Telecom Trends

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.

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Rogers, SpinVox, Alltel, iPhone