Telus unable to sign new mobile customers… “poor customer service from telus is news? That’s a “Mickey Mouse” Provider anyway. Am I am supposed to feel sorry for them? Does this warrant coverage? Karma someone said.. Wait, people are still signing up for Teuls? You can’t speak to anyone……and when you do it’s like talking to your dog…….the only difference is you get a responce from your dog. .. their high speed internet services are also terrible. Poor customer relations as well as trouble getting thru technical support. Telus probably went over thier bandwith cap or even better..they are throttled… by Bell or Rogers? Maybe telus should find a better service provider. Telus uses a lot of Dell equipment which should be all you need to know. this couldn’t happen to a better gouging, money hungry corp. Their record of poor service and arbitrary contract fees, etc has finally caught up with them. My most common telemarketing call: Telus, of course. Desperate fools, I’m NEVER coming back. I’ve had satellite with Bell (terrible service), I’ve had a cell phone through Rogers (nightmare) and both internet and landline through telus (clunky incompetent service)… None can I say went smoothly. Is anyone happy with any Canadian provider? ” http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/09/09/telus-new-customers-outage.html
Canadian cellphone rates among world’s worst, The average Canadian cellphone user is paying among the highest bills in the developed world, according to a new international study. Using a comparison package of 780 calls made, 600 text messages and eight multimedia messages sent per year, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found that Canada has the third-highest wireless rates among developed countries. The United States had the highest rates for this “medium-usage” package, followed by Spain. Canadians falling into this usage category shelled out an average of $500 US a year for their cellphone service, compared with $635 for Americans and $508 for Spaniards. Dutch users had the cheapest rates, with an annual expenditure of only $131 for the sample plan. Canadians who were light or heavy users ranked slightly better in the OECD’s annual Communications Outlook, released Tuesday. Light users, defined as those making 360 calls a year and sending 396 text messages and eight multimedia messages, spent $195 US a year on average — the 11th-most expensive among the 30 OECD member countries. Heavy users, those making 1,680 calls a year and sending 660 text messages and 12 multimedia messages, spent $563, which ranked near the middle of the pack at 12th. The poor showing was not surprising — the Canadian government has acknowledged that rates are too high and are contributing to lagging cellphone usage. Canada now ranks last for cellphone users per capita in the OECD, having been surpassed by Mexico since the organization’s previous study. The OECD’s findings are in line with the CBC’s iPhone iNdex, which was compiled last year when Rogers Communications released Apple’s iPhone 3G. The iNdex compared the total cost of the device across 21 countries and found that Canada was the second-most expensive, next to Italy. The total cost of ownership of high-end devices such as the iPhone has also been considerably higher because Canada is the only OECD country to require three-year contracts. Most countries have two-year limits on contracts. Canadian carriers have recently begun offering such devices without contracts, albeit with hefty up-front fees.
Canadians are also getting hosed for their internet access, according to the OECD Communications Outlook study. Canada has the second-most expensive high-speed connections, or those ranging between 12 and 32 megabits per second, next to only the Slovak Republic. Such a connection costs around $90 US per month in Canada, well above the OECD’s average of $53. Medium-speed connections, or those between 2.5 and 10 megabits, are eighth-most expensive out of 30 countries at about $48, above the $43 average. Low-speed connections, under 2.5 megabits, are ninth-most expensive at around $33, slightly above the OECD average of $32.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/11/canada-cellphone-rates-expensive-oecd.html
Many of us suspected that already too.
