What’s interesting is Shaw stated that wifi is free and they can more easily set up a wifi network than a cellular network.

“Given that Wi-Fi spectrum is free and there are no device subsidies, we can build extensive Wi-Fi coverage at a substantially lower cost relative to a traditional wireless network and still provide our customers with an excellent broadband wireless experience,” Shaw said.

Maybe this means a city-blanketing wifi network that you can pay to have access to. wifi capable devices such as iPhones and iPod touches can be activated using a VOIP client similar to Shaw’s home phone, and it would work anywhere in the city. Of course getting wifi stations in sparsely populated areas isn’t exactly practical, but for denser regions, a home phone that works in the city might be plenty for most people. Interesting idea.

The other option is that Shaw might choose to buy out one of the new wireless companies, or perhaps even merge. With the lines between mobile and home broadband becoming blurred, it may make sense for a wireless-only and wired-only company to merge in order to more effectively compete with the big three.

One thing is for sure, Shaw’s home broadband plans are second to none in Canada right now, so a buyout of Shaw by Rogers would be a terrible thing for consumers.

I try to stay away from regurgitating rumours, but this has interesting implications for Canada. Sprint runs a WiMax 4G network which has very little implication for Canadian carriers, but the fact that the new iPhone may be able to run on T-Mobile’s “4G” (I say that because it is in fact HSPA+ and not true 4G/LTE) network could mean big things for Canadians.

T-Mobile runs on the same AWS band that new entrants Wind Mobile and Mobilicity run on – whatever phones work with T-Mobile’s high-speed network should also work with Wind and Mobilicity. The new entrants haven’t had much trouble growing their subscriber base, but there are still potential customers waiting in the wings because they want the iPhone.

One only needs to look south of the border to see how big a boost an AWS iPhone will be for Wind and Mobilicity. When the CDMA iPhone 4 finally came to Verizon, it was the most successful phone launch in Verizon history.

I got to speak with Will Novosedlik, VP – Brand & Communications, and Scott Campbell, Chief Marketing Officer. I was mostly interested in the future expansion of the Wind “Home” zones, future network upgrades, and phone offerings.

Phones:

“We are not in the device business, we are in the service business, so there isn’t much we can do.”

That’s the gist of it folks. Wind would love to offer the iPhone, the newest HTC EVO/Incredible, and every BlackBerry phone in existence, but they have no control over the manufacturers building AWS-capable versions of their handsets. Wind (as well as Mobilicity and T-Mobile in the US) operate on the 3G-AWS band, which is slightly different from the standard 3G band that the other North American carriers use. This means that your iPhone 3GS will not work on the Wind network at 3G speeds, even if you unlock it and use a Wind SIM. You can presumably get voice and text, and data speeds will likely be limited to EDGE (think dial-up speeds).

RIM has apparently been great to Wind, and the two companies are working together quite well on ensuring that BlackBerry phones are 3G-AWS capable. Wind and RIM are going to be holding a series of promotions in the near future at sporting events and festivals, so watch out for those. Expect a solid offering of BlackBerrys in the future.

HTC has one phone on the Wind network – the HTC Maple. No word on any progress towards getting some of the new HTC superphones working, although it does seem that HTC is willing to make special versions of its phones for carriers. The EVO 4G is a WiMax-4G capable phone on Sprint’s network. Sprint is currently the only carrier in North America to use WiMax for 4G, and it looks like all the other carriers have plans to go with WiMax’s alternative technology, LTE. That HTC would make a WiMax version of their latest and greatest phone bodes well for the 3G-AWS carriers.

As for the iPhone – it’s anyone’s guess. Personally I don’t expect the next generation iPhone to come in an AWS version but that is pure speculation and could be completely wrong.

Of course the manufacturers need to be sure that they will sell enough of the AWS phones in order to justify making a different version. For many of them, there just isn’t enough demand right now. T-Mobile, Wind, and Mobilicity are the only AWS carriers in North America right now and all are relatively small players. Until they gain enough subscribers to get the manufacturers’ attention, the AWS handset market will remain fairly small.

