Welcome Globalive to the Canadian cell phone market

 i sincerely hope the announcement today that the federal government has overturned the CRTC's dubious decision to block global live launch in canada will result in more choices and more real competition in canada.

we all know that we pay the highest rates for cell phone services in the world, and as a result have the lowest adoption rates. the current big 3 carriers have been all to happy to leave prices sky high, and complicitly conspire against the consumers in canada, and so far they've had the CRTC on their side.

what i love about todays annoucement is 2 things, firstly the prospect of more competition, but almost more enjoyable was the fact the the CRTC were rendered obsolete with the government simply overruling the decision and the anger coming out of Telus, Bell and Rogers on the back of the decision... check this out from one of Telus's corporate VP's of Bullshitting the public:

"If Wind is Canadian, then so was King Tut," said Michael Hennessy, head of regulatory affairs for Telus, on his Twitter page. "When you have no effective opposition party, you can make the rules you want."

Hahahahah, i love it when they get pounded!!! Here's a big fuck you to Telus, Bell and Rogers for fucking Canadians in the ass with some of the most expensive cellular services in the world.

Kindle works in Canada, but kind of not....fully??

I must admit, the Kindle is one device i don't particularly care for. i don't believe it's necessary to invest in yet another screen to read and believe paying $260 for a black and white screen and 2GB memory card is downright stupid.

...however. what does piss me off is that once again Canadians got the shaft in terms of device availability and service continuity. is this why we protect canadian wireless carriers from US competition? so canadians can pay higher bills for less service for access to products behind the REST of the world?

thanks to the crtc and inept government policy failure for yet another colossal fucking over of us the canadian tax payers and consumers.

It is not necessary to dial 1.........

i realize this isn't a Vancouver specific gripe, and I don't even know if it's a Canada specific gripe, but i think we can all identify with this pain.

dont you hate it when you call a number and insert the 1 infront (even if it's local) and you get that annoying message instructing you to hangup and dial again. most annoying is the fact that at home, my Caller ID often comes through with a 1 in front of the local number who called me, so when i select the option to redial, it gives me the annoying message that i need to redial again without the 1.

the 1 is what supposedly takes you out of your own local area code, the complication in Vancouver is that the idiots that be have setup the 604 area code in such a way that some 604 numbers are local and some aren't...so in some cases you do need the 1 ahead of the 604 and in others you dont. it doesn't seem to be a problem when calling from a cell phone, so why is a problem from a landline????

iPhone in Canada? Yeah right...

Well with the launch of the iPhone in the US today, it leaves many of us wondering WTF? Most of us all live within 100 KM of the US border, so the question is what gives. Why aren't rogers offering the iphone here, why haven't they even announced it? The answer as usual is confusing and less than clear. While we can assume its a case of a combination of the following:
1. Licensing deals with Apple Canada/Rogers, trying to get it at a price point where they can gouge the Canadian consumers, and still make alot of money.
2. The fact that they only just released last years technology, and they dont want a newer better phone on the market to compete with that.
3. Probably some crappy govt rules about the device having to have FRENCH instructions included.
4. The CRTC has decided that they need to test the device for 3 months before they approve a license for it to be sold.