“ Adam Savage, the co-host of the popular TV show MythBusters, got the unfathomable $11,000 cellphone bill he got while travelling Canada. Not liking that disconnected feeling, he used a mobile modem — a thumb-sized device that plugs into a USB port on a laptop — from his U.S.-based AT&T carrier to connect to the Internet in Montreal. On Friday, after he returned back to the United States, he discovered his cellphone had stopped working. When he called AT&T to find out the problem, his jaw dropped. He was slapped with an $11,000 bill for data usage during his five-day stay in La Belle Province. With his Canadian roaming rates at $0.015 cents per kilobyte, he would have had to use about 750,000 kilobytes — or about 750 megabytes — worth of data transfers. About 750 minutes watching YouTube ” http://www.canada.com/MythBuster+uses+Twitter+fight+phone+bill/1741348/story.html
“D.C. Police Officers Carry iPhones, Police officers can use the iPhone to run traffic checks, track patrol routes and better respond to incidents. “Apple has done an amazing job with the user interface,” “The browser application and application integration is so simple” The D.C. government has been testing the iPhones since Apple launched a beta program for the device among enterprises. About 75 iPhones are being used in the areas of public safety, education and healthcare. “http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/09/gadget-love-for The main problem is the often poor service you get from the people, carriers who actually do sell, service the iPhones..
Quebec to end automatic cell phone contract renewals, surprise fees and what about the Internet service providers, who are the same firms doing the same bad things there too to the customers, well?
Quebec to end automatic cellphone contract renewals, surprise fees CBC.ca – The Quebec government has tabled legislation to better protect consumers in the province when they sign cellphone contracts. Justice Minister Kathleen Weil said laws aimed at protecting cellphone users were written in the early 1970s and don’t address current consumer habits. She said Bill 60, introduced Tuesday, would revise outdated rules. There can be “very onerous penalty fees” to pull out of a contract once a service provider automatically renews it — usually for a period lasting three years, Weil said. The bill would prohibit the renewal of cellphone contracts without a customer’s written approval, she said. It would also force merchants to disclose the total cost of the goods and services offered, a move Weil said should prevent customers from being caught off guard by hefty fees for services they don’t want, such as text messaging. In addition, companies won’t be able to suddenly increase fees during the life of the contract. “Consumers often don’t understand everything that they have agreed to when they’ve signed that contract,” the minister said. “The contracts are a little vague, and there are services that are added over time without their knowledge and without their consent.” “The first thing that [merchants] do is offer you a free cellphone, and it’s sort of the lure that gets you into that relationship,” Weil told reporters. Merchants will have to explain existing warranty protection Weil said the new law would make it illegal for merchants to sell extended warranties before telling customers what the manufacturer already offers for warranty protection. It would also put an end to expiry dates on prepaid cellphone gift cards. The minister said the bill, amending the province’s Consumer Protection Act, would correct an imbalance in an evolving industry. “In consumer protection you often have an imbalance that happens over time and in the whole field of telecommunications. There is not a jurisdiction in North America that hasn’t noticed this imbalance.” Michel Arnold, head of the non-profit consumer rights group Option consommateurs, said Quebec is the first jurisdiction in the country to introduce this kind of consumer protection. Weil said officials in the province receive nearly 700 formal complaints about cellphone contracts each year — about 10 per cent of all consumer complaints — as well as thousands of inquiries. Bill 60 is expected to be adopted before the end of the year.
and what about in the rest of Canada too?
Apple iphones are Smart but RIM’s Blackberry phones dominate 50 percent of the North American market.. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) also gained, increasing its share to almost 20% from 13.3% during the quarter. The manufacturer last week also reported a 33% increase in quarterly profit, adding 3.8 million new BlackBerry subscribers. The company noted that 80% of new customers came from consumers and small businesses rather than corporate users.