That being said, Wind has a good relationship with T-Mobile, and are working together to build demand for AWS phones from the manufacturers. Apparently, they all have AWS handsets on their roadmap, so the phones are coming, it’s just a question now of when.

Android:

Pretty much the same as above. Android will become more available as manufacturers make AWS-capable Android phones.

LTE/4G:

Wind is able to upgrade to LTE along with the other carriers when they need to. There is no point in doing so now because there aren’t any LTE compatible phones out yet and it will be a while before they become widespread. If you’re looking to the future, Wind claims to be ready to upgrade with everyone else when the time is right.

Home Zone Expansion:

Wind is expanding its “Home” zones in all cities pretty much constantly. The Vancouver suburbs will largely be covered by the end of 2010, and the expansion will happen gradually and continually. Expect the same in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Ottawa. I couldn’t get any more detail than that because even Wind doesn’t know exactly how fast the process will be.

When building out their network, Wind has to locate potential tower sites, contact the land owners, set up a lease agreement for the land to put up a tower, construct the tower, connect it to the existing network, test the system, and then go live. While they likely have the construction/connection/testing procedure down pat, the uncertainty and delays of locating and negotiating leasing agreements with individual landlords means they can’t give a solid timeline.

Summary:

There you have it. The phones will come when the manufacturers make them. The manufacturers will make them when there’s enough demand. Generating demand means growing the AWS carriers in numbers of subscribers. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, but that’s how it goes.

Network expansion is progressing quickly and continually so all anyone can say is: be patient.

Any other questions, feel free to contact me and I’ll do what I can to answer.

I showed up a little after the early birds as I wanted to get a sense of what it was like for someone trying to get a Wind phone on launch day. As expected, there were quite a few people milling about, consumers and media alike, and some were enjoying the $1 hot dogs.

And Globalive chairman Tony Lacavera was out talking to media and potential customers all day too.

I stood in line and chatted with people all morning about phones, plans, carriers, and other things. The general feeling I got from people was that the phone selection with Wind wasn’t great, the “Home” zones were a little smaller than they would have liked, but the plans were simple and cheap.

Now, there are a few types of cellular customers. If you are a techy-gizmo type of person who needs the latest and greatest hardware, Wind probably isn’t for you. If you are more concerned about using the phone to talk and text, Wind looks like a good option. If you live way out in the suburbs or travel there often, Wind isn’t too great for you right now. If you’re an urbanite, Wind becomes an attractive option to consider. The people in line seemed to be in agreement about these points, and they also seemed quite knowledgeable about phones and carrier bands and roaming charges.

One guy I spoke to lives in Surrey and was getting a Wind SIM card for his BlackBerry Bold just to test things out (that’s the great thing about no contracts… you can test the service out and cancel anytime if you’re not happy). He was disappointed with the lack of coverage in Surrey and the somewhat cryptic “coming later in 2010″ note attached thereto, but still picked up his SIM card anyways.

If you’re in Vancouver (less UBC), North Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, or New Westminster, you’re covered by a Wind “Home” zone and are good to go. If you live in Delta, Surrey, Coquitlam, UBC, or beyond, well, Wind isn’t quite ideal just yet. Although I did hear rumours that some Wind customers visiting from Toronto were seeing Surrey as a “Home” zone last week, the official line is that it is an “Away” zone and you will be paying roaming charges. As to the progress of the expansion of the coverage area, all I can say is that it will be moving outwards consistently throughout the rest of the year, with the goal of the full advertised coverage being achieved at the end of this year. The rate at which that happens is unknown right now, and a lot depends on how quickly the process of negotiating with landlords for land to put up a tower goes, followed by tower erection, connection to the rest of the Wind network, and network testing.

After talking for a while outside, I made my way inside and got a few shots of the store. At that point a media rep saw me with my notepad out and quickly came over to take some questions and pass me along to the appropriate individuals. Be sure to check out the interview post for some more information.

Is anyone else having similar issues?

Update: Maybe it isn’t an issue. I just logged in to my google voice account and tried to add a 403 number as a forwarding phone. It seemed to work fine as it asked me to go through the verification process. When I try with my 778 number it gives me an error that international numbers are not supported and doesn’t get to the verification process.

