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I don't expect most people to follow through on this (hell, I probably wouldn't) as an hour-long podcast is a big commitment from some random nerd on the internet, but I feel compelled to recommend anyway: http://5by5.tv/criticalpath/64 It's a discussion between Horace Dediu and Benedict Evans, experts on the mobile hardware and carrier networks respectively, on some fascinating topics around carriers, devices, business models, etc. It's an absolutely fascinating discussion for anyone with an interest in the industry.
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Nov 26, 2012 01:50
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^ True. Canada often pursues what might be thought of as the worst-of-all-worlds strategy: "let's have a 'private' model in industry X, but ensure there are legislative and otherwise barriers to entry, thus the mechanism that makes private industry attractive in general isn't actually possible".
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Nov 26, 2012 14:16
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mediaphage posted:Out of curiosity, I was playing around on the Staples.ca site and it set that I could get an iPad Mini + 4G delivered to a store tomorrow. Does that mean that they have them in stock at the warehouses? I'd call, but I've no idea who to call about an online purchase. Mine from apple.ca is still "ships late November". Has been for a while. Take that for what it's worth.
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Nov 26, 2012 22:40
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Curious: will Fido give you a nano SIM to use with that $57 plan? iPhone 5 is the only phone that uses it that I'm aware of, and even if you bring your own device, I could see them being dicks and wanting to corral iPhone users to higher-value plans.
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Dec 5, 2012 18:13
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mediaphage posted:Welp. Rogers refused to let me get an iPad plan since I only have American ID. Is there any way around this? It's kind of ridiculous. Try a different store. Seek refuge in the utter lack of consistency in their policies. Conversely - look into prepaid. I think Telus offers this for tablets.
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Dec 6, 2012 02:29
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Sassafras posted:What's the best plan + subsidized hardware deal I can get for an iPhone 5 in BC? I'm a pretty happy Mobilicity customer but my phone is getting long in the tooth and I missed the boat on the initial batch of 8GB Nexus 4s and didn't want to buy a 16 in the second batch. I'd say the current best deal is getting a 2-year contract with Fido with a free Galaxy Nexus on that awesome $56 plan. Sell the GN, and buy an unsubsidized iPhone 5. Yeah, it's a hassle and requires a bit more money up front - but it's more than worth it for the deal, IMO. Hard to beat the total-cost-of-ownership on that one.
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Dec 8, 2012 03:18
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CLAM DOWN posted:You're actually surprised at this? Canadians are pretty passive/apathetic in general. Yeah, no kidding. Also, overpaying for things is practically a treasured national pastime.
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Dec 13, 2012 18:08
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Anyone know if those Fido / Koodo $56 plans include tethering? In other words, it's not explicitly blocked is it?
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Dec 16, 2012 18:12
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Alctel posted:Mobile phones, cheese and chocolate were the main things I missed when I emigrated 6 years ago Oh God. As a fellow UK expat, I couldn't agree more. Those three....
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Dec 18, 2012 02:02
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the talent deficit posted:richmond and tsawassen both have some pretty great importers for all your chocolate and cheese needs. also pickled muscles if your tastes run like my father's It's not availability so much as cost that's the issue... Most Canadians would have an aneurism if they saw what the rest of the world pays for cheese and how much higher quality it is.
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Dec 18, 2012 07:17
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Is it true that you can switch to Fido from Rogers for less than the usual early-termination-fee? Even from a business account?
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Jan 7, 2013 17:04
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teethgrinder posted:Once-a-lifetime they'll waive the fees if you've served at least a year of your contract. I did it once. Cool. Did you have to go through hell to get them to do this, or was it ok? Also, did you initiate the waiver on the Fido or Rogers side?
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Jan 18, 2013 17:58
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Oh, ok, cool. I'm hoping to go the other way... hopefully that will be just as easy.
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Jan 18, 2013 18:43
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ZShakespeare posted:1. If I go to a store what is the cost of a sim (any sim, I have a nano sim cutter) and the activation fee? The website is useless. Don't nano sims have a physically smaller contact area than standard or mini? I didn't think it was possible to trim a larger sim card down to nano for that reason...
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Jan 18, 2013 19:41
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tuyop posted:Koodo and virgin do the same thing where they just subtract long distance from your total anytime minutes. Can you elaborate on this? I thought Koodo simply had no concept of domestic "long distance" anymore - in other words, minutes are minutes. ZShakespeare posted:Yes, but the configuration is the same and you only cut off small, unnecessary portions of the contacts. Good to know. Thanks.
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Jan 18, 2013 20:59
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Godinster posted:I think I found the one thing to get excited about living in Saskatchewan for: decent plans. Curious: is it possible for non-SKers to sign up while visiting the province, and therefore take advantage of this sort of thing? Or do you need a billing address there? Purely hypothetical, as I'm not likely to be in Skatch anytime soon, but it could be a good move for someone there on business or the like...