Doctors and Med Students Embrace Smartphones May 21st 2009 Even though smartphones have been around for years, the exploding application scene (started by Apple’s App Store) has transformed what was typically a business communication device into much, much more. Despite the surge in mobile entertainment apps, it’s not all games: According to the Washington Post, roughly 64-percent of doctors in the U.S. use a smartphone, and many are using devices like the iPhone to look up drug interactions, view X-rays, and even stream music during a surgery. Med school students are also getting in on the action, with Georgetown’s medical school requiring students to own either an iPhone or iPod Touch (sound familiar?). Similarly, Ohio State University has promised to give each and every one of its 1,400 students an iPod Touch by this Fall. Catherine Lucey, Vice Dean for Education at OSU told the Washington Post, “It allows the residents and the students to ask questions at the bedside, and not rely on memory and not guess. They can actually sit with the patient if they wish and use a number of online sources.” There’s pretty much an infinite number of uses a device like the iPhone could offer the medical field. With over 25 pages of medical-related apps on the App Store alone — and the ability to link specialized hardware to the yet-to-be-released iPhone 3.0 — you have to wonder if Apple had this planned all along. [From: The Washington Post] http://www.switched.com/2009/05/21/doctors-and-med-students-embrace-smartphones?icid=sphere_wpcom_inline
The iphone operating systems choices include RIM’s BlackBerry OS, Apple’s iPhone OS, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, the Google backed Android platform, Nokia’s Symbian standard and the Palm’s new webOS. Apple is competetive in style and technology, but it’s not the breakaway frontrunner in phones. Remember also, wireless carriers such as Verizon and AT&T — not the handset maker – typically provide the first level of customer support and service if there’s a problem with a device. The proliferation of iphones, operating systems adds another level of difficulty to the already complex set of offerings. You also do clearly have to be a full time tech nerd to get the best usage out of your internet connections, iPhone too.. Iphone basically is a consumer phone and not a real business phone in comparison.. the iPhone’s supposed immediate Web savvy is not very relevant firstly in a business setting. More detailed criticism of what the iPhone lacks that BlackBerry (and Windows Mobile) do provide to corporate IT: “No enterprise management solution exists. This is okay for a SOHO, but for any business with more than a few hundred users it is unmanageable. No centralized enterprise device encryption products that meet HIPAA, SOX, SEC, or any other form of compliance requirements. In other words I cannot prove beyond my word that a device is encrypted if it is stolen and contained sensitive information. This leaves most U.S. corporations liable to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and potential jail time.” and that there is “no self-destruct mechanism if a lost or stolen device is activated. [For a BlackBerry,] we can send a kill signal that will wipe the device and render it as useful as a brick forever. The device can only be restored to functionality and service by the company that owns it. There is not reset, no reformat. It is dead to the thief and useless to a pawn shop.” “No imaging or standards solution exists for iPhone. We can plug any of our blackberry or Windows Mobile devices into a controller and instantly load a company standard of software and features. This lowers support costs. We can allow and disallow particular functions and features from a central management console controlling what is called a desired state. In other words, we can say a machine can only have a proven stable configuration and deny unauthorized ‘freeware or software’ that may compromise reliability. We can remotely backup data and information for users which makes turn around for replacement or damaged devices quicker and practical because it also restores it to the last state a user had their device. Let’s see you do that with an iPhone.”.. you can’t create folders on the iPhone to manage your apps, as you can on the BlackBerry. And the BlackBerry’s themes, which give a more integrated view of my applications than the default “Zen” view. “There are also today themes that can show a number of combinations on the home screen such as calendar events, new mail, sms and MMS messages (the iPhone can’t send MMS, by the way), etc. There are also themes called icon themes that give the user a more ‘unified interface,’ as you put it, just like the iPhone. This is all designed to allow the user the ability to customize their experience to their liking. To understand or view more, simply do a google search for ‘blackberry themes.’ http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=53601
Don’t now just believe everything you read even if it is in print.. “Toronto-based Rogers said it activated more than 360,000 smartphones — including Apple’s(AAPL.O) iPhone and Research In Motion’s (RIM.TO)(RIMM.O) BlackBerry — during the quarter ended March 31.” “The Google phone has finally landed in Canada HTC’s Magic smartphone succeeds in blending some of the best attributes of the iPhone and the BlackBerry without outright copying either of the devices. The Magic is one of only two phones currently available in Canada to sport Google Inc.’s new Android operating system (the other being the HTC Dream). Apple’s iPhone 3GS and Palm’s Pre has captured a lot of hype but it don’t count when compared to the leader Research in Motion. A recent Yankee Group survey showed 41% of Americans plan on buying a smartphone for their next phone purchase, and 50% of those people plan on buying a BlackBerry. Only 25% said they would buy an iPhone. BlackBerrys cost less for them to operate than iPhones and Pres. “RIM’s design is much more bandwidth-efficient than its competitors.” “BlackBerry will adapt its operating system to become much more consumer-friendly for it controls just 20% of the global market, compared to 41.2% for Nokia.”