In response to Mobilicity’s launch today, Globalive CEO Tony Lacavera made a post on the windmobile site. Most telling was this paragraph:

With new competition emerging, the principle of ‘buyer beware’ is going to become very important. When customers evaluate the competition, they need to understand what they’re getting and what they’re not. That means asking the right questions: Does this new player offer data, roaming?

Wise words, and they have certainly been gained from experience.

Similar to the first new entrant Wind Mobile, Mobilicity is offering no contract plans, something which consumers have wanted for some time. Mobilicity will be in for some tough competition however, as Wind has almost a 6-month jump on them.

Phones

Also similar to Wind, Mobilicity runs on the 3G-AWS spectrum, meaning that current editions of many popular phones – such as the iPhone – will not run at 3G speeds on their network. As of now, the phone lineup is fairly limited, consisting of the Totem, Sony Ericsson TM-506, Huawei U7519, Nokia 5230, HTC Snap, and the BlackBerry Bold 9700. Prices are very similar to those available at Wind, with the exception being the BlackBerry Bold 9700 – $450 at Wind, $499.99 at Mobilicity.

Plans

The nice thing is they’re simple: You get an unlimited plan, or you pay per use. It doesn’t look like there are any tiers to their plans at all, so if you want to use data, you either spring for the unlimited data plan, or you pay $5/Mb (I assume it’s actually $5/MB but I’m going with what’s on their site).

The $45/mo plan looks quite useable if you don’t require any data use. Unlimited talk/text/Canadian long distance with voicemail and caller ID for $45 isn’t bad. The per-use data rates are pretty steep however. If you use more than 4 MB of data a month (very easy to do), then you are better off just springing for the $65 all-inclusive plan. You’ll get the added bonuses of unlimited US long distance, unlimited global text, and call waiting, call forwarding, and 3-way calling.

If Google Voice starts offering Canadian numbers, then the $35 plan looks very attractive as one could rely on the Google Voice provided voicemail and long-distance.

As far as unlimited plans go, it looks like Mobilicity has Wind beat. To get the same basic options with Wind one would need the $45/mo Always Shout plan (currently 50% off for 6 months), and the $35/mo unlimited data plan. That’s $80/mo with Wind, $65/mo with Mobilicity. Factoring in the current discount at Wind which brings the price to $57.50 for 6 months, Wind is cheaper for the first 9 months at those rates, and then Mobilicity starts to take over.

And this is where it gets interesting. One can easily sign up with Wind for 9 months, then switch over to Mobilicity. Sure you’d have to pay for a transfer of your phone number, but if you have Google Voice (still waiting on Canadian availability of numbers…) getting a new number doesn’t matter.

My Wallet

Mobilicity has a feature called My Wallet which is essentially a pay-as-you-go account. You add money to it as you would pay your bill, and any balance is available for pay-per-use services if you don’t go for the $65 all-inclusive plan. I like this feature. Actually, I really like this feature. If you don’t have the money in your account, you won’t be able to use those expensive pay-per-use services. How many times have you checked your phone bill only to find it is $100 more than you thought because of some data charge or long distance charge you didn’t think you made? It looks like this My Wallet feature will prevent that, and good on Mobilicity for providing a pay-as-you-go option.

Skype-To-Go is a service whereby you can call a local number through your regular phone, which will allow you to use your cheap Skype long distance credit (if you have any) to make long-distance calls. You will still be charged for regular minutes usage through your provider, but at least they will be local minutes instead of long-distance.

With Skype offering an unlimited Canada and the US calling plan for $2.95 a month, this basically allows you to get free unlimited long distance for that amount. Not bad.

To enable the Skype-To-Go feature, simply log in to Skype, click on “Account” and then “Skype-To-Go”.

One can only wonder what this means for Canadian Skype-In numbers…

With this article I’d like to add more of a Canadian reaction to the iPad from the point of view of the mobile communications industry.

Yes, the iPad 3G is coming to Canada, reportedly in June. Expect a slight USD -> CAD markup on the device and more expensive data rates. Also, the iPad won’t be coming to all Canadian carriers.

What Will It Cost?

