Roland Tanglao's Weblog

This whole issue has been a huge disappointment for me, ever since visiting Finland for the first time 3 years ago. At that time I learned how much hype and bullshit North Americans face, even though we are always playing catchup with technology and don't even realize. The fact that Canadians are always waiting for innovations to migrate up from the States is something when you consider that they aren't even first in line, they just act like it. So because of this and many other issues, I can say that living now in Europe - or more specifically Scandinavia, I'm much more confident in the general population to understand these things more fundamentally, and progress is real. I wrote some letters a couple years ago to the CRTC, and also a director of Rogers mobile, and before that Motorola. That very person representing of one of the 3 major Canadian operators produced a report to the CRTC in 2000, that Wireless Number Portability was not in the consumers best interest, because the investment involved would take away from the development of other infrastructure. Then I imagine they put all their weight and influence on that to guide CRTC into making the best decision in the "interests of consumers". Some small operators, namely Fido were pushing hard in the right direction, but their voices were too quiet. At least now this slow machine has been moving forward, and I'll be first in line to move my # to VOIP March 14th, 2007. And about "skype phones over wifi", I can prouly say that I have had the privelige to test pre-release Nokia E-series phones, and I've been using multiple SIP accounts with phone numbers from Canada and Finland over wifi AND 3G since the beginning of this 2006, so how 'bout that eh?!

Cell phone plans (along with long distance and cable plans) are a frustrating excerise in confusology.

After receiving a high enough bill (such as when a child uses minutes beyond the limit at which the insane prices start) people will be more likely to switch (after paying appropriate switching fees) to a competitor. This will introduce real competition which should improve service offerings for everyone.

The big guys will try to fight this using "bundling" options (Cell phone, regular phone, long distance, internet, cable, GPRS, other) to create additional layers of confusology. However if they increase the confusology quotient too high they will canibilize their own sales. Many consumers think they already are getting HD on their cable.

I'm looking forwards to when a Skype phone using WIFI can replace expensive Cell phones.