But what about what the fact that most of positive sale spin adds do not tell you in detail the actual functionalities, actual final monthly costs too… “The device’s downfall is that it only has 512 megabytes of onboard memory. The Magic has a microSD card slot to allow for up to 16 gigabytes of additional memory (a 2-GB microSD card is included with the phone). So, the Magic is probably not for someone who wants to tote around a huge video and music collection.” etc., ” With the Apple iPod Touch I could access the web in WiFi zones, but could not easily check my work email too . My working it outside the office was possible, but it took more effort over the RIM BlackBerry with which I now already can’t live without it.”
Now that anytime Internet connections the new order of the new technological age is here the real problem is too many Telecommunication Equipment Customer’s Representatives do either deliberately lie or they even unintentionaly lie because they are incompetent, technically ignorant to try to make a sale, and next you can get the Unexpected iPhone bill wireless data roaming charges, and you also now next finding out that the wireless surfing can come at a staggering cost. Includes any of the customers who mistakenly signed up for the Rogers Rocket mobile service, or Bell’s plans thinking they were getting the equivalent of a no-limits plan.
“The present future development of iPhone includes multimedia messaging (MMS), and adding data tethering to the iPhone, which will turn the device into a wireless modem to connect laptops to 3G networks.
“MMS and Tethering – two features that have been readily available on many smartphones for years – are finally making their way to the iPhone. But if you’re in the United States, you won’t be able to use them for at least a few months. Because AT&T, the network with an exclusive lock on the iPhone in the US, couldn’t get it together in time to support them for the iPhone 3.0 software launch. At launch on June 17th, MMS is going to be supported by 29 carriers, and tethering will be supported by 22 of them. So when can we finally expect these stateside? MMS is apparently coming “later this summer”. And tethering? A much more nebulous (and ominous) “later”.
This is ridiculous, plain and simple. AT&T has almost certainly known about Apple’s plans for many months if not years, and was probably involved in determining when these features would be launching in the first place.
AT&T has made it clear many times that it simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to support the millions of new iPhone users that are using their “unlimited” data plans far more than they would on other phones.
Apparently AT&T won’t support the long-awaited addition of MMS upon the iPhone 3GS’s launch. Boy Genius Report explains the situation thusly, [T]he reason it’s not good to go right away is because AT&T has to manually remove all the “Opt Out MMS codes” on each account. Basically, if we were to summarize this, and we’re going out a little bit of a limb, remove the Opt Out MMS code, and MMS will work with the final OS 3.0 build right away. We’ve also just heard that tethering will be 100% locked out at launch, but AT&T’s in the process of putting together a $70/mo unlimited data and tethering plan. SMS and MMS will not be included in that plan, we’re told.” http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/08/att-underscores-how-badly-it-sucks/
Sadly AT&T for a start is not the only carrier that doesn’t have presently adequate existing bandwidth to support all of their customers, iPhone users using an “unlimited” data plan and that would now include Rogers and Bell? who are clearly already capping their existing customers and others to over come this serious shortcoming, and in spite of what they do all promise now they might have in the future I really rightfully do not believe them. .. why Rogers and Bell, others are always a LOSER. Always looking for some way to SOCK IT TO their customers over and over again and find another excuse to make the customers pay more. If they all knew the whole truth the Lower subscriber usage means smaller revenues for carriers like Rogers , Telus Corp and Bell, BCE Inc
