So, then… the iPhone, eh?

OK, here’s how I look at it. This plan is good, at least the data part: 6 gigs is esentially unlimited, so the $30 rate is comparable to the US $30 for unlimited. So, no question I’ll be getting one. The three-year contract length is loathsome, but it’s pretty much standard fare in Canada.

That’s not to say that there aren’t problems. You will still be nickel and dimed, Rogers-style (loonied and toonied?). Visual voice mail is $8, and there are obviously extra charges for texting, voice mail, caller ID etc. – all stuff that should be included in the base plan. And let’s not forget our old pal the “System Access Fee,” Lord of Arbitrary Charges.

But it is the sheer impermanence of the 6GB for $30 plan that is the biggest problem. As soon as labour day rolls around, it will vanish like a dream in the morning, replaced by the harsh ringing of the disputed, horrible plans that Rogers originally announced.

Essentially, Rogers is buying the nerds off.

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Effective July 11, and as a limited time promotional offer for customers who activate by August 31 on a three year contract, a data-only offering of 6GB of data for $30 per month is being made available that can be added to any in-market voice plan.

It ain’t unlimited, but it’s waaaay better compared to what they were originally offering, and to other Canadian rates. Here’s a Globe article.

Here’s the executive update on what’s happened since our last post. (July 7 – now even more updated!)

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When I try to access the newsmaking anti-Rogers petition site, I get a 403 forbidden error. However, I’m still seeing referrals coming in from it, so some people are getting through. Hordes of angry commenters are assuming that Rogers themselves are blocking the site, which is hilarious but probably untrue as I’m on Bell and can’t get through. I’d assume the traffic took the server down, and then it was misconfigured upon return, but that doesn’t explain how people are still visiting it. Hmm..

UPDATE: It’s back, and it was a server issue.

The Rogers & Fido monthly iPhone plan details are now out and, well, they suck. The degree of their suckitude in your eyes will depend on your level of resignation to the ways of the Canadian wireless tri-opoly.

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So there was the big WWDC keynote today. There were big announcements – 3G iPhone for $199, app store not ready yet, .mac is now Mobile me and looks actually worth the money now maybe – but the biggest for us in the .ca is this page. iPhone coming to Canada July 11. It’s listed in the Canadian Apple Store site, but it doesn’t let you buy it, just says it’s available at Rogers and Fido locations. There’s still one big question: data rates.

This week there was news that Bell is slowing down P2P traffic, i.e. bitshaping, even for their resellers. And there was information on Rogers’ new fee structure, with the highest plan costing $100 a month and still subject to a bit cap.

Meanwhile, in the US, Comcast is backing down from bitshaping after a public outcry. What the hell is going on?

At issue here is net neutrality, and in the US there is public debate on the issue, whereas here there has been none. In brief, net neutrality is the principle that the network should treat all content and devices equally – that internet access should behave like electricity or your water supply. And generally that’s how it’s gone up until recently, when gradually the internet providers have been introducing bitshaping (slowing down certain types of traffic, most often BitTorrent) and bitcaps (a limit on how much you can download before incurring extra fees).

Don’t be distracted by the current focus on piracy – the idea that ‘a few bad apples’ are slowing down the internet for everyone else. The real issue is internet video in all its forms: bittorrented TV shows, youtube, and pay-per-download services like iTunes and Xbox Live. Video takes a lot of bandwidth and with the explosion in online video, suddenly ISPs are seeing people actually use some of the bandwidth they are paying for. And they’d rather not, you know, make less money. Let’s not forget that both Bell and Rogers sell TV services, and online video threatens their profits in that business as well. The last thing they want is someone canceling their cable to download shows off iTunes – but if that happens, they want to get their cut. Despite the fact that their broadband services are sold on the promise of fast, rich media.

Another issue is competition. We have less of it here, and so our telecoms can beat up the consumer to their hearts’ content without fear of consumers jumping ship, as there’s no ship to jump to. What they’d love to do is sell you access to pieces of the internet like they currently do with TV channels: wanna play games online? $15 a month. Facebook? $15 a month. Yeah, Rogers already does exactly that with its phone service (the facebook part, that is). It sucks for the little guy, yeah. But it sucks for our entire country as we watch Canada become a technological backwater in an age when high-tech competitiveness is more important than ever. We have 60% cellphone ownership here compared to 80% in the US. Typical broadband speeds in Japan are nearly 10 times faster than the Canadian average. There are a lot of amazing things that can be done with ubiquitous high speed access if we’re not paying through the nose for the ‘privilege’.

