• From zero to not one, not two but 4 (and soon to be more) national 3.5G HSPA GSM-standard networks in Canada
• New price plans from Wind, DAVE and Public shaking up the landscape.
• Fiercer competition between the major carriers now that they are all on the same network technology with all the same devices
• FAST 3G networks at 21MBs (and 4 of em!) that’s faster than any 3g network in the US
• Suddenly great deals on rocket sticks everywhere. And tethering that works and portable hotspots and other fun things.
• ATT&T is not in Canada, count your lucky stars
• Unlike on ATT&T, a 30% rate of call dropping New York or 100% anytime at SXSW in Austin, is not considered normal
• Not one but 3 choices of carrier for the iPhone, and more choices for the latest Androids and Blackberries
• Number portability, at last it was mandated and it gives consumers more power to switch
• Wireless penetration rates rising rapidly, and the appetite for smartphones by consumers that is taking even the carriers by surprise
• SIM cards on every network. (the market for unlocked phones is coming to Canada). Just wait for the Google phone store to get to Canada, unraveling the relationship between carriers and devices, sometime this year we can hope. And if we ever get Google voice, be ready for the perfect storm of telco disruption.
• And skype is starting to work well on mobiles, just to turn the screws on the legacy telcos a little more

If I were a carrier, I’d be a little stressed out by this heightened level of competition in the sleepy old wireless north (aka Canada). For anyone else working with mobile, it’s a great time to be Canadian. Call it pent up demand, leap-frogging, or sweet redemption for years spent at the back of the pack, but suddenly Canada is looking good at wireless. Expect big things this decade.

Agree, disagree or flame away.

You might have noticed that short of owning precious spectrum licenses, neither you yourself nor any of your entrepreneurialy minded friends, are not allowed at all to set up any kind of radio tower of your own with a range any greater than a home wifi router. Why is that again?

Ladies and gentlemen, the other side of the story:

Michael Calabresse – The myth of spectrum scarcity:

“the only thing that’s scarce is government permission to use the airwaves”

Link: The Wireless Bandwidth Crunch: Where Will We Find More Spectrum?
Link: Ecom America 2009 Video: The Myth of Spectrum Scarcity (Michael Calabrese)

Originally presented at FITC Mobile 2009 in Toronto.

Cellular and Personal Communications services (PCS) have been issued by the Minister for systems operating in the bands 824 to 849 MHz and 869 to 894 MHz for Cellular and 1850 to 1910 MHz and 1930 to 1990 MHz for PCS. Authorizations were assigned through a comparative review process in 1985 and 1995. In addition, PCS spectrum licences were auctioned in 2001. All these licences will be up for renewal at approximately the same time, April 1, 2011, and will attract an annual licence fee for the next 10 year licence term.

The Contractor will be required to complete a study that determines the value of Canada’s Cellular and PCS spectrum in the radio frequency bands 824.040 MHz to 848.970 MHz, 869.040 MHz to 893.970 MHz and 1850 MHz to 1990 MHz.

Industry Canada will take this value into consideration when it determines an annual fee for the renewal of Cellular and PCS spectrum licences.

Industry Canada is aware that there are challenges when trying to determine the underlying value of spectrum. The study should give consideration to, but not be limited by, the following: different frequency bands, different geographic areas, prevailing economic conditions, method used to assign spectrum.

The study should include a description of the proposed approach, data sources and methodology used as well as the rationale for the selection thereof. In so doing, a comparative review of differing valuation practices that could have been used and the rationale for rejecting them should be provided.

The study should assess the relevance of auction results for similar spectrum, both national and international, as well as other relevant market transactions that might be used.

What is the value of spectrum. This is not an easy question. And by that we mean that it’s not an easy question. It’s easy enough to come up with any aswer 42! but, like life the universe and everything else, it’s sometimes more important to be sure we really know what the question is.

How much could the government charge for spectrum?
How much should the government charge for spectrum?
Why should the government effectively taxing spectrum, effectively a tax on the very medium of desperately needed digital infrastructure?
What do they plan to do with the money?
How does this relate to Canada’s would-be digital strategy supposedly being talked up by Clement and others?

So go ahead and put in your offer to tell the govenment what you think about that. (we have half a mind to). But, be warned your answer can’t cost the feds more than $150,000 CAD.