“In Vancouver, David Morton was sold on a Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Stick – a wireless USB modem that links to the Rogers network and provides wireless data connectivity when you’re away from a wired-in or Wi-fi Internet connection. It’s a useful solution for road warriors and other mobile Internet users, but starting at $25 for 500 megabytes of data – compared to upwards of 60 gigabytes or more on cable or ADSL Internet connections starting at about the same price – it doesn’t add up to an economical deal. For many users, a combination of the two – a wired-in Internet solution for home and a USB modem for when they’re on the road – is the best answer. But some consumers are reading the fine print too late to avoid hefty contract cancellation penalties. “I went into the Rogers store in Yaletown and had quite a discussion with them,” Morton said. “It was kind of sold to us as a home Internet solution. They didn’t tell us it had limits. By the time he realized that wasn’t the right solution, it was too late. “My wife used it for just over the one-month trial period and when she took it back they stuck us for the penalty,” said Morton. .. users considering this for their main home connection should remember 500 MB usually suits just one person using the connection, and often for mobile use only. That limit would fall far short of the needs of a family sharing a home Internet connection.” “I did try to find out what the rates were before leaving. Through Rogers’ website, I couldn’t get any understanding of what the rates would be. There was something about so much per kilobyte downloaded, but one really has no idea what kilobytes are used to check an e-mail.” One of the problems is that talk of megabytes and gigabytes is so much techno-gobbledygook for many consumers. They may have no idea what it translates into when it comes to web surfing, sharing videos, e-mail, downloading movies and music, or the many other functions that have made computers an indispensable tool of daily living. ” http://nbbusinessjournal.canadaeast.com/journal/article/699295
Google Updates iGoogle for iPhone, Android Smartphones iGoogle allows users to personalize the information they recieve in a single page from Google. It does this through a series of RSS feeds and other data sources (i.e. weather, finance, quotes, calendar). A new mobile edition is available for the iPhone and Android that greatly increases the amount of information made available to smartphone users. This new version is faster and easier to use. It supports tabs as well as more of your favorite gadgets, including those built by third-party developers. Note that not all gadgets — like those with Flash — will work in mobile browsers. One of our favorite new features is the in-line display of articles for feed-based gadgets. That means you can read article summaries without leaving the page. You can also rearrange gadget order or keep your favorite gadgets open for your next visit. None of these changes will mess up the layout of gadgets on your desktop computer, so feel free to play around and tune your mobile experience. http://www.pdastreet.com/articles/2009/6/2009-6-15-Google-Updates-iGoogle.html
So the market for web-browsing and multi-media capable mobile phones — dubbed smartphones — has also matured in the last year, as competitors such as Palm and Research in Motion as well as mobile phone mainstays such as Nokia, Samsung and HTC battle for market share. Now about the other side of the add facts.. read the fine print, talk to some experts first. Many people say that the major carriers in Canada have all lost their chance for public credibility years ago and they have no use for any of the four companies, who make massive profits and treat their customers like garbage. They have had it with cell phones in this country. Hopefully one of the new companies will drive the bad incumbents into bankruptcy lile they did to Nortel.. Gouging consumers with high prices, extras tends to backfire with serious repercussions.
Ever wonder besides viruses that as time goes by you notice that your computer net is slower, and slower, well it is no secret Bell, Rogers, and others cannot handle the continually increasing demands cause by computers and iphones now too. So their thus do next systems break down, do too often have failures, are over used, in over capacity mode.. and these carriers seem to have been to cheap to rectify the problem, update, modernize their communication equipment..
What all does your mobile do for you?