So what should we do? Amongst other things, join the net neutrality Facebook group. By getting 40,000 members, Michael Geist’s Fair Copyright group was able to forestall brutal DMCA-style legislation up here, so it could very well work. Also check out this site although it hasn’t been updated in some time, the petition has 6000 signatures already. In general, just get the word out and let’s make this an issue that more people know about.

Inside the iPhone Gray Market, from Business Week. One of our writers has a grey market iPhone (do I name names? It’s not illegal). Anyway it strikes me that this article misses the point, wondering as it does why apple tolerates all the unlocked phones. Hell, Apple gets paid no matter how you use it – that’s the beauty of selling hardware. It’s the carriers and the negotiations therewith that prevent the legit iPhone from gracing us with its perfectly legal presence, but the article doesn’t mention that.

I’m thinking about getting one. Thinking pretty hard about it. But it’s the mobile internet that really interests me – I don’t need portable video and I already have an iPod and a phone. I heard about Rogers’ unlimited plan and got all excited until I realized it was a pretend unlimited plan. And I don’t want to jump on an unlocked iPhone and then have it locked out when the legit iPhone shows up.

Again I say, it’s hard up here for a nerd.

Rogers Communications Inc. has rolled out “blue” t-shirts, but critics are saying the company’s shirts are anything but.

Rogers spokeswoman Elizabeth Hamilton said the shirts reflect the changing state of the t-shirt marketplace.

“We’re in the business of offering high-value services to customers.”

Critics say the shirts are, in fact, red.

“What appears to be a good shirt on the surface comes with some serious caveats,” wrote Marc Lostracco, assistant editor of the Torontoist website. “Customers need to remember that a company calling something ‘blue’ doesn’t actually make it so.”

Hamilton disputed the criticism and said the shirts fit the uses that customers were asking for.

“It’s actually quite good value,” she said.

So yeah, that’s pretty much the gist of it, wouldn’t you say? I thought it was pretty clear what unlimited meant in the context of cellphone data plans, but Rogers sure doesn’t think so. Shit like this keeps us Canucks in the technological ghetto, as Steve notes.

My GF was a vigourous Facebook refusenik – until last night, when I got a friend request from her. Shocked and appalled, I demanded an explanation. It was forthcoming, and simple; a friend of hers who has moved to Vancouver suggested she sign up to keep up with her life out there, since she “never calls”. Which is true, because it’s expensive, Lucy points out.

This strikes me as another possible reason why Facebook is so popular in Canada.

Canada’s cellphone voice plans are just as suck as their data plans. I was just reviewing the major carriers’ plans; you’re hard pressed to find a 400 minute plan from any of them. AT&T’s plans start at 450 minutes and are no extra charge for long distance, whereas Rogers hits you with 30 cents a minute long distance charge on top of the airtime fees.

So given that, and the following:

a) young Canadians are more likely to have only a cell and no landline,
b) young Canadians, especially those at university or recent graduates, are likely to have friends from all over the country,

you have a perfectly reasonable explanation of why so many more Canadians use Facebook than Americans.

Interesting article from Saturday’s Globe about the movement to build a new internet infrastructure, now in the research stages. A couple key quotes:

The Internet was not designed for Second Life or “adult entertainment” videos either – high-volume, resource-consuming uses of the network. If just 1 per cent of the DVDs that NetFlicks [sic] sends to customers every day were downloaded, we would need a tenfold increase in the current core capacity of the Internet.

And:

In fact, he wonders if the only economically sustainable model for the Internet may be a nationally funded or regulated infrastructure – or some sort of government monopoly. (Though he adds that, “in the current economic and political climate” of the U.S., proposing this idea “is nearly suicide.”)

I’ve wondered the same thing before, but in the context of Rogers (a huge Canadian ISP) and their tendency to stifle innovation through things like bitshaping and extortionate wireless data plans. Let alone the paltry bandwidth of their “high speed” cable plans. I’m of the mind that real high-speed internet access should be made available to all, at reasonable rates; and if Rogers et al can’t do it, the govmint should make ‘em!