Wirelessnorth.ca

Still waiting for your iPhone 3GS? You are not alone. Since the launch of apple’s swankiest new unit we’ve seen the waiting list stretching out months for anyone foolheardy enough to have ordered one online, or from a Rogers call center rep. Rogers retail stores do have them, but only in handfuls at a time. One store rep we spoke with said he was only getting a third of the number of devices they were requesting on a weekly basis.

The reason? The iPhone is costing Rogers too much. Apple’s elegant one $199 price doesn’t jibe with Rogers subscriber revenue. Or at least the math doesn’t jibe as well with the kind of margins that Rogers has gotten used to earning off of smartphone subscribers. Rogers is suffering margin compression with the iPhone 3GS. While they love the halo effect of the iPhone, they’d love even more if they could lure you in the store with thoughts of iPhone dancing in your head… and then sell you the exact same voice and data plan but fob you off on, say, a much less subsidized HTC Android for example.

We don’t know if Rogers is revenue sharing on the iPhone with Apple but, apparently, the difference between the actual price of the device and mandated $199 subsidized price is such that Rogers is going so far as to aggressively market the Android down to $79 (and $39 for students).

This is not such a bad story for consumers. The android is a half-decent device, and $39/$79 is the kind of entry point for smartphones that could really start driving penetration of smart phones in Canada (if not, you know, for those whopper monthly bills you’ll still enjoy but we digress). And a few more androids or blackberries in the global marketshare pie chart does help to keep apple honest.

The Chairman of the FCC Julius Genachowski announced this week 6 fairly common sense but nonetheless highly progressive rules for US broadband and wireless providers:

1. Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.

2. Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.

3. Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.

4. Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

5. Broadband providers cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, favor certain content or applications over others and cannot “disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider.”

6.Broadband providers must be transparent about the service they are providing and how they are running their networks.

Where is Canada on Net neutrality and digital policy whatsoever? Well there has been consultation, but we don’t have one as yet. A policy that is.

What we do have is a toothless and rather bureaucratic CRTC that doesn’t even enforce it’s own mandates. They have a mandate that does not cover wireless, they are governed by two antiquated legislations the telecom and the broadcast acts and associate regulations, large parts of which have little salience in a world of digital media. We have an Industry Canada ministry that talks about creating competition but just as keen to take the money and run from inflated spectrum auction windfalls.

What this country needs, like any of our industrialized neighbours, is a clear plan that says yes, Canada does choose to be competitive in the global digital economy, and that we have goals and metrics to suggest which policy interventions (as needed) would help us reach those goals and to measure if those policy choices (e.g. the recent spectrum auction) are working or not. Is that too much to ask?

LINK: FCC Chairman Calls for Formal Net Neutrality Rules

Hey all, WirelessNorth.ca has volunteered as one of the guest judges of this years Canada New Media awards and we’re looking for applications. If you are a Canadian company or organization that is doing something awesome in Mobile, let us know and get on the ballots for this year’s awards.

The two mobile categories this year are Best Mobile Application and Best in Mobile Marketing.

Here’s the link: Canada New Media Awards

From the WirelessNorth submission engine, Andreas writes:

Subject: Incoming Calls are paid(??!!!)

I just arrived in Vancouver from Europe only to find out that in this part of the world you have to actually pay for your incoming calls! And on top of that you get to pay over $30 for a mere 100 min. I thought it was a joke but it turned out it is true.

It is important because people should know that is not the way it is done in developed countries since 1997.

Not only that Andreas but some carriers will charge you long distance fees on top of that even for incoming calls.

Why is this? Well our understanding (but internet please correct us we’ve got this wrong) is that the difference in europe is that carriers pay to each other (and earn) termination fees for incoming calls landing on each other’s network whearas in North America this doesn’t happen (due to the legacy of free local calling on POTS. So in europe the carriers have incentive to encourage incoming calls while in North America it would just be lost revenue opportunity to give away incoming. That being said, a lot of the carriers do offer some kind of free calling plans to numbers on the same network, or some clever folks out there hang on to legacy plans that do offer unlimited incoming.

Hint: free incoming, if you can get it, is a great thing to combine with a service like Jajah that acts as a clever middleman to turn all your calls into a local incoming callback.

We’re at a very interesting time for the wireless industry in Canada. We’re on the eve of new entrants into the industry but already the landscape looks a lot different and already a lot more competitive than just a few years ago. Here’s a snapshot, form our perspective [your perspective may vary] of the state of wireless in Canada. Stay tuned for where we go from here….

Originally presented at FITC Mobile 2009 in Toronto.

A recent trip to Italy really drove home the point of how useless our fancy mobile phone are the minute we step across a border. At the going rates from our carriers of $2/min, $1/sms, $12-$30/MB + GST/PST etc. you really have to want to use that phone to make it worthwhile. Or your company is paying the charges which in turn works out to a hell of a productivity tax on Canadian companies trying to do business globally.

But just think of mobile apps for a minute. LBA or location based apps have been hyped as some kind of a big deal. The problem is, and a lot of people seem to miss this point, if you are anywhere near home you probably already have a fairly good idea of things around you. At least the interesting things. And you know how to read the signs and how to find your way around.

It’s when you are out of your home range however that mobile location-based-apps can be enormously valuable. Google maps are a lifesaver when trying to find directions abroad. On top of maps there’s a wealth of apps that can help you find good restaurants, interesting sights, hotel deals etc. In an ancient city like Rome, the place is absolutely soaking in history and it absolutely cries out for augmented reality applications to let you visualize or at least understand more about the history and architecture of almost anyplace you might be standing.

As it stands now, this market, for Canadians doesn’t exist. At current roaming rates it’s quite literally cheaper to buy your phone a seat on AirCanada and fly it return back to Canada than it is to share or stream a mere 25MB of data to your friends (say 10 digital pictures or a couple minutes of streaming qik video). And buying a local SIM is little help when the vast majority of phones are sold locked (or CDMA for that matter).

For services this valuable it makes sense to charge a little for it. We pay $30 for a month of data in Canada, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to charge another $30/week for the convenience of data on the road. In reality though, actual roaming rates are a thousand times higher than this.

It’s time for this to change.

addendum: How do we fix it? Well at best Canadian carrier policies or anything Canadian regulators could do covers only half the problem. It may take cross-border co-operation or regulation (as in the EU), or perhaps competition from other technologies (global standards on open spectrum anyone?).