [don’t] want my Bold on The Wellington Financial Blog

It seems the Globe and Mail has picked up on our story last week of a slowing Rogers high speed network. We had a a number of helpful contributors write in with speeds. The fastest iPhone 3G speeds reported currently stands at 440 kbps (that’s kilabits per second). With the fastest rogers HSDPA PC cards ringing in at 800 to 900 kbps at best (twice as fast as an iPhone incidentally).

Here are a few more data points we measured ourselves from a few spots across Eastern Canada this past weekend (best speed of 3 test runs reported):

Toronto: 986/340 kbps dowload/upload, latency: 270ms
Quebec City: 260/287 kbps download/upload, latency: 189ms
Halifax Airport, Bridgewater, Lunenburg: no 3G service, latency: infinite

Bridgewater/LeHave on EVDO rev A dongle: 111 kbps, latency: 999ms (consistently laggy off the charts latency)

As measured in Toronto via speedtest.net:

Some thoughts:

1. We now know why the call the east coast is known as “GSM hell”. Bragg Communications, good on you if you can fix wireless out east.

2. Rogers 3G effective 3G bandwidth appears to be (more than) cut in half since just last april and before the iPhone, N95 launch. We would be happy if someone can prove us wrong, but from the same test locations, peak bandwidth has dropped from well over 2Mbs to now less than a 1Mbs (=1000 kbps)

A frustrated Rogers planner a while back told wirelessnorth.ca a story a while back. That try as they might it, it was habitually a beat-your-head against a wall challenge to convince the old-salt network managers to believe data usage would, yes virginia, one day take off. Overwhelming evidence of both ATT’s one year headstart on the iPhone, and Europe’s skyrocketing mobile broadband usage not withstanding. Seems big red is feeling the pain of short sightedness now. And passing the pleasure on to you. Assuming you can connect in the first place.

The news is spilling over the interwebs that the first Google Android handset is close to (finally) seeing the light of day. Long maligned by the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Nokia and everyone else as mere vapourware, it’s now decidedly looking less and less vapourous. The first model is the HTC Dream (nice name). Supposedly to materialize between November and January, depending on your level of optimism. In any case, the dream really exists, it just passed FCC trials. You may remember it took similar time for Apple’s first iPhone to move from FCC to production and launch.

The significance for north of the border? The first handset directly supports the same 1700MHz 3G band (AWS) just auctioned in Canada (thanks T-mobile). An entirely hypothetical bonus, at least until any/all players get around to rolling out service on the shiny new ether. But one hopes a sign of good things to come. Mmmm open handsets, open mobile platforms. The idea almost makes us misty.

^{[Introducing our newest contributor Ted Copewistle. In this post, his brave predictions on what the spectrum auction means for the wireless industry in Canada. Everyone is entitled to their opinions (for an earful, just ask the real Ted) and conjectures, but we at WirelessNorth.ca think there's some truth in this one. Enjoy. ]}

It’s going to be an interesting couple of years.  Here’s how it’s probably going to play out:

The Cartel (also known as “the incumbents”)

Bell and TELUS

Bell and TELUS will launch GSM (well, UMTS – that means some form of HSPA for the data focused folks) in the next 18 months together.  They’ll do a coordinated rollout.  TELUS will most likely focus on Alberta, BC, and probably Quebec (including Ottawa) and Bell will take the rest of the country.  Both probably won’t touch their AWS spectrum until 3 or 4 years, and even then they will most likely launch services just to fulfill licensing conditions.  TELUS has a wack of spectrum across the country thanks to the Clearnet buyout in 2000.   They have lots of room left on their existing spectrum – they are only using 36% of it at 1900MHz in their busiest market (Toronto), which means they have ample space to launch a 5MHz UMTS channel at 1900MHz nationwide.  Bell doesn’t enjoy such a rich spectrum position at 1900MHz but they have enough to launch as well.  What’s the upside of launching at 1900MHz?  Well, it gives both Bell and TELUS access to a lot of devices (iPhone anyone?) immediately.  They would love to have core coverage up and running in the major markets by the end of this year, but they are still finalizing vendors, so it’s doubtful they’ll be successful.

Rogers

Rogers is Rogers.  They’re sitting pretty and have a huge head start.  Their downfall will be their arrogance, which is bigger than the Sky… I mean, Rogers Centre.  And it’s only getting bigger.

NKOTWB (New Kids on the Wireless Bloc)

Videotron

As far as the new entrants go, Videotron will make a big splash in Quebec.  Them getting Toronto spectrum was a smart move too.  Expect them to take a chunk from the incumbents through aggressive bundling as they did with their home phone offering.  Quebecers are fiercely nationalistic, and any illusions of Bell being a Quebec company based out of Montreal are long gone.  Back in the old days, Bell Mobility had 65% market share in Quebec versus Cantel/Rogers.  Fido took a decent chunk of that, but barely made a dent in the rest of the country. Most Fido customers were in Quebec and Toronto.  That’s why Videotron focused their auction dollars where they did.

