Female1: Let’s get ourselves connected.
Female: Got to get yourself connected.
Male: Got to get connected.
Mike: Well, data rates for mobile devices in the US continue to fall but in Canada, we’re not really seeing that, on the line we got Jack Kapica from the Globe and Mail to talk about the future of cellphones. Thanks for joining us Jack.
Jack: Hey Mike, thanks for calling me.
Mike: So, what’s the deal, I see down the States I can get a smoking unlimited rate as far as my data plan, but up here in Canada, it’s not the same case.
Jack: Yeah, and I’m not entirely sure why, it could have something to do with the competition or the lack of it in Canada, you know, the cellphone companies have kept their data rates extremely high, now the Americans started dropping theirs last year, because when iPhone struck a deal with AT&T, AT&T had to drop its prices in order to be able to guarantee Apple that monopoly. But that put any other company in the position of having to drop their rate, it’s because the iPhone does an awful lot of data exchange, you know, the more that the telephones become like computers the more data they require, the more data that they require the more you have to pay for them. It becomes a bit of a vicious circle, so I mean the, the cellphone companies in Canada would really like to be able to have the most fancy cellphones going, but they know at some point the cellphones are going to demand so much data that they have to drop their rates, so, it becomes a question of how long do you hang to this expensive data rates. In any case, what you’re talking about is sprint in the States, was I think the fourth company to drop its rate, you got an all you can eat package which is voice and data, data includes things like web surfing, and email and IT, IM messaging, and text messaging, all that other stuff and you put it all together and you can get that for 99.95 per month which in my book is still outrageous, but there you have it, that’s considered cheap.
Mike: Well it sounds outrageous, but you know, similar plans, well, there are no similar plans here in Canada, it would be hundreds of dollars to, to have some type of, you know, large bandwidth type of plan, but I mean, we got three carriers up here, you’d think that there will be little more competition.
Jack: Well, there’s going to be, just this past month, I think it was, the CRTs opened up hearings for anybody who wants to bid for another band, or another cellphone set up. Now, I mean, let’s assume that somebody gets it within the next few months, they’re gonna have to, of course, build up a whole network across the country, they’re own towers, they’re own communication system, and so on, so it’s gonna be quite a while before that happens, and I’m convince that what’s keeping the iPhone from coming into Canada now is that they’re just gonna sit on this incredibly money making situation. They’ve got high data rates until they absolutely have to. In other words when there’s new player comes in to the block and starts playing, that’s when they gonna have to drop their prices, but until then, they’re not going to, or just before the new player starts up, all they’re gonna do is sign up a contract with Apple to get the iPhone then.
Mike: Jack, I want to thank you so much for your insights in to this.
Jack: Oh, thank you Mike.
Mike: Jack Kapica from the Globe and Mail, you can check out more of his writing up at the globetechnology.com site.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services