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Jan 19, 2013 06:08
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The Gunslinger posted:I don't use a landline anymore and even with heavy texting I easily use more than the small amount of minutes most of those companies give you in a month. To me it's just indicative of the constant gouging by the big 3 that made the newcomers so desirable. Any time I sit down to make a comparable package to what I get from Wind its usually $75+ from them. Sure their coverage is better if I traveled a lot but I don't so /shrug. Low minutes, continued existence of long-distance, etc, all function as 'traps' set by the Big-3 to occasionally wrangle more money out of their customers. Virtually every advertised plan has this phenomenon built in to some degree. That's what made the Koodo $56 for unlimited country-wide / VM / CID / 2GB so revolutionary of a plan.
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Jan 21, 2013 15:38
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Ugh - virtually all of the problems with telcos will sort themselves out if we simply insist on a dividing line drawn between "handset financing" and "handset service". There's absolutely no good reason that we continue to bundle these things today. If carriers want to provide favourable financing - by all means - but lowering the switching costs between carriers would go a long way towards improving the situation in this country. T-Mobile USA has the right idea.
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Jan 29, 2013 16:15
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less than three posted:won't be law, they will have to voluntarily abide by the code if they so choose. The CRTC has got to be the most toothless consumer protection agency in the western world. What the hell's the point of the exercise then?
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Jan 29, 2013 21:34
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Rick Rickshaw posted:I tried replacing the battery in my iPhone 4 last night, but I ended up yanking out a solder pad when I tried detaching the old battery. As such, it's finally time to upgrade. 2 1/2 years isn't too bad. Just phone them now and tell them you are leaving and willing to pay the ETF because you found a better deal with carrier X. They'll put you onto retentions and give you a nice package with the iPhone re-up. That's exactly how it played out with my girlfriend recently moving to a 4S.
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Feb 23, 2013 22:33
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Rick Rickshaw posted:That was pretty much going to be my plan by the time I got around to calling again this evening, so I did it. I had to do a lot of dirty rotten lieing, but I feel I ended up with a pretty good deal. That bullshit $35 administration fee when I picked up my phone sucked though. Awesome! Mind posting your plan details just so the rest of us can use it as a benchmark for future reference? 
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Feb 24, 2013 06:29
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What's the current state of play with getting Rogers iPhones unlocked? I have a 4S I'd dearly love to use outside the country. Have things moved to a more enlightened stage at all or am I just hopelessly optimistic on this one?
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Feb 25, 2013 05:36
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^ God, what a loving nightmare. I don't have anything to offer but my commiserations and hopefully it'll be sorted soon. The cellular silliness in this country is insane.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:27
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Cue Fido and Virgin match in 3.... 2.....
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Mar 7, 2013 02:15
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Trillian posted:Does anyone know of a service that will give me a virtual phone number which will forward calls and texts? All the ones I've found so far are calls-only. I don't think any of these exist in Canada. Yes, thank the CRTC for that.
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Mar 8, 2013 20:00
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THE LUMMOX posted:Thanks for the help guys I'll post in the Android phone thread and see what happens. Not holding out too much hope. Things have unambiguously improved in the past 4 years. I moved back from the US in 2009 and the plans, service, and general conditions of wireless were immeasurably shittier then than now. Plenty of room for progress, however.
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Mar 18, 2013 00:32
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ZShakespeare posted:So it'll be Bell or Telus then. They can't have some random company driving down prices. In other news it looks like we'll get our AWS iPhone just in time for Wind and Mobilicity to get bought up and have their pricing brought in line with industry standards. The AWS iPhone has the potential to really change the balance of power in the market. I hope it gets pushed out the door before things shift too dramatically with Wind/Mobilicity... And I'm optimistic it might because T-Mobile looks to be having their iPhone event tomorrow.
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Mar 26, 2013 05:20
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ZShakespeare posted:Nope, not an AWS iPhone. T-mobile just launched an LTE network compatible with the existing iPhone. Wind and Monilicity (and our telecom industry) is still screwed. Goddamn it. Without the iPhone, Wind and Mobilicity are going to wither away and eventually get acquired by Robelus.
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Mar 26, 2013 19:11
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BGrifter posted:I'm moving at the end of the month and need a phone, but I'm reluctant to take the plunge on an iPhone 5 right now with the rumour sites predicting an iPhone 5s in "summer" of 2013. What's my best bet for an inexpensive temporary phone to use for 1-3 months till the 5s comes out? (likely going with Koodo or Virgin when that happens if it matters) Maybe just a cheap prepaid phone or something for the short term while I look for work/get setup in the new place? Should I be looking for a $50ish refurb Android phone to use for a couple months with a carrier like Koodo or Virgin and just swap out the phone when the iPhone 5s comes out? I think a cheap android on prepaid is the way to go. Ideally with a carrier that you are reasonably sure you won't get the iPhone with, so you can maximize the possibility of getting a contract switching incentive. I learned this the hard way with Fido back in 2009... I was on month to month in anticipation for the iPhone 3G's successor, and they wouldn't even sell me a 3GS when it came out as I was an "existing customer".
