My niece is overdue for a new phone. She has been holding out, delaying a long overdue upgrade, waiting for the introduction of the iPhone.

Many have pointed to iPhone-envy as one of the reasons that the government is facilitating the entry of another wireless competitor into the market.

iPhone aside, we have had lots of product innovation in Canadian wireless. Last week’s launch of Rogers’ voicemail to text is just another in a series of North American firsts in 2007. Video calling, the GPS equipped Blackberry 8310 are among some others.

The Washington Post reports that Alltel has launched its version of SpinVox Voice2TXT service a week after Rogers and at a price point that most users will find higher than Rogers.

I had an interesting conversation with a York University business student about wireless pricing last week. He commented to me that his friends found Canadian wireless prices to be too high, although he acknowledged that all of these friends had cell phones. I suggested that this was actually evidence that the prices were just right. People are still subscribing. There are more than 500,000 new mobile subscribers each quarter.

I’ve said it many times before: I’d like to see prices drop – not just for wireless, for lettuce, for gas, for hockey tickets, for coffee – you name it!

More than anything, I’d like to see my taxes drop. Of the items on my wish list, taxes are the only place that I think government intervention is warranted.

So we didn’t get the iPhone in time for Christmas. I can wait. After all, it’s my brother who has to deal with my niece.

Last Monday, the CRTC gave interim approval to a Bell tariff for wholesale voice services: TN 7088 Wholesale Local Service and Features (WLSF).

The offering is designed to allow competitive service providers to resell primary local phone service to end-users.

WLSF thus provides resellers a mechanism to provide local service to end-users at competitive rates. In addition, WLSF service enables facilities-based providers to provide local service to end-users in areas beyond the reach of their network facilities.

While the rates do not appear to be particularly aggressive, there is a $50 reward being offered to the reseller for each line that is is won back from a competitor [Item 317 – 4(d)]. Competitors thus have an incentive to compete more for lines that have already switched off the Bell network.

As much as WLSF is described in the tariff notice as helping competitors, it may be more of a reflection of the new reality of aggressive displacement of traditional local phone service. Local telephony is under attack from cable companies and wireless substitution.

WLSF appears to be an attempt to use competitors as an alternate channel.

Technorati Tags:
Bell, local service

A few interesting news items this week relating to the evolution of sales models for Apple, RIM and other intelligent devices. Alec Saunders and others write about Tryphone, a web-based handset simulator.

The Detroit News is reporting that RIM has opened its first Blackberry store in the upscale suburb of Farmington Hills. The store, owned by retailer Wireless Giant is carrier neutral and will handle activations for AT&T;, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.

The concept of a Blackberry store will be interesting to track as more devices move into the hands of consumers and SOHO users, who don’t have access to a corporate trainer.

I also noticed a news item about the iPhone. Perhaps in a sign that pent-up demand has been satisfied, Apple has increased its limit on orders for iPhone from 2 to 5. Orders still require credit cards – no cash – in an effort to control resale and unlocking.

It is interesting to look at the evolving approaches in retailing intelligent devices.

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Update [December 14, 9:40 am]
David George-Cosh, of the Financial Post has also written about the Blackberry store in today’s paper.

There was also an interesting story out today about the LG Voyager displacing the iPhone as the most searched for phone on US wireless carrier websites. I wrote about the Voyager in October when Verizon launched the phone as part of its Christmas line-up.

The Harper Conservatives are a principled government. There are a number of instances that demonstrate a willingness to do what it believes is right, not just what is popular.

Whether you agree with those positions or not – such are signs of leadership. Clearly, there has been skillful political navigation at work, all the more notable, given the minority position of this government.

However, every few years we have political realities that come into play. In order to continue to be able to do the right thing, the party – any governing party – has to try to stay in power. As a result, populist polls become more of a factor in official pronouncements.

Perhaps this is why we have seen some anomalies in recent weeks from Industry Canada. Why did Minister Prentice pull back this week from introducing new copyright legislation, already put on the Order Paper? Why a sudden reversal from the free market approach of Minister Bernier in dealing with the rules for the spectrum auction?

One of the recommendations of the Telecom Policy Review Panel (TPRP) was to move the responsibilities for spectrum management out of Industry Canada. At the time, I thought this kind of reorganization should be a low priority. The political aspects of the recent spectrum decision, called into question in a column in Monday’s Ottawa Citizen, makes one wonder if the same result would have been delivered had a politically independent body been charged with making the determination. Such decisions should be based on a long view, not political expediency.

A 2002 OECD report that reviewed Canada’s regulatory reform observed the potential problems that could arise:

There is no evidence that the present structure has caused any conflict. Nevertheless in that wireless communications is increasing in importance a differentiation between policy and regulation, as is the case for the rest of the industry, would be preferable.

This paragraph was cited in the report from the TPRP in developing its recommendation 5-10 to “provide more stability through open and transparent processes free from political pressure”.

I think many Canadians – both individuals and business leaders – prefer predictable leadership. It is easier to plan that way. After all, we elect leaders to lead, not respond to the latest polls or the loudest bloggers – present company excluded, of course.

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Update [December 20, 3:10 pm]
Terence Corcoran of the Financial Post has a commentary, The Telecom Trotskyites, that raises similar issues in today’s paper.

The headline should have grabbed your attention.

But this blog posting is to thank Primus for blocking more than 17,000 spam messages that attacked my email account this evening between 6:00 pm and 11:00. The attack is still on, but it seems to be slowing.

More than 2000 messages leaked through anyway.

Sometimes we want carriers to intervene, other times we don’t.

For example, a talk radio station in Calgary asked me to comment on the case of a mobile carrier that billed a user for $85,000 in excess web usage. The user wants to know why he wasn’t warned that his charges were running up.

Contrast that with another case. Earlier in the week, some bloggers launched into an attack against Rogers for doing just that – warning a user that they were approaching the limit of their flat rate service.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Primus – thank you for intervening on my email spam attack.

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Primus, spam