An oligopoly coming to a telecomms market near you

If you're Cdn and you haven't figured out what hte top news/business story of the day is yet... you must be living under a rock or in a cave or something. I couldn't believe all the e-mails I received via various news sources regarding the talks that are happening b/n Telus and BCE and the potential merger.

I'm sort of on the fence on how I feel about this. As one would argue, this makes the mktplace smaller and the less competitors there are, the worse it is.

However, the recent mergers or acquisitions of a Cdn company by an Amercian one has also bothered me. We're seeing more of a proliferation of this and it saddens me to see Cdn grown co's move south.

Another thing to consider is - doesn't it make sense for acompany w/ vast experience in the telecomms industry to acquire BCE rather than a pension board/grp?

& despite the number of Telus naysayers, I've gotta say that every experience I've had w/ Telus has left me WAY more satisfied than Bell. It took me three... count them, THREE weeks to get my phone connected when I was in Ontario. PLUS, Bell charged me for two weeks of DSL when I didn't even have a phone line and overcharged me on my long distance plan. *sigh* I may have had to wait more than an hour for the Telus dude to hook up my phone, but he came up to my unit and answered all my questions and I was given two months free of DSL when I should've only received one.

It was nice knowing ya

In the classic battle of Sony's Betamax vs. JVC VHS, the victor was JVC. Of course, in the end run, Sony has most likely been a more successful organization in terms of product development and profits.

Reminiscent of this battle is the new Sony Blu-Ray vs. Toshiba HD DVD. I was on the Blu-Ray bandwagon, mostly because it was hte format that the PS3 -- for obvious reasons -- would be supporting. While the PS3 may have been ridiculously expensive, it's still cheaper than purchasing a standalone HD DVD player. Well... in the "format war" it looks like HD DVD is on the losing end as Blockbuster just announced that they are increasing hte # of Blu-Ray titles from 250 to more than 1,000.

Uh oh...

I'm in trouble if ISPs start charging users for the "exact amount and kinds of content they use on the Internet."

I rarely use the Internet to "surf." Sure, I use it to read my favourite celebrity gossip blogs , stalk quasi-celebrities/B-listers/reality stars via their MySpaces and creep on Facebook on the weekends, but during the weekday evenings, all I do is "seek" out television shows that I need to catch up on or aren't available on Cdn networks.

I currently give $40 a month to my ISP and if they change up the system, I'm gonna be screwed.

Cdns aren't luddites, but we are economically conscious

So last year, I made a post about a G&M article on how it's impossible to compare cell phone rates b/n companies. Similar to my comments in my previous post, Simon Avery discusses how cell phone bills in Canada are *one-third* more than in the U.S.! Avery notes that this may be the one reason that impacts the cell adoption rate in Canada. For pete's sake... our adoption rate - 56 per cent - is on par w/ *Tunisia* and slightly behind Turkey!?

Oh so purty

& oh, do I ever want it. This coming from a gal who absolutely is in love w/ the cell she currently has and doesn't actually own an iPod!

Anyway, look how pretty the new iPhone is & the interface looks fantabulous! Check out the vid below that illustrates how to use it to make a call. I wonder how much it retails for... Granted, I'm sure everyone and their goat will have one w/in the next two yrs ago, which in the end will downplay my enthusiasm for it.

I feel the same!

Globe & Mail had an article today about the mobile phone industry in Canada. The facts in the article are teh same things that piss me off about the cell providers in our country.

Additional thoughts:

• It's impossible to compare rates b/n the providers.


• It's way more expensive to own a cell phone in Canada.


• @ least in the U.S. they let you roll your minutes over to the next month. Here, if you don't use 'em, you lose 'em.


• It's actually getting more expensive to own & use a cell phone. Case in pnt - when I first got my cell from Fido in '99 there was no monthly user fee, voicemail was $4 and offered way more functionality than it does today, long distance calls were 15 cents/min., additional minutes were 15 cents/min, roaming in the U.S. was 50 cents U.S.... I could just go on
  

If I had a choice, I wouldn't fork $ over to the cell phone providers, but my company pays for the majority of my bills and I need it for work. :\

How badly

do I want this!? Very, VERY badly!!!!

Do you have a Dell laptop?

You may want to make sure that the battery doesn't explode on you... seriously.

Dell just launched a battery recall following some incidents. I thought they were just airing on the side of caution, but holy shiznit, the batteries really are exploding. Check out the pics on Kris Abel's, Canada AM tech reporter, blog.