The issue of Rogers’ multi-million dollar comma we discussed last August has not gone away. Rather than accept the CRTC’s initial grading of their grammar skills, Rogers has filed an appeal with the regulator.

In its application to review and vary the original decision, Rogers cites supporting correspondence between the cable association and Stentor which discussed the termination provisions. Because the support structure agreement was a standard form contract, there was also a French language version of the document. Rogers claims the French version supports its perspective.

There is a story in the Globe today. Interestingly, especially for a story following the need to be careful with punctuation, the story messed up the spelling of the name of Rogers’ VP Regulatory and transplanted Aliant’s headquarters from New Brunswick out to Newfoundland.

We’ll follow this.

T-Mobile has announced the launch of a WiFi enabled phone and data device that will operate on its cellular network and enable “superfast” data connectivity using WiFi hotspots. The phone is GPRS/EDGE and WiFi enabled.

It appears to be an attractive package, manufactured for T-Mobile by High Tech Computer. It may provide a consumer grade alternative to Blackberry or other similar devices. The device runs Microsoft Windows Mobile applications, includes a still and video camera and music player.

According to T-Mobile:

Everything you need to stay connected, all in one sleek package. Send, receive, and reply to your personal and business e-mail easily with a full QWERTY keyboard and the convenience of Microsoft® Office Outlook® Mobile. View photos, videos, and large attachments, and share them with others or browse the Web using super fast Wi-Fi connectivity. All of this in a slim Windows Mobile® Smartphone that’s comfortable to hold and provides crystal-clear calling.

Why would T-Mobile introduce such a device and what inhibits the launch of a similar product in Canada?

Clearly, there are different market conditions in the United States. Among them:

• T-Mobile operates an extensive network of WiFi hotspots – claimed to be the world’s largest private WiFi network – and the network is a differentiator. Canada’s wireless carriers agreed to intercarrier WiFi roaming, expanding reach but at a cost of competitive differentiation.
• The US cellular market has more flat rate plans available to consumers – WiFi provides opportunities for network cost reductions for suitably equipped carriers. If consumers are going to consume lots of minutes or bytes for a fixed price, the winning carrier will be the low cost network operator.

T-Mobile can leverage its WiFi network assets to reduce its cost to serve customers and acquire customers with an offering that cannot easily be replicated by its competitors.

Only in America? Hardly. But will combo WiFi / cellular be coming soon to Canada?

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T-Mobile, Dash, CWTA, WiFi, Mark Goldberg

David Fraser picked up on the discussion on the ISP Privacy Pledge discusion that I wrote about last week.In a world connected by public internetworking, what is a reasonable expectation of privacy? This is is not an easy question to answer. Are average users taking the steps to protect their privacy? Do average users know the kind of personal information that is being dropped along the way as they surf the net?

There is a need to inform users of their service provider’s policy, whatever it may be, as I suggested in my comments on Michael Geist‘s defense of the pledge and as CIPPIC Executive Director Pippa Lawson agreed in her response.

How do we balance individual privacy rights with the real need to modernize investigative tools for law enforcement? How do we make sure that users’ reasonable expectations of privacy are in fact reasonable?

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CIPPIC, Online Rights, privacy, lawful access, Mark Goldberg