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Apr 11, 2013 02:03
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Shofixti posted:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/telus-in-talks-to-buy-mobilicity-as-wireless-upstarts-seek-buyers/article11100134/ Sigh. As poo poo as things are, mobile Canada is immeasurably better since 2009, and the new entrants are probably the single biggest reason. Now watch those ARPUs gradually creep back up... It's too bad, because with the T-Mobile iPhone now a reality, if Wind, etc could start supporting it, I think that would remove the main lynchpin holding tight the big-3 oligopoly.
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Apr 13, 2013 03:54
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I posted this in the iPhone thread but figured I'd get a second opinion here: It is possible to use an iPad provisioned SIM in an iPhone - resulting in a data-only phone-sized device? I'd happily buy an iPhone outright and stick to pure data if so.
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Apr 13, 2013 18:12
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 WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!  Yeah, it's from 2010, but I highly doubt the shape of the graph has changed much by 2013. (from https://twitter.com/asymco/status/325985292265865217)
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Apr 21, 2013 16:02
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Martytoof posted:Don't kid yourself. If ISPs were allowed to charge you extra for browsing sites internationally they would We all, collectively, dodged such a bullet there. If they had been quick enough on the uptake, it would have happened. I shudder to think of the world that nearly was.
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Apr 23, 2013 04:06
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Squibbles posted:I think that Koodo plan will still be available just without the double data/minutes? It's unbelievably annoying that they can just go ahead and *triple* the amount of data offered (by far the most valuable portion of the service offering) at certain times of the year without raising prices, and without encountering any apparent financial difficulty. It really speaks to the enormity of their margins, and the capricious way that wireless is run in this country. There's no way you'd see that sort of behaviour in any wireless or otherwise market that was anywhere close to functional.
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Apr 25, 2013 01:06
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So there's been plenty of bluster on reddit, etc about Telus raising SMS prices to the USA to $0.40. If someone's midway through a contract, and signed onto that contract with the expectation that the price for that service was some X < $0.40, and then they raise it - how is this not a breach of said contract? Does it not therefore release any given consumer from the obligation to see out that contract for its duration?
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Apr 25, 2013 03:07
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^ Yeah, fair enough. I'm on Rogers now, and if they pull a similar move, I'm going to argue that my contract should be canceled on pure principle and see how far it goes.
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Apr 25, 2013 05:23
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less than three posted:Don't worry, Rogers already charges extra to text the USA. Yeah, I just mean if they ever introduce a new cost that wasn't present at the time of my contract signing.
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Apr 25, 2013 05:43
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JoelJoel posted:Wait, you don't have a cell phone? How do you play angry birds and send unreliable SMS texts? How could someone possibly get by with only email, Skype, and a myriad of instant messaging services? ...wait... Do you also go into the XBox thread and tell people they are discussing a device that isn't, strictly-speaking, necessary?
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Apr 26, 2013 19:49
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My sister has an iPhone 5 on Rogers. She just called me for advice - really pissed off at her most recent bill which states 25GB of usage and a correspondingly huge overage fee. Rogers fobbed her off with a bullshit excuse that "she didn't close her apps like Facebook and Twitter". Obviously this is not explanatory for two reasons: 1) these apps don't background on iOS, and 2) even if they did, there's no way to account for that sheer volume of data. This seems... suspicious. She's the typical non-geek early-twenties girl - perfectly competent at tech, understands the difference between WiFi and cellular, but not into anything exotic like podcasting or tethering or what not. Normally her usage fits into her 500MB plan easily, and this month she's not done anything different to her knowledge in her usage patterns. I, by contrast, am a prolific user of cellular data - for podcasts, tethering, Google+ hangouts, Skype - you name it, and yet I've never come close to my 6GB allowance (4.5GB or thereabouts is my current maximum). So this bill simply doesn't make sense. Anyone have any theories what might be going on? The competence of Rogers in accurately measuring and billing is, of course, a matter of some suspicion right now.
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May 6, 2013 15:20
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mewse posted:Have her check Settings > General > Usage > Cellular Usage She's running iOS 6.1. And her lifetime data counter is 30.2G Sent, 2.5G Received. That's... absurd. There's no usage pattern that would explain such an asymmetry in favour of upload. My own 4S has Sent: 3.8G, Received: 40.6G.
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May 6, 2013 20:48
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