Windows Phone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"Canadians will soon have a fourth wireless company offering services to them after the federal government has allowed Globalive Wireless Management Corp. to start operating immediately. On Friday morning, Industry Minister Tony Clement said the cabinet has determined that the wireless company meets Canadian ownership requirements under the Industry Canada Act. Globalive was previously unable to set up shop after the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission turned down its prior attempts, citing the fact that it was owned by Egypt's Orascom Telecom Holding."

This is good news for Canadians - it's hard to say whether this is a play that will include data, or if it's just voice, but I'd have to think that any new player could realize the vital importance of wireless data. I was impressed with Rogers Wireless last year when they introduced a 6 GB data plan for $30 as part of their roll-out of the iPhone - and in fact became a Rogers client at that point - but earlier this week I looked at their data plans again and was stunned to see that their top-end smartphone data plan is 5 GB of data for $80/month. Even their iPhone plans top out at 2 GB of data and 400 week-day minutes for $80/month.

Hopefully Globalive can bring some increased competition in this market - with Rogers and Fido being the only GSM carriers in Canada, and with Rogers owning Fido, there's really only one option for GSM in Canada. And before anyone tells me that Telus is now GSM, they're HSPA-only, so your regular run-of-the-mill GSM phone won't work. And, bizarrely, my HTC HD2 wouldn't recognize their network with a Telus SIM in it even though their IMEI checker says it should. Of course, it's not reassuring that the Globalive Web site won't load for me right now. Hopefully it's not a sign of their competence as a company...

That HTC Touch Pro2 coming from Canadian carrier Telus that I posted about last week? It seems the press information I received forgot to mention one important little fact: that this phone was going to be among the first Touch Pro2's to feature a 3.5mm headphone jack, something that HTC had pledged to make more common in upcoming phones. That was quick!

"Available later this month, the HTC Touch Pro2 smartphone will help TELUS clients stay in touch easily with a large sliding 3.6" touchscreen and full QWERTY keypad. The enhanced Windows Mobile 6.1 professional platform will enable users to sync their email, contacts and calendar with Microsoft ActiveSync, plus access applications such as YouTube on TELUS' 3G network and almost anywhere they travel around the world with TELUS international roaming."

The above quote is from a Telus press release, which seems to be impossible to find online, but here are some other quotes from it:

• Network support: 3G EVDO Rev A, HSPA, Quad-band EDGE to stay productive and entertained on-the-go while travelling abroad or across Canada
• Optional microSD memory expandable to 16 GB to store documents, music, videos and photos
• 3.6" 65k WVGA (800x 480) touchscreen
• 3.2 MP camera/video with auto focus to take and share pictures with family and friends
• Easy access to You Tube, Digital Photo Frame and weather
• TELUS Navigator, TELUS Visual Voice Mail, TELUS mobile TV and more

The interesting thing here is that this is a CDMA phone with EVDO Rev A but also quad-band GSM - so when you're in North America you can rock the better speed and range of CDMA, and when you travel you'll roam onto the GSM network. That's a big deal for anyone that has a CDMA phone and is used to leaving it behind when they travel internationally. No word on exact pricing.