LINK: Study to determine the value of Cellular and Personal Communications Services (PCS) spectrum in Canada

• MTS Allstream Inc.
• Sky Surf Canada Communications Inc.
• Wair Inc.

This is a relatively narrow bit of spectrum but enough, in theory, to pump up some broadband wireless from the ground to the air. As in internet on Air Canada (and maybe westjet, porter etc.). A couple airlines offer the service in the US already (Delta, Virgin and soon Air Canada too actually). Bear in mind it’s not quite as easy to do the same thing in Canada. A) Canada is big B) There’s lots of pretty big empty parts C) there’s fewer planes in the sky to drive economies of scale. That being said, with only 2Mhz each way, maybe you don’t want to many other planes sharing your airwaves.

Those of you oldtimers (2006ish) may remember and lament the old Boeing conexion satelite internet service. Sadly it came and went before it’s time. Those were the days before *everyone* had a wifi device (or three) and, more crucially, before power plugs on aircraft seatbacks (major FAIL). But, unlike ground to air, satelite internet worked on long haul transatlantic flights quite nicely.

Previously on WirelessNorth.ca: Woo! AirCanada bringing in flight wireless

In which Michele introduces the The Hammer Metric, WirelessNorth.ca’s new method for evaluating mobile devices.

The Hammer Metric is measured by the strength of one’s desire to smash any designed tool (device, machine, system, etc) with a hammer in relation to particular aspects of design, functionality or use, especially as said usage relates to feelings of epic frustration or FAIL. As such, a low rating is desired, as it reflects a minimal urge for destruction based on what could be construed as user-centric antagonization on the part of the designer/maker.

Today we’ll be aiming our hammers at the newish Nokia E71 (now available on Rogers). This is Nokia’s fastest, sleekest, priciest, contender for the title of BlackBerry killer. This is a hybrid work/play device, for both the creation and consumption of content, whither image, video, web, office, email (yes, this is content) or music. Overall we’re going to give it 3 out of 10 hammers. This is pretty good.

The biggest value of this device is that it does a LOT OF STUFF and there is SO MUCH STUFF*, and that one can personalize almost every single aspect of functionality. However, the raw capabilities of the device are minimally hampered in the carrier-bound edition of the phone. More on that later.

The Good

Crystal-clear sound – while walking down a busy urban street, the loudspeaker quality = remarkably good conversation from both sides. Also the headphone/mic adapter is v v good. (1/10 hammers)

Connectivity for the E71 is the peppy 3G GSM, as well as the great option for WLAN when available (note: the author subscribes to Rogers’ 6GB plan, and with extended media streaming + normal use, I haven’t come close to the limit). (1/10)

The battery life is incredible, even with extended use of rich media applications, data, voice, email, etc – it lasts for days. (1/10)

The E71 has a pretty substantial memory of up to 8GB with MicroSD, 110MB internal memory, and the form factor is glorious, with the exception of the keyboard (comments below). Slim, substantial, the stainless steel back and trim are bonuses for grip and style. (2/10)

QuickOffice lets you create word docs, spreadsheets and presentations on the fly, and while formatting is a bit limited it’s still pretty damn good for sketching ideas out on mobile. The PDF reader is a pretty sweet addition as well. (3/10)

The GPS works well, with Nokia’s Maps application enabling navigation, positioning, trip distance, etc. (3/10)

Media tools include: voice recorder, video/image recording with a good suite of format/style settings, 2 music players (that would be one more than necessary thanks to the pretty terrible Rogers-branded player), podcast subscriber, a barcode reader, radio players, flash player (could use improvement), etc. Media transfer is enabled via Bluetooth, infrared or USB, and is simplified via a drag&drop protocol. Also, if you’re connected to the OVI platform you can save your content to the cloud and access/sync/share to your heart’s content. (Cool but E-series apps are sparse. Ovi may be much improved when the App Store launches in May 09) (3/10)

Aaaannnd speaking of apps, there’s a wide variety available via the Download Catalog as well as various other places on the web – it takes a bit more work to find them but there is an incredibly rich array of applications and services available. (4/10)

The Meh

The UI, while effective enough to use, still feels very much like a desktop… I feel like the practicality of this device came to the forefront, and while simplicity and accessibility is the +++ for the E71, a part of me wants a bit of playful glam. Where’s my mobile experience? While I don’t feel like I need to be an engineer in order to use it (a la Blackberry), I am hoping that the next iteration of the S60 OS will be a wee bit less desktop-centric.(5/10)