This is not a difficult question to ballpark. Extrapolating from the the ~10% markup on the lowest of the line in iPods (the 8GB iPod touch is $199 USD and $219 CAD), and Apple’s affinity for “nice” numbers, we’ll probably see prices similar to the following.

Predicted Canadian iPad Prices

As for the cost of the data plan, look for Bell, Telus, and Rogers to be fairly predictable and parallel each other. I’ll hazard a guess of $45/month for the unlimited* plan and $20/mo for the reduced usage plan of around 250MB. Asterisk may mean whatever caveats you suspect.

Now that I think about it, unless you go to youtube quite a bit on the device, you should be able to get away with 250MB of bandwidth. Sync it at home, take it out for browsing/email. Maybe a 1GB plan would be better.

Who Will Carry It?

The WiFi-only version should be available through normal channels – Apple Store, online, big boxes. As for 3G service, look at Telus, Bell, and Rogers to offer plans.

Do not expect to see the iPad with Wind/DAVE/Public Mobile.

Unfortunate as it may be, the 3G capabilities of the iPad do not allow it to be used on the 3G AWS band. If you visit the iPad specifications page, you’ll come across this information:

Wi-Fi + 3G model

• UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
• GSM/EDGE (850, 900,1800, 1900 MHz)
• Data only²
• Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology

The 3G AWS band that Wind Mobile operates on, and that DAVE and Public Mobile will operate on is known as UMTS IV. It uses the 1700 MHz band for device-to-tower and 2100 MHz band for tower-to-device for communications. Notably missing is the 1700 MHz capability of the iPad, so no 3G AWS, so no Wind/DAVE/Public. At least for now.

VOIP

The iPad is not a phone, and probably shouldn’t be thought of as such, even with VOIP apps. The iPad would still have access to the full lineup of app store apps, including skype, fring, truphone and the like, and the mic input would allow one to use the iPad as a VOIP device. The always-on 3G data connection, combined with push notifications in some apps would make the iPad quite usable from a connectivity standpoint.

But do you want a 10″ phone?

Maybe with a handsfree bluetooth connection it makes sense. See the push notification pop up, put the bluetooth earpiece in, hit accept, put the iPad down and away you go. It seems like a good option to test on, but really this is just using a sub-optimal device when what we really need is something to happen on the iPod touch/iPhone front.

Either give us an iPhone on data only, or make a 3G-capable iPod touch.

What does the iPad mean to Canadian consumers, what is it good for, and what are the communication implications? This article will be divided into two parts: First, a commentary on the iPad itself – my own personal reaction. Second, I will analyze its position in the Canadian wireless industry. (Updated: Wireless commentary here)

The iPad:

The specs on the iPad are available one Apple’s iPad site. This was a much-anticipated launch and many rumours about features and specifications were flying all over the net for the past several months. Steve Jobs posted a tweet to the effect that the iPad is going to be the device people remember Apple for, not the iPhone or the iMac. Will it live up to the hype?

The iPad: The Good

Formfactor

The weight (1.5 lbs) and size (9.7″ screen) are nice. I have not gotten my hands on one, so I can’t say much about typing on it. The LED backlit IPS screen is apparently quite gorgeous as well. In order to be ultraportable it should have something on a netbook in terms of size, which it does. Having the screen size it does means you don’t have to hold it up to your face in order to read it.

The Battery

Anyone who has the pleasure of using one of the new MacBook Pros knows just how good the batteries in them are. It seems Apple has carried this battery technology over to the iPad. 10 hours of video/internet/actual use is quite amazing. 1 month of standby time is obviously overkill but comes with the territory of having a fantastic battery.

Pretty

The Processor

The in-house designed processor is probably the best part of this device from where I sit. It shows Apple’s commitment to tailor their hardware specifically to the function of the device, rather than seeing what parts are out there and building what they can from them. The Apple silicon, system-on-a-chip technology is what will give them the advantage over other entrants into this market.

3G – Unlocked

I also like the fact that the 3G version is unlocked. I can understand why Apple initially had to have exclusivity agreements with the iPhone, but now that they have some critical mass behind their devices, and consumer investment in the app store, they can employ a strategy of wider adoption and capitalize on the app store revenues.

