As we at iphoneapp.net recently learned, we may have some more good news on the way. No- it’s not leaked 3G iPhone pictures. It’s even more exciting than that: the Canadian government just announced their plans to open up sections of the wireless spectrum to bidding. There are several sections totalling 105 MHz around the 2 GHz range being made available: 1710-1755 MHz, 1865-1915 MHz, 1950-1995 MHz.
Current GSM cellular service in Canada uses the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz range making most of the auctioned sections choice blocks for wireless providers, especially for patient iPhone users that might be looking for alternatives to Rogers. An optimistic spectator might see this as a chance for another company to use their newly acquired bandwidth to offer competing GSM cellular service. While this is more long-term in scope, it has the potential to radically change the Canadian wireless landscape.
Unlike the recent auction in the U.S., this is an open auction- bid amounts and round winners will be made available to the public during the auction.
Among the expected bidders- the “big 3″ of Rogers, Bell, and Telus- are approximately 20 other companies looking to pick up bands of spectrum. It should be noted that not all of these 20 bidders are looking for spectrum that is suitable for cellular/wireless service as the auction is not only for the ~2Ghz range but also for much higher frequencies expected to be used for broadband internet.
Hopefully this is what is needed open the door to more competition in the Canadian Wireless market.
Electronista’s operatives inside Rogers are hinting that the pendulum might swing the other way- we could have the cheapest data plans to date. Most of the speculation surrounds the $7 “unlimited” browsing option we mentioned earlier.
According to the article, iPhone in Canada will be “available the same month as an expected US release of an updated, 3G-capable model rather than as part of any possible staggered launch.” Looks like we’re going to skip the current iteration and go straight for the long-anticipated 3G version.
Our guess? We’ll wager it’s going to be available as of the WWDC keynote, alongside the appstore and official firmware version 2.0, but hold back on making any bets as to whether we’ll get MMS and video capabilities as well for now.
Firstly, we all know that a carrier with a GSM network is a prerequisite. That already narrowed the choice of carriers down from “a few” to “a couple”. The only two GSM carriers in Canada are Rogers and Fido, and monthly fees paid to either company end up in the same pocket.
Rogers offers several advantages- they have the larger network of the two GSM providers in Canada and their data rates have been dropping consistently.
Fido subscribers have access to Rogers’ towers, but they get hit with extra fees when they “roam” off the smaller Fido network and onto the surrounding Rogers network. This is not an attractive situation for the company blessed with carrying the JebusPhone.
Whether lowering their data rates was part of preparing for iPhone and its traditional bundling with unlimited data plans, or just an effort to seem a more attractive partner to Apple, we can’t say for sure, but it definitely a big step in getting Canadian data rates in line with the rest of the world’s. As of right now, Rogers’ “Blackberry Voice and Email” plans subscribers can add a $7/month unlimited (on-device) mobile browsing option. We can surely expect to have a similar option included in any iPhone service plan. Adding unlimited browsing to the least expensive Blackberry plan gives a total monthly fee $52, before taxes and the ever-popular SAF, and that’s not too far away from the advertised rates in the U.S.
One of the downsides of having to sign up with Rogers for a service plan are that calls are billed by the minute, unlike Fido’s per-second billing. Strange that one arm of the company has per-second billing while the other chooses to bill its customers by the minute.
Another small detail that could stand in the way of a reasonably affordable plan is that the “unlimited” mobile browsing actually has a lot of limitations. This option does not include tethered internet use, non-approved sites, or accessing approved sites using non-approved software. Sure seems like a lot of limitations for and unlimited option.
It looks like Canadians are finally going to be able to walk out of our few Apple stores with some multi-touch goodness- high data rates, per-minute billing, and all- pretty soon. We’re hoping that some of the drawbacks are turned into advantages by that time.
Any other upsides or downsides we couldn’t think of? Let us know in the comments.
someone’s already working on this. It feels like we’re just around the corner from having useful and ubiquitous location-based services on every phone. If it weren’t for the iPhone’s “one-app-at-a-time” policy, I’d be the first to download and use an iPhone Imity client. Maybe we’ll see something similar in the appstore anyway.
Any bets on whether location-aware apps will be among the initial offerings?
Great piece at Daring Fireball about the differences in features, design, and target users between Blackberry and iPhone.
With this announcement the wait comes to an end. Stay tuned for more news on iPhone availability in Canada.
We are looking for interviews, news, and general information about Canadian developers targeting the iPhone platform. If you have an app (idea*) in the works- we want to hear about it and you. Drop us a line in the comments if you’re up for being interviewed/profiled.
* yes, we know the SDK is US-only right now, but it won’t stay that way for long.
