Mark Evans

A Wireless E-mail Revelation/Discovery

This post is either going to come across as Luddite-like or valuable insight - although I suspect it will fall into the former camp. I was travelling this week and had some time to kill before flying back to Toronto. Even though I was at a large U.S. airport, there were no signs of an Internet cafe or kiosk, and I gave up my Blackberry a few months ago. I either had to beg to use someone's laptop or read USA Today for a second time. Then, it struck me to try my Telus wireless phone, which comes with Web access. With some trepidation, I surfed to Yahoo Mail and, within minutes, I was checking my work and personal e-mail. It wasn't lightnining-fast and nowhere near a Blackberry-like experience but it was definitely good enough. In fact, I'm been checking my e-mail on a regular basis since this “discovery”. The price is 2 cents a page so I figure it costs me 20 to 30 cents each time I do it. That works out to about $10 a month, which is much less than the cost of a Blackberry. Until I accessed e-mail this way, I was far from sold on the idea of people using their wireless phones to do it. Sure, Research in Motion has talked about Blackberry Connect while rivals such as Visto and Seven have been pursuing deals with carriers. They didn't, however, seem very user-friendly. Now, however, I've fallen into the mobile e-mail camp - the mainstream, budget-conscious one where you don't necessarily need a Blackberry or Treo. As wireless carriers pursue more ARPU, e-mail could be a nice revenue stream if they market it properly and sell the service at a reasonable price. So there you go, I've come clean on wireless e-mail, which may or may not be news to many other people out there.