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Wireless

Where Did the Wonderful World of Wi-Fi Go?

In the past few months, I’ve consumed a lot of Starbucks coffee and, occasionally, those snacks that quietly call out your name from behind the display booth.
Part of my Starbucks patronage has to do with business meetings, and part of it has to do with finding a free Wi-Fi spot when there’s time to kill [...]

The Perils and Dangers of Obligation

Renny Gleeson made a three-minute appearance (see the video below) at TED in February that captured one of the biggest challenges facing the digerati.
What Gleeson thrust into the spotlight is the “culture of availability” - the concept that mobile technology is making us available nearly all the time. This availability creates the expectation that [...]

Skype to Storm the iPhone

According to GigaOm, Skype for the iPhone, possibly at the CTIA Wireless conference next week in Las Vegas.
It will be interesting to see how the availability of a free VOIP service will change the economic dynamics of the iPhone-carrier relationship. While it will impact the amount of long-distance business that the carriers generate from iPhone [...]

Are We Over-Blackberryed?

In yesterday’s Toronto Star, there’s a story about the city of Toronto wants to hire an “enterprise technical support specialist” to look after the city’s 1,800 Blackberrys.
This prompted Councillor Doug Holyday, a non-Blackberry users, to ask why the city’s employees are using so many Blackberrys.
“I think we’re over-BlackBerryed here. I don’t see anybody doing a [...]

Public Mobile Goes Public

If anything, one of Canada’s newest wireless players has displayed a knack for attracting a lot of attention.
Earlier today, BMV Holdings held a press conference - something that rarely happens these days - to announce its new corporate moniker, Public Mobile. The venue was standing-room-only with media, bloggers, industry and investment analysts, and industry consultants. [...]

Are Cell Phones a Right?

Are cell phones a right or a privilege?
An article in yesterday’s Toronto Star puts the spotlight on the question of whether people who can’t afford a wireless device should have one as a basic service.
The pro-argument is people in a lower social-economic group should have a wireless device so they have the ability to communicate [...]

Alek Krstajic Rides High Again

Canada’s wireless industry is a cozy club with one of the highest ARPU rates (aka how much consumers cough up each month) among the world’s leading industrial countries.
Over the past few years, it has meant juicy profits for Canada’s three largest carriers - Rogers, Telus and Bell. In particular, Rogers has been humming along with [...]

To iPhone or Not to iPhone?

For the past five years, I’ve been a die-hard Blackberry user but now that I’m no longer within the corporate world, I’m wondering whether there are better options out there.
The first issue is whether I actually need a Blackberry or, for that matter, a smartphone that provides access to mobile e-mail and, if needed, the [...]

No Twitter SMS for You, Canada!

Twitter’s troubles with SMS - otherwise known as its a huge expense that it can’t really afford - have now seen it eliminate outbound SMS message for users in Canada.
The move comes a few months after Twitter was forced to shut down SMS service for U.K. customers.
It’s comes down to simple economics: it costs [...]

The Death of System Access Fees?

In Canada’s wireless oligopoly, one of the most controversial issues is the system access fee. It’s a monthly charge of between $6.95 to $8.95/month, which generates about $800-million a year in revenue for wireless carriers.
Many consumers believe the system access fee is something the wireless carriers have to charge to comply with federal rules involving [...]

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