One little word in Michael Geist’s column in the Toronto Star today made me decide to write this post.

What is that word?

The word “usage” in the following sentence is just plain wrong.

Canada ranks toward the very bottom among developed countries for cellphone usage as the lack of competition leaves Canadians with some of the highest prices for wireless services in the world.

Actually, Canadian cell phone usage is among the highest in the world, an inconvenient fact that doesn’t fit the thesis set out in the article.

Maybe a copy editor didn’t like the word “penetration” and decided to change the word to “usage” without checking if it changed the context

I have no trouble with people wanting lower prices for their wireless service – I have written many times before about how much I like free. I might even agree with Professor Geist that users should have the right to remove software and technical locks on handsets as long as they recognize that they are voiding their warranty and don’t start complaining to tech support about problems.

Let’s try to get the facts right so that we can engage in a real dialog.

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Toronto Star

It appears that today may see the end of bidding in the AWS spectrum auction. Friday’s rounds 190 through 195 saw bidding stabilize just barely shy of the $4.2B mark. Of course, that is if you consider $5M to be “just barely shy”.

$4.2B is a lot of money. More than double the original estimates.

Of course, bidders are spending their cash based on what their business plans say is reasonable, but there is no one in Canada who can say that they honestly expected that the government would raise this kind of cash.

What will we do with that multi-billion dollar windfall?

At The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit, we laid out a broadband proposal to see the government reinvest in telecommunications as a critical infrastructure.

What do you think? What would you have the government do with the more than $2B extra dollars raised?

Preparations for The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit kept me from attending to all of my emails and news clippings. I notice that last month, a French court ordered ISPs to block hate material hosted in foreign jurisdictions.

An article in Express indicates that the court has ordered ISPs to take all appropriate steps to block access in France to the offending content.

toutes mesures propres à interrompre l’accès à partir du territoire français

France appears to be establishing a process to have users flag sites that offend which will launch a judicial review of internet content that contravenes its hate laws.

Many countries, including Canada, prohibit offending content from being hosted or controlled within their national borders, but such limitations tend to simply chase the content to foreign hosting companies, such as those located in the US.

While other countries have implemented various technology schemes to restrict access to some content, France is among the first western democracies to remove the ‘digital exemption’ from its hate speech laws, regardless of where the content is hosted.

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France, hate speech

My internet went off the air yesterday around 1:30 in the afternoon, at precisely the same time that I lost connectivity for the entire bundle of services from that provider. Service was still down when I left at 6:30. It came back up this morning. Sorry for the delay in posting today.

I immediately suspected that the culprit was the construction crew around the corner that was walking around sheepishly.

I called my service provider and was pleased to find a new IVR voice that seemed smarter at interpreting my request. However, when I reached a human to describe the problem, I found that I might have been better off dealing with a machine.

Our dispatch scheduling system is down right now; you’ll need to call back later.

I don’t think so.

I had just waited patiently for 10 minutes to get through the first time, listening to awful lounge-lizard music. Why should I have to call back later, not knowing if the system would still be down at that time?

Why is it too much to ask for them to take my information and call me back? Why do some service providers seem to forget that the operative word is “service”?

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internet, customer service

It’s Canada Day. A day for barbecues, picnics and fireworks.

It is also the day that a three month grace period ends in Quebec for drivers using cellular phones without a hands-free kit.

Violators can attract a fine of $115 plus 3 demerit points and penalties apply even if the drivers are simply spotted with a cellphone in their hands, whether or not there is an active call.

Quebec is the latest province in a trend flowing west from the Atlantic. In 2003, Newfoundland was first to enact a hands-free law, with fines of $400 plus demerit points. Nova Scotia’s legislation came into force April 1 with fines of $165 for a first offence.

All of us are going to need to get used to listening to speakerphone background noise. Will stylish headsets be seen on the runways this fall?

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cellular, hands-free