B. Mann Consulting

I'm glad I waited in posting any sort of "the iPhone with Rogers will suck" commentary, as it seems they have somewhat come to their senses. As usual, John Biehler was my iPhone news source, and here's the link to the Roger's press release.

A new "promotional" data plan is going to be available until August 31st (and I actually believe they'll extend it...), where you can bring your own voice plan, and add a 6GB data plan for only $30 / month. Hmm, maybe over 50K signatures at ruinediphone.com changed their mind? No, it's not unlimited ... but in talking to Roland -- who is the heaviest mobile app user I know -- he's never gone over 500MB. I think I used a couple of GBs when I was at the Olympics in Torino, and large megapixel camera phones and the fast 3G speeds could certainly eat bandwidth, but 6GB seems fair.

So...am I getting an iPhone? Nope. I don't really like contracts, and I don't like locked phones. I imagine we'll be able to get an unlocked iPhone at some point, where I'll be able to swap out SIM cards when traveling as I do now.

Meanwhile, looks like I'll be on CTV Newsnet talking about the other Canadian wireless barons -- Bell and Telus. They are going to start charging for incoming text messages. Well, this should be a fun ride ... Rogers isn't charging for incoming, it has the iPhone and the latest Nokia phones, and now -- decent data plans. Really, what are Bell and Telus thinking?

Update: Looks like this is not just for iPhone -- you can add this plan to *any* phone, as long as you sign a 3 year contract, and it does apply to Fido as well. See the post on howard forums for reference.

Flat rate mobile broadband? 3 Group in the UK just announced their "X-Series" -- flat-rate broadband Internet access on their mobile phones, with interesting tie ins with everyone from Google to Sling boxes to Orb.

I saw this a couple of different places, and agree with Troy -- I also hope that this "will drive a chain reaction and like the Berlin wall, this would cause flat-rate pricing and open gardens to flourish across the planet, creating a massive open platform upon which innovation would explode across the 2 billion phones currently on the planet."

At the same time, I spent some time today looking at a mobile service that still includes WAP and really simple services. This is a huge addressable market, but it doesn't seem as interesting as some of the "next step" smart platforms that we're seeing. 

Of course, my recent trip to the US saw me paying 95¢ per minute for roaming charges. Due to my grandfathered Fido plan, my data services the whole way were free. In what universe does this make sense? 

So, I wasn't going to write about this at all, but now Travis has, so I'm going to tell how it went down with me.

Travis Smith: I Won't Be Nokia's Bitch:

This is cool: Nokia’s going to be sending me a fancy free (not fancy-free) cell phone soon, because I have the POWER oF BLOGGING at my fingertips.

That said, me and 44 other people (or should I say 44 other people and I? The use of “other” depends on a predicate, doesn’t it?) will be getting a Nokia 6682 multimedia smart phone, fully equipped with 512 MB of memory, a stereo headset and a wireless Bluetooth Headset as well.

A company that does "buzz marketing", Matchstick.ca, had three separate people contact me via email. All of those emails were sent en-masse -- I consider it to be spam. And I happen to know at least two other people (David Crow, Roland Tanglao) that got the same email.

I'm currently still in Torino, Italy, although I'm heading out to Milan, then Bologna tomorrow, and will be in Brussels by the end of the week in time for FOSDEM.

I'm writing a bit about mobile technologies here in Italy over on 2010.dailyvancouver.com (check the Tech Talk section). I've got a Vodaphone SIM for my Nokia 6630 with UMTS-based 3G service (around 350kbps) and the experience has been fantastic.

So, while we had our symposium, the relative maturity of the European vs. Canadian mobile technologies certainly did come up. One example I used was how there is a mobile data plan here that gives you 9GB of transfer for 40EU. On Fido, which is my provider back home, this would cost $270,000 based on the listed per MB charges of $30. Actually, I did the calculation in my head initially and everyone was shocked/amused by the figure of $27,000...and then we figured out we were still an order of magnitude off!

Mentioning his on the road week at Les Blogs, Paolo Valdemarin reports that 3G access with his phone costs 0,75 eurocent/kb = 7,6 Euros per Mb.

I would happily pay that price, especially for the approximately 300kbps speed of 3G. How much does wireless cost in Canada? Well, only Fido/Rogers have GPRS, while Bell and Telus have the ridiculous 1X no SIM card lock in nonsense. If you don't have a data plan, GPRS costs $30 CDN / MB, or 30 cents/kb. So, uploading one picture from my 1.3MP cameraphone costs about $9. Ridiculous!

Luckily, I have a grandfathered Fido plan that lets me use unlimited data for $50 / month. I try and use it as much as possible to get my moneys worth. Darren earlier reported what happens when you try data without a plan.