Archive for March, 2010
Blowing My Socks Off
As I mentioned in my last post, I am a customer of Canadian wireless new entrant WIND Mobile (UPDATE: For disclosure’s sake I must note that as of May 17 I am also connected to WIND in a professional capacity). I’ve been with them for about a month now and now seems as good a time as any to post a review of my experience thus far.
Back near the end of February, I went into the WIND store to pick up my phone and was greeted with a nice, open store and the staff were ready and willing to help. The activation process took a bit longer than I expected, but activation by nature tends to take a while. Gave them my number to port over from TELUS then left.
I left the store and made a couple test calls to see if I could see what people meant with the dodgy network, but found the complaints people had were not there in my case. Only issue I had during the day was with the BlackBerry Internet Service, which I thought I had set up in-store, but there had been server side issues with the on-device setup, which seemed to be an issue on RIM’s end as opposed to WIND itself.
About a week after I bought my phone I moved to another part of town and seem to be experiencing a Farraday Cage effect at my home, where my phone will work fine in front of the house, but inside or behind not so much. That aside, I have kept a running list of weak areas within the home zone and reported the issues to WIND, thus far experiencing at least some improvements in some areas.
In all, I don’t regret the experience in the least and don’t plan to switch out if I don’t need to. If you’re in any of WIND’s home zones (Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto or Ottawa) then definitely take a look, I think a lot of you will like what you see.
Wireless with Teeth
We’re just over 3 months into the launch of one of Canada’s new wireless carriers, WIND Mobile (who I am a customer of and quite happy with for disclosure’s sake) and for the first time in a long time, Canadians are actually getting real choice in wireless.
With WIND having launched in December, we also have Public Mobile (a new entrant in the GTA and Montreal only at this time) and Mobilicity (formerly DAVE Wireless) both launching later in the year, which shows that the wireless business is seriously heating up, and definitely getting some teeth.
Thus far, WIND has geared a lot of their marketing towards people that are frustrated with the idea of wireless contracts (which most consumers are, let’s face it), along with customers that wanted a better prepaid experience (They offer all the same pricing, phones and most services (US roaming being an exception right now) to both postpaid and prepaid). Along the way they have had some pretty nasty issues, including a stream of complaints about network issues (I’ve had a few, but they got better) and their website being down for just about 2 days after the launch in Toronto, crippling it to some extent up to the Calgary launch. All this has provided fuel for Mobilicity, who on their website says “There’s nothing worse than making all kinds of promises then messing up because you were in a rush.” Granted, WIND did probably launch a bit sooner than was practical for them, but for what they have done right they have been doing a pretty good job.
Mobilicity, formerly under the less attractive moniker DAVE Wireless, is planning to launch in spring of this year according to their website, in the same space that they took a swipe at WIND’s issues. Nothing is said of their plans or phone offerings at this time, but they are promising unlimited plans, “uncomplicated wireless” and no contracts. Given they plan to launch in major Canadian cities, this puts them in a position much like the one Fido was in when Microcell launched them several years back, but sets them up to put fierce competition up with the big 3 (Rogers, TELUS and Bell).
Public Mobile is offering a single plan at the $40 price point for unlimited talk and SMS, with the ability to get free, unlimited Canadian long distance “for life” if customers join during the pre-launch promotion. They currently have just 4 phones, none of them being considered smartphones, where a sizable chunk of the marketplace is headed, but offering a phone in the sub-$100 price point without a contract, which will undoubtedly be attractive to some. However, as Public is only building a network between Toronto and Quebec City, they are going to be a relative non-threat to the big 3 and a relatively limited threat to WIND and Mobilicity (that and I’m really against this concentration in Eastern Canada, but that’s just me).
Worth mention as well is Videotron, which is a brand well known in Quebec for their offering as a cable provider. Quebecor, Videotron’s parent, purchased most, if not all of the spectrum set aside for new entrants in Quebec, with Public Mobile having acquired two licenses in Quebec to facilitate their coverage. Nothing is said about phones or plans with Videotron either, but it’s clear that they plan to cover all of Quebec.
No matter how you look at it though, the competition is definitely heating up and should provide the change Canadians have been hoping for.
The Blue is Alright
Posted by Calvin in Uncategorized on March 10, 2010
While I was in Vancouver working at the Olympics, I was working alongside some great people, both volunteer and otherwise. Some of them with a much maligned part of our day to day lives.
The men and women of Canada’s police services, primarily the RCMP, were some of my closest colleagues for the time I was at the games. I got to meet people from of course the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police (who are grappling with the loss of one of their own in the line of duty earlier this week), the Sûreté du Québec (Québec’s Provincial Police), Owen Sound Police, Edmonton Police and Treaty Three Police to name a few.
Working alongside these men and women that work to ensure the safety of the public from coast to coast on a daily basis not only reminded me of the important role they play, but gave me a look at the more human element of these people that are often maligned for simply doing their jobs.
While they have to maintain a standard of professionalism, when we did have chances to relax, they were seriously no different from you and me, really nice people that were always ready to share a laugh, share stories and even watch the game when things were quiet (There was no shortage of opportunities for that just about anywhere you went in town). Being able to discover the more human element of our country’s finest gave me just that much more respect for what they do and definitely a whole new attitude towards them (if ever I get pulled over for speeding or anything like that I’m definitely going to think twice before freaking out at them). That isn’t to say however that there are some that become overzealous and take things to an extreme that pushes the boundaries of what is reasonable, but the few that may do that are overshadowed by the many that treat the position with the responsibility and restraint it deserves.
They, like any one of us, are just doing their jobs. Granted that means exposing themselves to great personal risk and sometimes even making some judgement calls that we may not agree with or find popular, but again, it’s all a part of doing their job, a job that I can’t thank them enough for stepping up to do.
Buildup To An Epic Nothingness
Posted by Calvin in Uncategorized on March 7, 2010
I spent much of February in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games (and my work at such), amid talk of protests the likes of which Vancouver had never seen before. It proved, however, to be a build-up for a whole lot of nothing.
The Olympic Resistance Network was promising to use such tactics as disrupting the opening ceremonies to try and cause unrest at these games, but were stopped short of that by the police, some of which got injured when ORN protesters decided to get violent. That resulted in an arrest.
Of all the demonstrations that occurred, the largest was allegedly by a group from Central Canada referring to themselves as the “Black Bloc”. About 200 of their members marched through Downtown Vancouver, smashed windows and intimidated pedestrians before being stopped by police in riot gear. This resulted in 7 arrests, but these cowards were in masks, which was almost assuredly to keep themselves from getting arrested.
All of this led to a most disappointing showing by the demonstrators, but at the same time, maybe they thought the build-up alone would keep people away.
Boy were they ever wrong.
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