Shaw

Shaw will do next to nothing.  They may or may not launch a network, but if they do, they will go for high ARPU customers, and will focus on city coverage and rely on roaming in rural areas.  Rumour has it they have already signed a roaming agreement in intent and a tower sharing agreement with Rogers.  $80 all you can eat voice and data in-territory anyone?  Save an extra 5% if you bundle!

Globalive

Globalive will do okay, but they’ll quickly run out of capital unless foreign ownership restrictions are lifted. Think “new Fido”.  They’ll be aggressive and most likely establish a rabid following of customers in places like Toronto and Vancouver, but they’ll be hard pressed to make money.  Look for them to resell their services to others (such as Videotron) and to use the Wind brand that Weather Investments uses in Europe. They will also wrongly think that their Yak brand will have legs and leverage that as a discount brand. Everyone’s gotta have one, after all.  Apparently.

DAVE

DAVE is a curious play (put up a website already!) but I wouldn’t underestimate them.  They are successfully flying under everyone’s radar, which isn’t a bad thing right now.  Bitove is successful guy, and he’ll leverage the distribution and marketing experience of his XM Canada business to drive things early.  They’ll be a niche player, but fully expect them to leverage another global brand, as he has done in the chicken (KFC), pizza (Pizza Hut), mexican food (Taco Bell), and satellite businesses.  It could be anyone, but they’ll probably try for Three, Orange, Vodafone, or T-Mobile.  ”Kentucky Fried Wireless” gets my vote.

Bragg (Eastlink)

Bragg will do okay in their region, and their strategy will be more in the vein of Videotron than Shaw.

An easy guess is that all of these regional players (save Globalive, perhaps) will form a national alliance, similar to Mobility Canada and the North American GSM alliance in the old days.  It’ll be the easiest way for them to provide service pseudo nationally while only leveraging Rogers (and eventually TELUS and Bell) for rural coverage when necessary.

Who wins?

Rogers will, as long as they don’t become complacent and keep their newly acquired arrogance at bay (e.g. Bell).  They have the most spectrum across cellular, PCS, and AWS bands.  Nadir (President and COO) is a sharp cookie, so as long as he’s around, they’ll be in good steed.  Ted is just a lovable figurehead with bright orange and baby blue suits.  Remember, before Nadir, that place was a mess, and Ted was around in full force.  Nadir brought accountability, stability, and focus to the organization and has executed brilliantly.  Plus, they have a HUGE head start.

TELUS will do very well.  They are spectrum rich, and Darren Entwistle is relentless and wants, no… needs to win.  Their Koodo move seems to have worked as a market share grab, even though it’s hurt ARPU somewhat.  The move to GSM will be their saving grace.  Expect them to become the #2 carrier in subscribers shortly.

Bell is an enigma.  George Cope is a great leader, but he has inherited a big mess.  He and his ex-Clearnet crew have been around for a while, and they haven’t made a huge impact on wireless operations.  No more beavers, but they were the folks who hired them in the first place.  A new logo, but no new ideas. Privatization could be positive as long as the new owners are committed to injecting some serious capital into the organization in order to build real long term value.  Short term pain (losses), long term gain (profit! yay!), sort of idea.  The new owner’s track record with the Toronto Maple Leafs does not inspire confidence in their commitment to this new hobby/cause.

Rogers wins among the incumbents.  Globalive among the new entrants.  Videotron among the new regional players.

It’s a good time to be in the industry, that’s for sure, and a pretty exciting time for anyone who’s interested in this stuff.  

Maybe Bell is right.  Things just did get betterer.

Just a few months ago, we were raving about the speed of Rogers HSDPA network. Recently, and anecdotaly, it appears that average download speeds declining. Blame the iPhone or more usb broadband sticks on the network perhaps. In any case, please write in if you’ve noticed a similar experience, or peak speeds if can measure it. If we get any more data points we’ll report them back. Wireless connections are fickle things. We’d also be curious to know fastest effective speeds that can be wrung out of a Telus/Bell EVDO or EVDOrevA connection, if anyone’s got one.

I’ve long felt that cell phones were one of the biggest cons going, and could never understand why people would pay so much for such crappy voice quality. I’m being a bit of a lug-head here, but we all know how inferior cell phone quality is to everyday PSTN, whether it’s dropped calls, crackly voice or no 911. Of course mobility is all about convenience, and obviously people are willing to compromise voice quality for walking and talking. I’ve also long wondered why mobile carriers don’t offer a premium cell service where you can approximate PSTN quality. I’m sure there are lots of reasons why not, but let’s get back to the story here.