The inclusion of data-only 3G as an option was practically a given as the device doesn’t lend itself well to being a phone. It’s nice to see no-contract service agreements that you can sign up for from the iPad itself. I can only hope that this kind of thing comes to the iPod touch but won’t hold my breath. An important question that needs to be answered is: Is there some way to piggy back the iPad 3G account onto an existing 3G account? That is, do I have to pay $30/mo for iPhone 3G and an additional $30/mo for iPad 3G, or can I combine the two devices under my single account?

iBook

The iBooks reader looks really slick, and the dropdown menus for the apps are great UI changes. Hopefully these will percolate through to the iPhone. I could easily see myself reading books on something like this.

The iPad: The Not So Good

It’s basically just a big iPod touch. That can do 3G. So it’s like an iPhone. But it can’t make calls.

Screen: Should be HD

The 1024×768 screen should have been 1280×960 or 1280×800 in my opinion. This would allow for 720p content to be played and would have paralleled the screen resolution on the MacBooks. Maybe it’s just me, but 1024×768 seems like such a 1999 resolution. The iPad is apparently capable of playing 720p video (according to the iPad site), so why not display it all?

I realize that 99% of all websites are designed to run on a screen width of 1024 pixels, so this resolution makes for an ideal web browsing experience, but I doubt that the performance cost of going to a slightly larger screen would have been that significant.

Pages? Really?

iWork? Really?

iWork for the iPad looks neat however I wouldn’t ever use it. I doubt that typing on it would ever feel natural enough to justify getting Pages, and if I need to use Pages, I’m working on a laptop. I’d have to play with Numbers in order to really understand how I would use it on the iPad. It seems like a key pad and mouse is the best way to go for that application and the transition to a touch device seems awkward. Keynote on the other hand, I can see. I wouldn’t ever want to use the iPad as my main Keynote authoring platform, but adjustments to presentations would work well. I guess it’s not bad to include iWork apps, but my MacBook Pro can do all of these things and do them better, so I am not compelled to switch.

Flash

Really? No flash support? Really?

Mobility

I already have an iPod touch and don’t quite feel compelled to get an iPad. The 3G is nice, but for most of the places I go, I have wifi, and the only thing I find I’d like to have 3G connectivity for is for making a phone call. Since the iPad doesn’t do phone calls natively, it seems like the 3G add on is lost on me.

If I’m truly trying to “be mobile” I find that the iPod touch/iPhone platform is fantastic for browsing. Is it just me or are the mobile versions of websites better than the full versions anyways?

The iPad: The Missing

No Tablet

We all thought this was going to be a tablet. So where’s the pen? Where’s the handwriting/notetaking software? This device could have been HUGE with students as a true tablet combined with a textbook subscription service.

Imagine: iChat on top, doc editing below

No iSight

A front-facing iSight camera would have launched the mobile video conferencing trend that seems to be coming. People have wanted this feature on the iPhone, so why not try it out on the iPad? Imagine this: You’re sitting in a chair with your iPad, and the top 1/3 of the screen has 2 video feeds showing on it – a client and a co-worker. The lower 2/3 of the screen is a document you are all working on. You pull out your pen and make changes, circling, highlighting, editing, scrolling by touch, and your client and co-worker see the updates. Okay that’s a lot to ask, but I’d still like to talk to my mom on it.

No Multitasking

Better hardware and more battery life and it still can’t run more than one thing?

The iPad: Where Does It Fit?

If you want to do work, you have a laptop and the iPad isn’t for you. If you want to listen to music and browse the web casually, then you probably have a smartphone or iPod touch and the iPad doesn’t really offer any improvements to your experience.

For people who have both a laptop and a smartphone-type device, the iPad is a very tough sell. It doesn’t seem to do anything better than either a laptop or an iPhone except for being an eReader.

But what if you don’t have a laptop (or need a new one), and don’t have a smart device (or need a new one)? Could you get an iPad and replace some old devices? Maybe. I couldn’t really see typing on it very much, even with the keyboard dock, but it could be useful for a person who travels a lot and for some reason can’t carry something as big as a laptop around during the day.

The suitability of the iPad as a mobile communication device will be the subject of a follow-up article.