- Yes you make and receive calls
- Send and receive SMS
- Take photographs
- Store phone numbers/contacts
- Play music
- Surf the net
- Play video
- Send and receive multimedia files
- Organizer
- Calculator
Grocery chains, Coprorations, ISP, iPhones, “Just like cable and satelite offers where they sign you up and then slowly bleed your services down to test patterns. What I love is their departure gift after cancellation, the “cancellation fee”. These corporations are a joke. They will follow Chrysler into the dumpster as people increasingly must tighten budgets.” History repeats itself often…
“Bell Canada Inc. is facing another challenge to its internet throttling practices as Quebec’s consumer watchdog, L’Union des consommateurs, has filed a class-action lawsuit against the company. The suit, filed Thursday in Quebec Superior Court on behalf of Montreal resident Myrna Raphael, seeks certification for all subscribers in the province. The lawsuit alleges that by deliberately slowing internet speeds, Bell has misrepresented its service and raised concerns over privacy. The consumer watchdog is seeking the return of 80 per cent of the internet subscription price, which it says is equal to the reduction in speed, as well as $600 per subscriber to compensate for false advertising and $1,500 for privacy rights violation. The watchdog said in a release that Raphael signed a three-year contract with Bell in 2006 on the basis that she would receive a connection with “always-on constant high speed, without frustrating interruptions during peak hours of the day.” Montreal-based Bell has admitted it is using so-called deep packet inspection, or DPI, technology to slow down certain uses of the internet — primarily peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent — during peak periods. The company says it needs to do so because a small percentage of heavy peer-to-peer users are causing congestion on its network, which could slow overall speeds for a large number of customers. Bell spokesman Mark Langton said the company does not comment on cases before the courts. Bell is not the only internet service provider to throttle customers speeds, as Toronto-based Rogers Communications Inc. has acknowledged doing so. The union, however, also launched a class-action lawsuit against Vidéotron last year for forcing download limits on internet customers in the middle of their contracts. The company said it was not violating the terms of those contracts as it gave customers two months warning.
The suit was followed Thursday night by submissions to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission by Bell and the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, which represents 55 smaller ISPs that rent portions of the company’s network. The parties were responding to an inquiry into Bell’s traffic-shaping practices by the CRTC, which sprouted from a complaint filed in April by CAIP.
In its filing, Bell said the traffic shaping, which it began applying to its own Sympatico customers in November and then to its wholesale CAIP customers in March, was necessary in order to prevent the slow-down of speeds for about 700,000 customers. Bell’s head of regulatory affairs, Mirko Bibic, told CBCNews.ca on Friday that throttling is just one of the means in which the company is addressing its congestion problem. Pricing plans based on usage as well as continued investment are the other solutions, he said, although “building alone is not going to solve the problem.”
CAIP in its submission accused Bell of lying to the CRTC by saying its throttling was only being used on peer-to-peer applications. The group said Bell has admitted to two independent ISPs, Sentex and Execulink, that its DPI technology was having an impact on virtual private network (VPN) connections, which was affecting individuals’ ability to work from home. The group also said DPI was affecting Voice over Internet Protocol telephones “ http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/06/02/tech-quebec.html
There are some legitimist reasons for high costs… one is the fact that the telecommunications companies tend to be very poorly managed, have too many cheap, indecent, incompetent personnel
The Consumers’ Association of Canada has told the CRTC it is up to Internet service providers to prove they have to restrict web traffic. The association says the major ISPs have not shown they need to manage web traffic. The CRTC opened hearings Monday into what conditions ISPs such as Bell, Rogers Communications and Quebecor can control traffic on their networks. The ISPs have said they need the ability to throttle traffic during peak times, to fight off congestion on their network. https://thenonconformer.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/bell-sympatico/
In today’s technology driven products, markets, a 3 year contract with a phone carrier is eternity, meaning your purchased phone will be quickly obsolete before that.
HTC will be the first manufacturer to bring Adobe Flash to the Android platform with the release of its new Hero/Sense device. iPhone is now the only platform with substantial weight on the market that doesn’t boast support for Flash. With the new Flash Player 10 just around the corner and HTC officially joining the Open Screen Project, Android, Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, and Palm WebOS will be among the first platforms to support full web browsing and access to virtually all Flash-based Web content. Adobe says about 80% of all online videos are delivered in Flash today and Adobe Flash Player content reaches over 98% of Internet-enabled desktops worldwide. With flash there are No modifications generally required to access most of the internet immediately, to get movies, maps, games, and lot more
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