VoIP, of course, is the last thing most people would think about for improving the mobile voice experience. It’s had such a bad rap historically, but people like me have followed it long enough to know that under the right conditions, not only is VoIP on par with PSTN, but when it’s end-to-end IP, it’s a superior experience. Who wouldn’t want this in their cell phone?

More

Idea #6787 for starting a disruptive carrier business. Voice 2.0 use VOIP for vastly better voice quality.

[This report brought to you by special correspondent  Andrew Duchesne of Teclaration.com and Gadgetnorth.com. Thanks Andrew! -ed]

Well last night I was privileged to be on the VIP guest list to the official Canadian Launch of the Samsung Instinct, and it was quit an affair. Held in Downtown Toronto at the “Social” club as well different locals in Vancouver ad Montreal, there was lots of Champagne flowing, lights flashing and good groves pumping. There were a couple handfuls of Instincts to play with and 5 to be given away….Ahem..I did not win one??? On to the good stuff.

I found the instinct to be very sturdy, it feels well made as do most Samsung products, the instinct fits very well in your hands, dare I say even better than the iPhone It is not as slippery feeling and can be gripped a little easier as well thanks to it’s narrower width. The home screen is eye pleasing and easy to navigate and to get back to with its home key button, 1 of 3 buttons you have a choice of using ( Home , Back, Call). I found it easy to return to your last position at any time by just using the back arrow key. The camera worked very well, as did the video, and browser. I could of used a little more screen landscape for the browser though as the side menus took up some valuable space. Texting seemed easy as did the IM chat, the screen automatically goes into landscape position for certain apps as opposed to having to tilt the phone to go in that direction (there is no accelerometer involved here).

I see this phone fitting in with the younger crowed very easily as you don’t need to be a computer person to use or navigate it. It is a cell phone with a great touch screen and navigation systems. Their demo graphic is bang on I believe for anyone between 14 to 30 something this phone does the job well. It is not an iPhone killer, but what is, but I also believe the iPhone to be for a different breed of user than this Samsung. The Instinct will fill the middle market I think very well from a Cost point ($149.00 3 year plan) as well as socially with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and its ease of use, and also the Samsung brand name.

I liked this phone …enough to recommend it to people who I believe are looking for more than just a cell phone, but not looking to go to the iPhone, or a Blackberry.

Oh I also found the Instinct slightly easier to type on than the iPhone, at least for these pudgy fingers. Here are the Instincts Features in case you missed them:

• Dual mode, dual band digital phone (1.9GHz & 800MHz)
• Operates on both the Bell core network and the Bell high speed mobile network
• Integrated digital music player (MP3) and access to Bell’s Full track Music downloads
• External memory card slot allows you to store and carry additional pictures, videos and music up to 8GB
• Quick access to popular content including Facebook, News, Sports and Weather highlights
• GPS turn-by-turn navigation
• Windows Live™ Messenger and Windows Live™ Hotmail
• HTML Mobile Browser™
• SMS/Text messaging capable* with full qwerty keyboard
• 2.0 megapixel camera, with 4x digital zoom
• Video camera
• Picture/Video messaging capable*
• Mass storage tool to transfer MP3s, pictures and videos to and from your PC
• Backup Manager support
• Bluetooth 2.0 enabled.

Tonight Bell and Samsung are launching the Instinct in Canada reportedly with the savvy PR-kungfu of an “unlimited” 3G data plan. You may remember Rogers getting a little flack for their not so unlimited. Expect Bell of course to offer unlimited service subject only to their usual laundry list of limits (except for tethering, subject to “acceptable” use, except for data services that don’t count etc.).

The Samsung is nice looking machine, it’s clearly designed to take on the iPhone, but does it stack up? We shall see.

Arguably more anticipated than the Instinct is the HTC Diamond. A friendly tipster to WirelessNorth.ca writes: “Just got a word from Telus that the touch diamond will be dropping in CDMA flavour on the Telus network on August 19th 2008.” Boy Genius had the scoop on the specs for the Telus Diamond here. The Diamond is a proper (Windows Mobile) smart phone, the specs are impressive, it has HTC’s fancy touch interface, nonetheless initial impressions of the device are mixed (in this case the UK GSM version). We’d love to hear what you think from the first ones that can get their hands on the Telus edition.

UPDATE: Telus writes:

“Good afternoon, Just saw your article about TELUS coming up with the Diamond. Just wanted to flag that we are actually launching next week, August 14th. See below the news release distributed yesterday. Rate plans info available at the bottom of the release.”