The Rogers branded web platform is… not very useful, and feels like it is getting in the way of what is already a great but potentially awesome smartphone. Thankfully the personalization workarounds that Nokia has developed allow you to bypass most of this. (5/10)

Web browsing is also at times a bit kludgey, and I’ve had the darn thing crash multiple times while browsing, precipitating a total restart. (5/10)

The camera, while bumped up to 3.2 megapixels, could use a better sensor and a WAY better flash, if only to prevent your subjects from appearing like pale, crazed vampirical maniacs. Given enough light though, video shot with the device looks and sounds *great* (try that on your iphone).(6/10)

The Ugly

No connectivity to the N-Gage platform, of yet (it’s primarily for the N-series phones…) Boo! The games that are pre-loaded are shadows of what is possible. (7/10)

The keyboard is no BlackBerry – straight rows of keys makes for somewhat awkward typing, also the QAZ keys are aligned with the far left edge, and the zero is found not below the number grid (that would be the space bar) but to the right. Little quibbles, as after a few hours of use typos are almost non-existent. Wish I could say the same for my laptop. (8/10)

Also, you can not tether the E71 to your other devices to share your 3G over wifi or bluetooth (haven’t tried the infrared). The Nokia fully enables it, but the carrier has fully locked out the capability on their version of the E71 (9/10).

Full Specs: http://europe.nokia.com/A41146123
This device is a nice balance between work and play. It doesn’t have the jellybelly sweetness of the iPhone, but it holds its own based on a quality platform, powerful hardware and specs, rich media and hyper-localized personalization. 3/10 hammers!

The E71 is 99.99 from Rogers on a 3year term, $399 on no term. Full retail and unlocked $569 at ncix.com. The later is less of a bad deal than you might think. There is little in the carrier platform of the phone that adds value. Rather more the opposite… Le sigh.

^{*or other words that rhyme with stuff}

” A new Harris/Decima survey finds that 72% of Canadian households now have access to a wireless phone, up from 64% in 2006. Commissioned by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA)”

it gets better

“Canadians continue to be some of the most enthusiastic mobile phone users in the world” said Bernard Lord, CWTA President and CEO.

Than you Bernard, give us a second while we try and mop up the vomit of sycophantic incredulity now splattered down our shirt fronts. As we work on that, how about a wirelessnorth challenge? We hereby declare! WirelessNorth.ca will give $100 dollars to anyone who can identify any comparable country worldwide (let’s define that as greater than 1M population and close to or greater GDP per capita to Canada) with a lower wireless penetration rate than Canada. Hint: there isn’t one. But nonetheless, we’re serious, see if you can prove us wrong.

To get you started, a few quick wireless penetration stats from select countries you may have heard of:

USA 82% penetration 2008
UK >100% 2006
ITA >100% 2006
Fra >90% 2006
Ger >85% 2006
NZ >80% 2006

You can argue that the wireless industry has been getting a lot better in Canada. But we still suck. As an industry, all we’ve achieved, is to be last place by less than last year. go Canada.

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.

The only question left for industry Canada is what to do with their 4.2B windfall. $4.2 is quite a bit of cash to find unexpectedly in one’s back pocket, and, more than twice the amount the auction was expected to go for. Funding a national wired and wireless broadband plan would sound to us like at least one good place to start.

Coming up on WirelessNorth.ca, more detail on the winners and losers of this auction by geography and spectrum band and what it means for the future of the wireless industry in Canada. Stay tuned…

At Wirelessnorth.ca we’re somewhat in shock that data rates could actually trend upwards. There was a quote, one of the favourites from the recent eComm conference in silicon valley “Violating Moore’s law… ought to be a criminal offence”.

And meanwhile it’s another season and Rogers still has no roaming plans for data either. That’s 5 cents a kilobyte should you accidentally step a foot across the US border. And with wonderful HSDPA “vision” devices capable of 250kBytes/sec or more that’s an amazing $750/min in case anyone is counting.

Data pricing, especially over GSM, continues to be a travesty in Canada.

This new spectrum auction can’t end soon enough.

Link: Rogers “Vision” sucks on Saunderslog.